SPN FIC: Reflection of You - 5/10 - R - Dean/Castiel
Title: Reflection of You (5/10)
Rating: R
Pairing: Dean/Castiel
Disclaimer: I don't own these guys.
Warnings: 5.04: "The End" 'verse - dark, drug use, angst, torture, graphic violence, character death, good guys doing bad things, disturbing content, and an even more disturbing inspiration. Both Dean and Castiel are Not Nice people. That might cover all the bases.
Notes: Part 5: ~4,500 words/~50,000 words. See the first post for the full list of warnings and complete header.
Thanks: More ♥ than I can express to tracy_loo_who, extraonions, deancastiel chat peeps, and quovadimus83.
Summary: When an angel falls, it's impossible to know exactly where they'll crash.
The end of the world becomes easier to face when you know how to turn off the feeling of regret.
[ One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | Seven | Eight | Nine | Ten ]
Castiel lay on his back and stared up into the sun. He knew he shouldn't be doing it in the first place and that he should be wearing sunglasses at the very least, but something about it today drew his gaze towards it and he found himself unable to look away. He marveled at it, and his thoughts circulated around how something that appeared so small in the sky was actually larger than life and held more power than anything else in the solar system.
He wondered if the sun was more powerful than Lucifer. He couldn't remember which one had supposedly been created first, but he also couldn't remember if that mattered. Lucifer was the Morningstar, the Bringer of Light, but somehow was also the Prince of Darkness. The sun could either be his best friend or his greatest enemy.
Castiel supposed it was something he'd once known but had forgotten, just like so many other things he'd lost.
He heard giggling to his left, and he finally looked away from the sky. The afterimages from the sun made everything appear bright and dark to him at the same time, and all he could see were the silhouettes of Lily and Owen spinning each other around. Their movements blurred from one into the next as they danced across the clearing, and they kicked up swirls of dry leaves in their path.
He smiled. He'd been craving this at the same time as fearing it. The journey had been therapeutic to him every time and made him feel closer to what he once was, but there was an apprehension underneath it all. There was the faint possibility that tripping was what broke down whatever barrier remained between himself and Lucifer, and he had no desire to see Lucifer in a waking dream as he had before.
This time, though, hours passed peacefully, and Castiel felt his second theory was the correct one: whatever connection he had with Lucifer strengthened only because Lucifer found his true vessel. The timing of it made more sense than anything else, because Lucifer had no ties to anything Castiel put into his system.
His fear was the reason he asked Mark, Lily, and Owen to come with him and observe him. All three of them seemed excited when he asked, and Lily had actually thanked him for inviting them. The way she blushed and smiled at Castiel made him feel uncomfortable, but he was still glad he had the three of them there with him. He felt somewhat responsible for them, and having that responsibility grounded him.
Castiel's eyes continued following Lily and Owen around the clearing, and he saw that even when one of them missed a step they fell right back into rhythm. He never noticed it before, but they were made for each other. If they survived the apocalypse they would grow old together, and whether or not they survived the apocalypse they would surely die at each other's sides.
"I can see so much more right now," he murmured.
"You can always see more than the rest of us," Mark replied.
Castiel craned his neck and saw Mark resting against a tree behind him. "What?" he asked. He'd barely even noticed that he had spoken out loud.
"You try to hide it, but we already know that you're more than us."
Castiel shook his head and sat up, brushing a few leaves out of his hair. "I'm not."
"But you are. I don't know what I can say to convince you of that."
Castiel sighed. Mark always seemed to hang onto Castiel's every word, but he still never acknowledged the most truthful ones. "You're still connecting me to something I'm not anymore. I can't -"
"Charleston," Mark said.
Castiel blinked. Charleston had been months ago. Why was he bringing it up?
"You could see the infection inside that girl without even seeing where it had gone in."
His throat went dry. The only people who knew about that incident were himself, Dean, and Bobby. Bobby had insisted on keeping it quiet, because Castiel could easily be seen as a powerful weapon if he could spot Croats on sight. If that information reached outside Chitaqua, it could potentially make him a target.
Perhaps he'd underestimated how observant Mark could be.
"You are an angel, Castiel."
"I was an angel."
"The things you've said - it's wisdom that couldn't come from any man."
Castiel didn't know how many ways he could tell Mark that he was wrong. He tried countless times, and nothing seemed to sink in.
Mark continued. "If anyone can save us, it will be you."
"No!" Castiel insisted. "I'm not the one you should be looking to. I'm nothing. I'm useless."
"No, you're not," Lily said. Castiel turned to see Lily and Owen coming to sit with them. "You've taught us more than we ever thought we would know."
Castiel couldn't help but laugh. He couldn't have taught them anything useful, not when he had forgotten everything that mattered. "Like what?"
"That we're all connected," Owen said, twisting his fingers into Lily's. "That even with the end of the world happening all around us, we're meant to survive because that's the nature of things."
"You keep complaining that you only remember things you knew as an angel when you're tripping," Mark said. He opened his bag and pulled out a notebook and a pen, passing them over towards Castiel. "You tell us some of those things, but what if you remember something we're not meant to know? Write it all down so you won't forget it."
Even if he was tripping harder than any of them, Castiel began to wonder if all three of them had completely lost their minds. No one should have looked to him hoping to see a savior. "You're asking me to keep a journal?" he asked incredulously.
Lily giggled. "That's a funny way of putting it."
