FIC: Now That I've Come To Fall.
Title: Now That I've Come To Fall.
Author: amor_remanet.
Rating: R.
Characters/Pairings: Dean/Castiel; also features Sam & Amelia Novak.
Prompt: "This one last bullet you mention is my one last shot at redemption."
Spoilers: general for seasons 4 & 5; especially: 4.20, 5.6, 5.16, 5.17, 5.18, & 5.21.
Word count: ~3,900.
Warnings: Slash & sexuality, implied sex, language, making out, heavy petting, hurt/comfort-fic, & (highlight to read) Fallen/human!Castiel.
Summary: "Cas," Dean said, sitting on the sofa, two beers in hand. "Cas… we've gotta do something about this."
Notes: Many thanks to my betas, slartibartfst42 & aurieal.
It's been six weeks since Lucifer went back into his cell, and, sweat sliming down his forehead and his neck, Castiel sits on the hood of some busted car or other that Bobby hasn't fixed since getting back the use of his legs. Maybe it's beyond repair - that would explain its state of neglect. Castiel sighs. He doesn't want to empathize with the defective thing, but what else can he do?
The filthy t-shirt feels like a second layer of skin, it cleaves so close to his chest; the jeans he borrowed from Dean only work in this weather because they're threadbare to begin with. A sticky breeze ambles through, throwing the July heat back in his face, making his body twinge all over, in every spot where he shoved his shoulder into a car door, or fell over trying to scale something. In retrospect, he probably shouldn't have tried turning the junkyard into an obstacle course just to test himself.
With the Apocalypse's end came new living arrangements; with them, Castiel finds a good amount of time alone. Sam and Dean went after some vampire coven four days ago, and Bobby's on the trail of some wendigo two states over; Castiel is supposed to be inside by the phone, with the lore books, just in case they need something. So far, Dean's called once, to check in and make sure that Cas isn't "driving himself crazy, holed up alone like that." That's ridiculous - it was and still is; Castiel was sure to tell Dean so.
The hunts are routine, though. Things everyone but Castiel has seen before. Sam and Dean don't need help with vampires; Bobby has killed wendigos before. Castiel isn't going crazy; he's just realistic. And, since Dean left this last time, he's wondered why he's still here.
The biggest reason, Castiel thinks, that there is not to kill himself is that he knows that suicides go to Hell and he doesn't want to give demons the satisfaction of having an angel, even a fallen one, to torment. Hell, he knows, is not an improvement on his present uselessness. But, even so, when he stumbles off the broken hood, when he closes his eyes and tries to teleport like he used to, when he feels a wind on his face and opens his eyes to find his position unchanged... he can't help wondering whether or not there's something to his suicidal notions.
He slumps onto the car again. There's nothing to them, no, and if he dies again, then he's going out on his terms, some way that's going to get him back into Heaven. Even so, without a fight, there still might not be a place for him.
***
The first thing Castiel did after the Apocalypse failed to happen, and after the rush of stopping it died down, was get on a bus to Pontiac, Illinois without Sam or Dean or anyone in tow. Dean tried to protest, to ask just where the Hell Cas thought that he was going; Castiel didn't clarify anything, but promised he wouldn't go unarmed. He only took a knife and a revolver he could hide in his jacket.
He spent the ride looking over his shoulder for Dean's Impala, or Bobby's truck, or some inconspicuous car, easily disguised, the way Dean said Sam likes his hot-wired transportation. Once, Castiel even wondered if he saw Crowley board the bus, then the man started chatting up some blonde girl from Ohio and the accent wasn't right. No one showed up for him at all. Plenty of strangers came and went, but Castiel was alone.
As he trudged up a still-familiar street, toward a house he'd left two years before, every movement, every breath seemed impossible, but he'd known since waking up in the hospital that, if he lived through putting Lucifer away, this day would have to come. The doctors there had thought that he was brain-dead. Even if an angel can't be active, his vessel should still show activity on an EEG. Jimmy didn't.
Castiel had been worried about Jimmy before Van Nuys, before Sam's grating message had sent him to Blue Earth, before they learned that God no longer cared. Inexplicably, things hadn't felt right. Jimmy's complaints about the abuse his body suffered and how Castiel and Dean looked at each other came less and less frequently. He fought his way through everything, the way he always had, against Hell, against Heaven, for humanity, for Dean: in the fight burned the fire of conviction, the certainty he wanted.
So he kept fighting. He drank, and he kept fighting. His convictions wavered, and he kept fighting. Until the two weeks he spent unconscious. The lack of brain activity confirmed Castiel's suspicions: Jimmy was dead. Castiel was on his own in their body - now his alone - and he was without his Grace.