"When you remember something, or realize something, write it down," Mark said. "You never know when something that's come to mind might turn out to be useful."
* * *
They trudged through woods not unlike the ones they lived near. The mission to Norfolk had been a hard one - they found nothing but Croats, and not a single survivor.
Castiel realized that taking lives with a bullet had started getting easier. The only time he flinched now was when a child's body hit the ground, and even the way that gravity hit him lessened with every city they traveled to. He figured out how to turn certain parts of himself off while they prowled through city streets, and he often found himself reluctant to turn those parts back on when they returned to Chitaqua.
They nearly reached the caravan by the time Castiel heard Mark call out for him. Castiel first assumed that Mark was seeking prayer, forgiveness for taking so many lives earlier that day, as he often did since he'd started going out on missions with them. Castiel paused, closing his eyes. "I'm very tired, Mark," Castiel said, closing his eyes, thinking of the long drive they still had ahead of them. "Perhaps when we get back to Chitaqua?"
"I'm not going back."
Castiel blinked at Mark's words, and then turned around. The hair on the back of his neck prickled at the sight of the now familiar red, broken haze closing in on Mark's skin. "A girl tossed me into some glass, and another one bit me," Mark offered before Castiel could even question what happened, and Castiel's breath caught in his throat.
Mark had been infected, and Castiel felt a swell of pity rise up in his chest.
"Everything that I've left at camp - it's yours," Mark said as he held his rifle out towards Castiel. "And everything I've got here, anything that I haven't bled on - that's yours, too." He rolled up his sleeve and passed over the bracelet that had been wrapped around his wrist since he and Castiel first met.
Castiel took it, rolling the wooden beads between his fingers. "Why...?"
"It's my gift to you," Mark replied. He shrugged off his backpack and handed it over, and finally drew out his handgun. When he flipped the safety off Castiel drew back in alarm, but didn't move to defend himself. Croats didn't usually go for guns, and it was too soon for Mark to be showing the usual homicidal tendencies in the first place. Mark flipped the gun around and held it out towards Castiel grip first, with the barrel pointing back towards his own body.
Castiel stared down at the gun, completely unsure of what was happening.
"Take it," Mark said, his voice pleading, and Castiel's hand finally wrapped around the grip, instinct automatically curling his finger around the trigger.
As soon as the gun left his hands, Mark sank down to his knees in front of Castiel, bowing his head. "You are the closest I've ever been to God."
Castiel repressed a sigh as he gave a slight shake of his head. He'd had this conversation too many times, with Mark and with others. "I am not God."
"I know! I know," Mark insisted as a tear began rolling down his cheek. "But you are proof that God is among us."
The man was deluded, but Castiel had no desire to set Mark's assumptions straight. Why should he ruin the man's shrewd hope when he had only a few scarce minutes of life remaining?
"You've helped me find more faith than I've ever had before," Mark continued. "I've learned so much from you, and I just wish..." He paused, and Castiel winced when he heard Mark let out a choking sob. "I wish I could stand by your side until the end, because I know you will save us."
Everything pouring from Mark's lips was wrong. Castiel wouldn't be the one to save them - if anyone could, it was Dean. Not Mark, nor anyone, would be standing by Castiel's side at the end, because Castiel would be standing by Dean's. How could Mark get the truth so twisted?
"Castiel." Mark's voice sounded more sure and insistent than ever. "Please be the one to do it."
It wasn't necessary for Castiel to ask Mark what he meant. Castiel knew he should be the one to take Mark's life, anyway. It was the unspoken rule of the world they lived in - when someone was found to be infected, they were to be put down immediately before they had a chance to turn.
'Immediately' had already passed and Castiel knew he didn't have much more time, but something stopped him. This was too different from all the other lives he had taken. It was one thing to kill in the heat of battle, or to take someone out from behind when they began to show symptoms. Castiel found himself almost wishing that Mark hadn't told him; he knew that he or Dean or someone else would have figured it out before it was too late.
Instead, Mark was on his knees in front of Castiel, and his eyes were more pleading than Castiel could bear. "Be the one to give me my last rites and send me to the gates."
Another human misconception: Heaven never had gates. Even if it had, Castiel doubted Heaven still existed, at least in the way it had when he last stepped foot in his old home. He was never sure how much of Heaven was sustained by the angels, and with the angels gone it was more than a little likely that nothing remained.
But Castiel couldn't tell that particular truth to Mark, either. Because not even Castiel was certain what laid beyond death now, it was best that Mark live out his last few moments in ignorance so he could have some peace. Castiel finally gave Mark a shuddering nod.
"Kyrie eléison." Castiel lacked all of the proper materials, so he simply pressed two fingers to his lips and placed them on Mark's forehead, hoping Mark would accept that instead of oil. Thankfully, Mark closed his eyes in response. Castiel swallowed heavily to try to keep his voice steady as he continued. "Et ne nos inducas in tentationem..."
He couldn't do it. Everything in the ritual was a lie, Heaven was possibly a lie, and God was definitely a lie. Mark didn't open his eyes when Castiel paused, though, and he instead seemed to be waiting patiently for Castiel to continue.
Castiel took one step back and raised the shotgun. "May the almighty God bless you," he said, and he pulled the trigger.
Without any buildings around for the sound to bounce off of, the shot was quieter than he expected it to be, and the hollow thud of Mark's body hitting the ground rang louder in his ears than the gunshot.
Castiel methodically pushed the safety back into place and stepped around the growing puddle of infected blood, taking care not to let it touch him.
"You're not going to start doing that for all of your little followers, are you?"
He didn't know how long Dean had been watching, but Castiel didn't allow it to startle him, and he instead glanced down at Mark's body once more. "He asked. It was the least I could do," he said, swinging Mark's bag over his shoulder before turning around to face Dean.
Dean's eyes narrowed. "You need to be more careful." A pang hit Castiel in the chest as he remembered passing those exact words to Dean in a different time and place. "Some of them get infected faster than others. He might've been lying to try and get close to you."
Castiel nearly felt insulted. He'd been a part of the battle long enough to recognize when someone was fully under the influence of the virus or not, even without his senses. "He wasn't."
"You don't know that -"
"But I do know that, Dean," Castiel insisted, his brow furrowing in irritation. "And you know how I know that."
"You shouldn't trust it." Dean's voice sounded unexpectedly hard. "That sense you get comes from Lucifer. He could use that against you someday."
Castiel couldn't help his reaction. "I am more than you give me credit for," he snapped. "I am more than those senses. I may be mortal, but I still lived for thousands of years as an angel." He closed the distance between himself and Dean with a few long strides, stopping only when there was barely an inch separating them. "I know more about this world than you will ever know, Dean. I may be missing pieces of myself, but I am still much more in tune with everything than you will ever be."
Dean's expression changed from annoyance to something Castiel found he couldn't read. "That so?"
"Yes, that's so." Castiel brushed past Dean, stalking back towards the caravan, fully intent on finding a vehicle different from the one he came in. He had no interest in making the seven hour drive back to Chitaqua sitting next to Dean.
He couldn't bear the way Dean looked at him.
* * *
When they arrived back in Chitaqua, Castiel took the first chance he found to slip away and skirt into the surrounding woods. As far as he knew, the only one who had seen what he'd done had been Dean, but Mark's absence had already been noticed and no one questioned Castiel's muttered excuse that he just needed a few moments alone.
He found his way to a familiar path, one that had likely been formed by deer, but had been of use to himself, Mark, and a few others in the time they'd spent in Chitaqua. It led to a small clearing, and when he finally reached his destination, his breath caught. It was where he often led the others in prayer, where Mark had given him his notebook, and where he and Mark had first been introduced.
Mark hadn't exactly been a friend. The relationship had been too one-sided, with far too much worship and veneration directed towards Castiel. But Castiel still respected Mark, and he felt regret when the bullet left the chamber.
He did feel regret, but he did not mourn. He had neither the time nor the energy to mourn everyone they'd lost, especially when they would continue to lose more as they marched on towards the end.
He wandered over to a log at the edge of the clearing, throwing Mark's bag down to the forest floor, and his own bag landed beside it. He may not have had the time to mourn Mark's passing, but he did learn a thing or two from him during their hours of conversations, and Mark had mentioned that everything in the bag was now his. He proceeded to go through Mark's backpack from top to bottom, checking every pocket and pouch, until he had everything the bag contained methodically laid out in front of him.
He tossed what he was familiar with into his own bag - mostly oxycodone, which he had tried with Mark, and hydrocodone, which he had not. Everything he remembered Mark mentioning went in along with the painkillers. He also remembered Joe throwing the word "Adderall" around, and he tossed those in next to the others, curious about their effects. Everything he heard of but knew wouldn't have any effect went back into Mark's bag.
By the time he finished sorting everything out, the sun was beginning to set, which gave him just enough light to make his way out of the woods and over to the largest cabin in camp. Chuck lived there, but it also served as storage for the camp's general supplies. Castiel hadn't seen much of Chuck since they first came to Chitaqua, but he knew Chuck had somehow wound up in charge of keeping track of everything coming in and going out. It might have been by Dean or Bobby's suggestion, just to give Chuck something to do, but Castiel was never clear on that.
He rapped on Chuck's door and heard rustling, a clatter, and then a flurry of swear words from inside before Chuck finally opened the door. He looked tired, as everyone in the camp did, but Castiel couldn't help but notice that he seemed to shrink back on himself when he saw Castiel's face. "Um... h-h-hey, Cas," he stammered, his sleepy eyes suddenly open wide.
Castiel cocked his head to the side. "Are you okay?"
"Fine!" Chuck practically chirped. "I'm fine. Uh, what can I do for you?"
Chuck had been jumpy since Castiel first met him and he'd apparently gotten worse since they came to New York, so Castiel ignored Chuck's nervousness and passed Mark's bag over the threshold. "I thought you might like to add these to the stores."
Chuck blinked stupidly before taking the bag and peering inside. "High blood pressure medication?"
Castiel shook his head. "There's more than that in there. Antibiotics, anti-inflammatory drugs, some other things that we will probably need."
"Oh. Oh!" Chuck nodded, reaching into the bag and rifling through it. "Yeah, someone is bound to get sick eventually. Last thing we need is some disease other than Croatoan wiping us out." He pulled out a small bottle and squinted at the label. "Wow, this... where'd you get all this, Cas?"
"Mark had it with him. He had been raiding pharmacies whenever he had the chance."
"Tell him 'thanks,' then -"
"He's dead."
Chuck's gaze jerked away from the bottle and towards Castiel just as he re-shouldered his bag and turned to leave. "How?" he asked, his voice scarcely above a whisper. "Did he... I mean, was it..."
Castiel sighed. "It was the virus, Chuck," he said over his shoulder as he began walking towards his cabin. "Just like everyone else we've lost."
* * *
The light in their cabin started flickering a few weeks before, and Castiel could see Dean's silhouette winking in and out through the window. Castiel's tired trudge took on a lighter step, and he nearly skipped up the steps, wanting to do nothing more than collapse into their bed, preferably with Dean if Dean would allow it, but Castiel froze when he burst through the door.
Dean held Castiel's notebook in his hands. The gospel that he had been working on for months, containing all the wisdom he had gained from the world, his experience from millennia as an angel and a warrior of God, was laid open and bare.
"What is this?" Dean asked as he turned a page.
"It's..." Castiel dropped his bag by the door and hoped Dean either hadn't heard the plastic bottles rattling around inside or just flat-out ignored the sound. He crossed the room, half of him wanting to tear the book out of Dean's hands, and the other half praying that Dean hadn't read the most recent pages, the ones with paragraph after paragraph lamenting about Dean's absence in his life. "They are things I've remembered."
When Dean finally looked away from the book, Castiel realized that he and Dean hadn't met each others' eyes in weeks. He couldn't be sure if knowing that such a long time had passed startled him more than actually meeting Dean's eyes and not recognizing what he saw in them.
"Remembered from what?" Dean asked.
"From... before," Castiel said. "Before the rest of the angels left. I've been trying to remember everything that I knew before, everything that I lost when..." He paused, knowing that Dean disliked when he lamented about 'before.'
Dean's expression didn't change, not even giving so much as a twitch of the eyebrow. "What were you on when you wrote all this?"
Castiel blinked. He wasn't entirely sure why that mattered, so he chose to ignore the question. "Something in there might help us -" Dean cut him off with a short bark that almost resembled a laugh, and his gaze dropped back down to the notebook in his hands.
"Right." Dean never raised his voice, but some layer within it sounded clipped and heavy, and Castiel hated it.
"Dean -" He couldn't finish what he wanted to say. Dean pushed the notebook into his chest and shoved past him in a single movement that seemed incredibly sudden after all the stillness. Castiel managed to catch the book, only to hear the door slam shut moments later.
Dean was gone again.
He sighed and sank down onto the mattress just as he'd been craving since they left Norfolk, but as his eyes traveled around the cabin he realized he hated being there. The cabin felt empty without Dean, but Castiel didn't have anywhere else to go.
He worried his lower lip for a moment before propping himself up onto his side, nearly rolling right on top of the notebook he'd tossed onto the ratty sheets. He stared at it for a moment and wondered exactly what it was that Dean had read that made him storm away. He began to idly flip through the pages, silently thanking Mark for telling him to capture all of his thoughts and understanding of the world, but one page made him stop.
Time is round. Everything spins, and we are all in a constant oscillation. Every part of life, every aspect of every idea is all part of a larger cycle.
Castiel read it over and over again. He realized he even remembered writing that one, and just how pleased he'd been with the revelation.
Reading it again months later, he realized it was a revelation that made no sense. Even if it once had some deeper meaning that Castiel had lost, it was still absolutely useless.
He sat up, flipping back to the beginning of the notebook, skimming through everything he'd written in the last few months, trying to find a larger meaning in his words.
What once was will never be again, except for when it is.
Those who lie with their eyes are the most dangerous of all creatures.
There are three different versions of me.
He had no clue what that last one meant, he didn't even remember writing it, and he began to grow desperate and frustrated as he flipped through the utterly mad and sometimes philosophical ravings that had apparently come from himself.
Useless. It was all completely useless.
The thing that had last welled up inside of him when Bobby had called him 'boy' came roaring back up, and he felt as if he was on fire. The only thing he could take that fire out on was his damn notebook, and he found himself tearing the pages out and apart before he even fully realized what he was doing. It didn't satisfy him nearly enough, so he threw what remained of the notebook across the cabin with all of his strength where it landed with a loud slap against the adjacent wall. He suddenly buckled in on himself, shaking, hating everything he felt rolling around inside his mind and his gut. He wanted so badly to just turn it all off.
He was useless.
No wonder Dean wanted nothing to do with him anymore.
He pressed his palms into his eyes, and the pressure he placed there seemed to somewhat relieve the pressure within. He took a few deep breaths, promptly decided he didn't want to feel the way he felt any longer, and he half stumbled and half crawled across the floor and over to the bag he dropped earlier. He dug through it with shaking hands, looking for something that would just send him spiraling into unconsciousness. He finally pulled out a bottle of Valium, and just as he started to struggle with the cap, his notebook once again caught his eye, nearly hidden on the ground just behind his bag. It had fallen open to a page that was nearly blank except for a single line. He read it, then read it again.
He dropped the Valium back into his bag and picked up the notebook, staring at his scrawled handwriting. The fury and the emptiness inside started ebbing away as he read the line repeatedly. He knew what it said, but he couldn't stop, almost as if he expected the words to change in front of his eyes. He sat down and leaned up against the wall, his eyes never leaving the page. He had no idea how long he sat and read the one line with as much as intensity as he would have once directed towards the gospels, and hours might have passed before he finally lowered the book.
I hold more power over humanity as a mortal than I ever held over humanity as an angel.
Even if the rest of it turned out to be a waste, at least he had found one true thing in his words.
Part Six
Rating: R
Pairing: Dean/Castiel
Disclaimer: I don't own these guys.
Warnings: 5.04: "The End" 'verse - dark, drug use, angst, torture, graphic violence, character death, good guys doing bad things, disturbing content, and an even more disturbing inspiration. Both Dean and Castiel are Not Nice people. That might cover all the bases.
Notes: Part 5: ~4,500 words/~50,000 words. See the first post for the full list of warnings and complete header.
Thanks: More ♥ than I can express to tracy_loo_who, extraonions, deancastiel chat peeps, and quovadimus83.
Summary: When an angel falls, it's impossible to know exactly where they'll crash.
The end of the world becomes easier to face when you know how to turn off the feeling of regret.
[ One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | Seven | Eight | Nine | Ten ]
Castiel lay on his back and stared up into the sun. He knew he shouldn't be doing it in the first place and that he should be wearing sunglasses at the very least, but something about it today drew his gaze towards it and he found himself unable to look away. He marveled at it, and his thoughts circulated around how something that appeared so small in the sky was actually larger than life and held more power than anything else in the solar system.
He wondered if the sun was more powerful than Lucifer. He couldn't remember which one had supposedly been created first, but he also couldn't remember if that mattered. Lucifer was the Morningstar, the Bringer of Light, but somehow was also the Prince of Darkness. The sun could either be his best friend or his greatest enemy.
Castiel supposed it was something he'd once known but had forgotten, just like so many other things he'd lost.
He heard giggling to his left, and he finally looked away from the sky. The afterimages from the sun made everything appear bright and dark to him at the same time, and all he could see were the silhouettes of Lily and Owen spinning each other around. Their movements blurred from one into the next as they danced across the clearing, and they kicked up swirls of dry leaves in their path.
He smiled. He'd been craving this at the same time as fearing it. The journey had been therapeutic to him every time and made him feel closer to what he once was, but there was an apprehension underneath it all. There was the faint possibility that tripping was what broke down whatever barrier remained between himself and Lucifer, and he had no desire to see Lucifer in a waking dream as he had before.
This time, though, hours passed peacefully, and Castiel felt his second theory was the correct one: whatever connection he had with Lucifer strengthened only because Lucifer found his true vessel. The timing of it made more sense than anything else, because Lucifer had no ties to anything Castiel put into his system.
His fear was the reason he asked Mark, Lily, and Owen to come with him and observe him. All three of them seemed excited when he asked, and Lily had actually thanked him for inviting them. The way she blushed and smiled at Castiel made him feel uncomfortable, but he was still glad he had the three of them there with him. He felt somewhat responsible for them, and having that responsibility grounded him.
Castiel's eyes continued following Lily and Owen around the clearing, and he saw that even when one of them missed a step they fell right back into rhythm. He never noticed it before, but they were made for each other. If they survived the apocalypse they would grow old together, and whether or not they survived the apocalypse they would surely die at each other's sides.
"I can see so much more right now," he murmured.
"You can always see more than the rest of us," Mark replied.
Castiel craned his neck and saw Mark resting against a tree behind him. "What?" he asked. He'd barely even noticed that he had spoken out loud.
"You try to hide it, but we already know that you're more than us."
Castiel shook his head and sat up, brushing a few leaves out of his hair. "I'm not."
"But you are. I don't know what I can say to convince you of that."
Castiel sighed. Mark always seemed to hang onto Castiel's every word, but he still never acknowledged the most truthful ones. "You're still connecting me to something I'm not anymore. I can't -"
"Charleston," Mark said.
Castiel blinked. Charleston had been months ago. Why was he bringing it up?
"You could see the infection inside that girl without even seeing where it had gone in."
His throat went dry. The only people who knew about that incident were himself, Dean, and Bobby. Bobby had insisted on keeping it quiet, because Castiel could easily be seen as a powerful weapon if he could spot Croats on sight. If that information reached outside Chitaqua, it could potentially make him a target.
Perhaps he'd underestimated how observant Mark could be.
"You are an angel, Castiel."
"I was an angel."
"The things you've said - it's wisdom that couldn't come from any man."
Castiel didn't know how many ways he could tell Mark that he was wrong. He tried countless times, and nothing seemed to sink in.
Mark continued. "If anyone can save us, it will be you."
"No!" Castiel insisted. "I'm not the one you should be looking to. I'm nothing. I'm useless."
"No, you're not," Lily said. Castiel turned to see Lily and Owen coming to sit with them. "You've taught us more than we ever thought we would know."
Castiel couldn't help but laugh. He couldn't have taught them anything useful, not when he had forgotten everything that mattered. "Like what?"
"That we're all connected," Owen said, twisting his fingers into Lily's. "That even with the end of the world happening all around us, we're meant to survive because that's the nature of things."
"You keep complaining that you only remember things you knew as an angel when you're tripping," Mark said. He opened his bag and pulled out a notebook and a pen, passing them over towards Castiel. "You tell us some of those things, but what if you remember something we're not meant to know? Write it all down so you won't forget it."
Even if he was tripping harder than any of them, Castiel began to wonder if all three of them had completely lost their minds. No one should have looked to him hoping to see a savior. "You're asking me to keep a journal?" he asked incredulously.
Lily giggled. "That's a funny way of putting it."
"When you remember something, or realize something, write it down," Mark said. "You never know when something that's come to mind might turn out to be useful."
* * *
They trudged through woods not unlike the ones they lived near. The mission to Norfolk had been a hard one - they found nothing but Croats, and not a single survivor.
Castiel realized that taking lives with a bullet had started getting easier. The only time he flinched now was when a child's body hit the ground, and even the way that gravity hit him lessened with every city they traveled to. He figured out how to turn certain parts of himself off while they prowled through city streets, and he often found himself reluctant to turn those parts back on when they returned to Chitaqua.
They nearly reached the caravan by the time Castiel heard Mark call out for him. Castiel first assumed that Mark was seeking prayer, forgiveness for taking so many lives earlier that day, as he often did since he'd started going out on missions with them. Castiel paused, closing his eyes. "I'm very tired, Mark," Castiel said, closing his eyes, thinking of the long drive they still had ahead of them. "Perhaps when we get back to Chitaqua?"
"I'm not going back."
Castiel blinked at Mark's words, and then turned around. The hair on the back of his neck prickled at the sight of the now familiar red, broken haze closing in on Mark's skin. "A girl tossed me into some glass, and another one bit me," Mark offered before Castiel could even question what happened, and Castiel's breath caught in his throat.
Mark had been infected, and Castiel felt a swell of pity rise up in his chest.
"Everything that I've left at camp - it's yours," Mark said as he held his rifle out towards Castiel. "And everything I've got here, anything that I haven't bled on - that's yours, too." He rolled up his sleeve and passed over the bracelet that had been wrapped around his wrist since he and Castiel first met.
Castiel took it, rolling the wooden beads between his fingers. "Why...?"
"It's my gift to you," Mark replied. He shrugged off his backpack and handed it over, and finally drew out his handgun. When he flipped the safety off Castiel drew back in alarm, but didn't move to defend himself. Croats didn't usually go for guns, and it was too soon for Mark to be showing the usual homicidal tendencies in the first place. Mark flipped the gun around and held it out towards Castiel grip first, with the barrel pointing back towards his own body.
Castiel stared down at the gun, completely unsure of what was happening.
"Take it," Mark said, his voice pleading, and Castiel's hand finally wrapped around the grip, instinct automatically curling his finger around the trigger.
As soon as the gun left his hands, Mark sank down to his knees in front of Castiel, bowing his head. "You are the closest I've ever been to God."
Castiel repressed a sigh as he gave a slight shake of his head. He'd had this conversation too many times, with Mark and with others. "I am not God."
"I know! I know," Mark insisted as a tear began rolling down his cheek. "But you are proof that God is among us."
The man was deluded, but Castiel had no desire to set Mark's assumptions straight. Why should he ruin the man's shrewd hope when he had only a few scarce minutes of life remaining?
"You've helped me find more faith than I've ever had before," Mark continued. "I've learned so much from you, and I just wish..." He paused, and Castiel winced when he heard Mark let out a choking sob. "I wish I could stand by your side until the end, because I know you will save us."
Everything pouring from Mark's lips was wrong. Castiel wouldn't be the one to save them - if anyone could, it was Dean. Not Mark, nor anyone, would be standing by Castiel's side at the end, because Castiel would be standing by Dean's. How could Mark get the truth so twisted?
"Castiel." Mark's voice sounded more sure and insistent than ever. "Please be the one to do it."
It wasn't necessary for Castiel to ask Mark what he meant. Castiel knew he should be the one to take Mark's life, anyway. It was the unspoken rule of the world they lived in - when someone was found to be infected, they were to be put down immediately before they had a chance to turn.
'Immediately' had already passed and Castiel knew he didn't have much more time, but something stopped him. This was too different from all the other lives he had taken. It was one thing to kill in the heat of battle, or to take someone out from behind when they began to show symptoms. Castiel found himself almost wishing that Mark hadn't told him; he knew that he or Dean or someone else would have figured it out before it was too late.
Instead, Mark was on his knees in front of Castiel, and his eyes were more pleading than Castiel could bear. "Be the one to give me my last rites and send me to the gates."
Another human misconception: Heaven never had gates. Even if it had, Castiel doubted Heaven still existed, at least in the way it had when he last stepped foot in his old home. He was never sure how much of Heaven was sustained by the angels, and with the angels gone it was more than a little likely that nothing remained.
But Castiel couldn't tell that particular truth to Mark, either. Because not even Castiel was certain what laid beyond death now, it was best that Mark live out his last few moments in ignorance so he could have some peace. Castiel finally gave Mark a shuddering nod.
"Kyrie eléison." Castiel lacked all of the proper materials, so he simply pressed two fingers to his lips and placed them on Mark's forehead, hoping Mark would accept that instead of oil. Thankfully, Mark closed his eyes in response. Castiel swallowed heavily to try to keep his voice steady as he continued. "Et ne nos inducas in tentationem..."
He couldn't do it. Everything in the ritual was a lie, Heaven was possibly a lie, and God was definitely a lie. Mark didn't open his eyes when Castiel paused, though, and he instead seemed to be waiting patiently for Castiel to continue.
Castiel took one step back and raised the shotgun. "May the almighty God bless you," he said, and he pulled the trigger.
Without any buildings around for the sound to bounce off of, the shot was quieter than he expected it to be, and the hollow thud of Mark's body hitting the ground rang louder in his ears than the gunshot.
Castiel methodically pushed the safety back into place and stepped around the growing puddle of infected blood, taking care not to let it touch him.
"You're not going to start doing that for all of your little followers, are you?"
He didn't know how long Dean had been watching, but Castiel didn't allow it to startle him, and he instead glanced down at Mark's body once more. "He asked. It was the least I could do," he said, swinging Mark's bag over his shoulder before turning around to face Dean.
Dean's eyes narrowed. "You need to be more careful." A pang hit Castiel in the chest as he remembered passing those exact words to Dean in a different time and place. "Some of them get infected faster than others. He might've been lying to try and get close to you."
Castiel nearly felt insulted. He'd been a part of the battle long enough to recognize when someone was fully under the influence of the virus or not, even without his senses. "He wasn't."
"You don't know that -"
"But I do know that, Dean," Castiel insisted, his brow furrowing in irritation. "And you know how I know that."
"You shouldn't trust it." Dean's voice sounded unexpectedly hard. "That sense you get comes from Lucifer. He could use that against you someday."
Castiel couldn't help his reaction. "I am more than you give me credit for," he snapped. "I am more than those senses. I may be mortal, but I still lived for thousands of years as an angel." He closed the distance between himself and Dean with a few long strides, stopping only when there was barely an inch separating them. "I know more about this world than you will ever know, Dean. I may be missing pieces of myself, but I am still much more in tune with everything than you will ever be."
Dean's expression changed from annoyance to something Castiel found he couldn't read. "That so?"
"Yes, that's so." Castiel brushed past Dean, stalking back towards the caravan, fully intent on finding a vehicle different from the one he came in. He had no interest in making the seven hour drive back to Chitaqua sitting next to Dean.
He couldn't bear the way Dean looked at him.
* * *
When they arrived back in Chitaqua, Castiel took the first chance he found to slip away and skirt into the surrounding woods. As far as he knew, the only one who had seen what he'd done had been Dean, but Mark's absence had already been noticed and no one questioned Castiel's muttered excuse that he just needed a few moments alone.
He found his way to a familiar path, one that had likely been formed by deer, but had been of use to himself, Mark, and a few others in the time they'd spent in Chitaqua. It led to a small clearing, and when he finally reached his destination, his breath caught. It was where he often led the others in prayer, where Mark had given him his notebook, and where he and Mark had first been introduced.
Mark hadn't exactly been a friend. The relationship had been too one-sided, with far too much worship and veneration directed towards Castiel. But Castiel still respected Mark, and he felt regret when the bullet left the chamber.
He did feel regret, but he did not mourn. He had neither the time nor the energy to mourn everyone they'd lost, especially when they would continue to lose more as they marched on towards the end.
He wandered over to a log at the edge of the clearing, throwing Mark's bag down to the forest floor, and his own bag landed beside it. He may not have had the time to mourn Mark's passing, but he did learn a thing or two from him during their hours of conversations, and Mark had mentioned that everything in the bag was now his. He proceeded to go through Mark's backpack from top to bottom, checking every pocket and pouch, until he had everything the bag contained methodically laid out in front of him.
He tossed what he was familiar with into his own bag - mostly oxycodone, which he had tried with Mark, and hydrocodone, which he had not. Everything he remembered Mark mentioning went in along with the painkillers. He also remembered Joe throwing the word "Adderall" around, and he tossed those in next to the others, curious about their effects. Everything he heard of but knew wouldn't have any effect went back into Mark's bag.
By the time he finished sorting everything out, the sun was beginning to set, which gave him just enough light to make his way out of the woods and over to the largest cabin in camp. Chuck lived there, but it also served as storage for the camp's general supplies. Castiel hadn't seen much of Chuck since they first came to Chitaqua, but he knew Chuck had somehow wound up in charge of keeping track of everything coming in and going out. It might have been by Dean or Bobby's suggestion, just to give Chuck something to do, but Castiel was never clear on that.
He rapped on Chuck's door and heard rustling, a clatter, and then a flurry of swear words from inside before Chuck finally opened the door. He looked tired, as everyone in the camp did, but Castiel couldn't help but notice that he seemed to shrink back on himself when he saw Castiel's face. "Um... h-h-hey, Cas," he stammered, his sleepy eyes suddenly open wide.
Castiel cocked his head to the side. "Are you okay?"
"Fine!" Chuck practically chirped. "I'm fine. Uh, what can I do for you?"
Chuck had been jumpy since Castiel first met him and he'd apparently gotten worse since they came to New York, so Castiel ignored Chuck's nervousness and passed Mark's bag over the threshold. "I thought you might like to add these to the stores."
Chuck blinked stupidly before taking the bag and peering inside. "High blood pressure medication?"
Castiel shook his head. "There's more than that in there. Antibiotics, anti-inflammatory drugs, some other things that we will probably need."
"Oh. Oh!" Chuck nodded, reaching into the bag and rifling through it. "Yeah, someone is bound to get sick eventually. Last thing we need is some disease other than Croatoan wiping us out." He pulled out a small bottle and squinted at the label. "Wow, this... where'd you get all this, Cas?"
"Mark had it with him. He had been raiding pharmacies whenever he had the chance."
"Tell him 'thanks,' then -"
"He's dead."
Chuck's gaze jerked away from the bottle and towards Castiel just as he re-shouldered his bag and turned to leave. "How?" he asked, his voice scarcely above a whisper. "Did he... I mean, was it..."
Castiel sighed. "It was the virus, Chuck," he said over his shoulder as he began walking towards his cabin. "Just like everyone else we've lost."
* * *
The light in their cabin started flickering a few weeks before, and Castiel could see Dean's silhouette winking in and out through the window. Castiel's tired trudge took on a lighter step, and he nearly skipped up the steps, wanting to do nothing more than collapse into their bed, preferably with Dean if Dean would allow it, but Castiel froze when he burst through the door.
Dean held Castiel's notebook in his hands. The gospel that he had been working on for months, containing all the wisdom he had gained from the world, his experience from millennia as an angel and a warrior of God, was laid open and bare.
"What is this?" Dean asked as he turned a page.
"It's..." Castiel dropped his bag by the door and hoped Dean either hadn't heard the plastic bottles rattling around inside or just flat-out ignored the sound. He crossed the room, half of him wanting to tear the book out of Dean's hands, and the other half praying that Dean hadn't read the most recent pages, the ones with paragraph after paragraph lamenting about Dean's absence in his life. "They are things I've remembered."
When Dean finally looked away from the book, Castiel realized that he and Dean hadn't met each others' eyes in weeks. He couldn't be sure if knowing that such a long time had passed startled him more than actually meeting Dean's eyes and not recognizing what he saw in them.
"Remembered from what?" Dean asked.
"From... before," Castiel said. "Before the rest of the angels left. I've been trying to remember everything that I knew before, everything that I lost when..." He paused, knowing that Dean disliked when he lamented about 'before.'
Dean's expression didn't change, not even giving so much as a twitch of the eyebrow. "What were you on when you wrote all this?"
Castiel blinked. He wasn't entirely sure why that mattered, so he chose to ignore the question. "Something in there might help us -" Dean cut him off with a short bark that almost resembled a laugh, and his gaze dropped back down to the notebook in his hands.
"Right." Dean never raised his voice, but some layer within it sounded clipped and heavy, and Castiel hated it.
"Dean -" He couldn't finish what he wanted to say. Dean pushed the notebook into his chest and shoved past him in a single movement that seemed incredibly sudden after all the stillness. Castiel managed to catch the book, only to hear the door slam shut moments later.
Dean was gone again.
He sighed and sank down onto the mattress just as he'd been craving since they left Norfolk, but as his eyes traveled around the cabin he realized he hated being there. The cabin felt empty without Dean, but Castiel didn't have anywhere else to go.
He worried his lower lip for a moment before propping himself up onto his side, nearly rolling right on top of the notebook he'd tossed onto the ratty sheets. He stared at it for a moment and wondered exactly what it was that Dean had read that made him storm away. He began to idly flip through the pages, silently thanking Mark for telling him to capture all of his thoughts and understanding of the world, but one page made him stop.
Time is round. Everything spins, and we are all in a constant oscillation. Every part of life, every aspect of every idea is all part of a larger cycle.
Castiel read it over and over again. He realized he even remembered writing that one, and just how pleased he'd been with the revelation.
Reading it again months later, he realized it was a revelation that made no sense. Even if it once had some deeper meaning that Castiel had lost, it was still absolutely useless.
He sat up, flipping back to the beginning of the notebook, skimming through everything he'd written in the last few months, trying to find a larger meaning in his words.
What once was will never be again, except for when it is.
Those who lie with their eyes are the most dangerous of all creatures.
There are three different versions of me.
He had no clue what that last one meant, he didn't even remember writing it, and he began to grow desperate and frustrated as he flipped through the utterly mad and sometimes philosophical ravings that had apparently come from himself.
Useless. It was all completely useless.
The thing that had last welled up inside of him when Bobby had called him 'boy' came roaring back up, and he felt as if he was on fire. The only thing he could take that fire out on was his damn notebook, and he found himself tearing the pages out and apart before he even fully realized what he was doing. It didn't satisfy him nearly enough, so he threw what remained of the notebook across the cabin with all of his strength where it landed with a loud slap against the adjacent wall. He suddenly buckled in on himself, shaking, hating everything he felt rolling around inside his mind and his gut. He wanted so badly to just turn it all off.
He was useless.
No wonder Dean wanted nothing to do with him anymore.
He pressed his palms into his eyes, and the pressure he placed there seemed to somewhat relieve the pressure within. He took a few deep breaths, promptly decided he didn't want to feel the way he felt any longer, and he half stumbled and half crawled across the floor and over to the bag he dropped earlier. He dug through it with shaking hands, looking for something that would just send him spiraling into unconsciousness. He finally pulled out a bottle of Valium, and just as he started to struggle with the cap, his notebook once again caught his eye, nearly hidden on the ground just behind his bag. It had fallen open to a page that was nearly blank except for a single line. He read it, then read it again.
He dropped the Valium back into his bag and picked up the notebook, staring at his scrawled handwriting. The fury and the emptiness inside started ebbing away as he read the line repeatedly. He knew what it said, but he couldn't stop, almost as if he expected the words to change in front of his eyes. He sat down and leaned up against the wall, his eyes never leaving the page. He had no idea how long he sat and read the one line with as much as intensity as he would have once directed towards the gospels, and hours might have passed before he finally lowered the book.
I hold more power over humanity as a mortal than I ever held over humanity as an angel.
Even if the rest of it turned out to be a waste, at least he had found one true thing in his words.
Part Six