Hands in the pockets of his ratty jeans - formerly Dean's - Castiel stared at the door. He rang the bell. Amelia answered it, then paused. In silent shock, she looked him over for anything familiar, any sign of her husband in his face. He knew she wouldn't find it; thinking that she knew this too didn't help at all.
Somewhere around his lungs, he felt something distantly familiar - something like the protests Jimmy had raised when looking at the child Antichrist. Breathing was difficult again. This had to be guilt - pure guilt - guilt without being able to hide behind some rationale - one of the parts of being human that he'd been in no rush to experience. Castiel looked at his shoes, but forced himself to look at her when he told her: "I'm sorry."
***
"…Cas?"
The panic room is a true testament to Bobby's creativity and dedication. Castiel runs his hand down the wall, the grains of salt somehow comforting in their coarseness. He breathes the cool, damp air in deep - after being outside, it soothes the heat, and the frustration.
"Cas…?"
True, he's been down here before, but it's always been on business. Letting Sam out on Heaven's orders. Making sure that Dean didn't say, "Yes" to Michael. Castiel hasn't had the occasion to truly appreciate the efforts before. With a sigh, he leans against the wall and tunes out the sound of panicked, pounding footsteps.
"Cas!"
Castiel pushes himself off the wall and paces to the other side of the room. All the devil's traps are high-quality; Castiel could have made them himself. There's every manner of protection against evil…. The only thing he doesn't understand is the poster of the woman on the wall. Tilting his head, he contemplates her. If Bobby were holing up in here, why would he need a picture of some woman in a swimsuit?
"Dammit. CAS!"
He ignores whoever's coming until a large hand grabs him by the shoulder and turns him around. Unfazed, Castiel looks up at Sam. Whatever has transpired between them just now, Sam does not look amused; something like panic tugs at his dark eyes.
"Jesus, Cas," he sighs. "You scared me. …What're you doing down here?"
Castiel shrugs. "I was curious."
"Did you not hear me, or-"
"Where's Dean?" he asks.
Sam pauses, then doesn't answer the question: "Did you eat yet?"
"Yes," Castiel says, ignoring the twinge in his chest. Echoing his experience of the lie, his stomach growls. He sighs. "…No."
As he's led upstairs, Castiel does not relax against Sam's hand on his shoulder. He doesn't move more willingly as they come into the kitchen, and every answer he gives Sam about dinner is, at best, noncommittal. So what, he isn't used to eating yet? And so what, he's been getting thin? Next to six thousand years as an angel, eight weeks as a human aren't anything. While Sam makes dinner, Castiel periodically asks where Dean is. It's childish, he knows, but Sam could avoid it if he would just answer the question.
Finally, Sam sets a plate of spaghetti with sauce on the table, and instructs Castiel to eat. "You're very condescending," Castiel remarks. "Where's Dean?"
"I don't know, okay?" Sam snaps. "We pulled up, I got out, and he took off somewhere."
"Why?"
"I don't know, Cas. …I'm sorry, I wish I did, but… what I do know is that he'll be pissed off if you haven't eaten when he comes home."
Castiel sits, and rolls his eyes so Sam can see it. Begrudgingly, he pokes at Sam's concoction of noodles and tomato paste. "I served Heaven for six millennia, I dragged him out of Hell, I came back from facing an archangel. You should stop talking to me like you would a child."
Sam slouches against the counter. "Well…" he says, "you should eat."
Castiel obliges Sam. It's better than listening to him talk.
***
From Illinois, Castiel went to a little park, in a little town where, once, Dean had defied him and, in so doing, saved the lives of one thousand, two hundred and fourteen people. There were more of them now, though Castiel couldn't be sure how many more. He sensed them all, all the lifeforms breathing, laughing, crying - but as he walked through their streets toward their park, he couldn't put a number on them. Some had died, but miraculously, none had been victims of the averted Apocalypse.
Without needing to look that hard, Castiel found a bench he'd sat on with Uriel once, after Dean had saved these people and their town. He knew that it would be fruitless before he started, but he still closed his eyes and tried to feel any remnants of his brother and his essence that were left. Even if he had no Grace with which to sense the other angels - if they were there to sense; he hadn't heard them talking since Lucifer had gone back in his cage - Castiel tried to reach out. He thought of Uriel, of all their time together, of his betrayal and how long the pain had resonated, of watching Anna kill him.
For centuries, they'd fought together, away from home, away from what they thought was their Father's presence. Always, it was the same: Castiel was "too serious" and Uriel too willing to suspend the rules, too disrespectful of their different human charges. If he ever laughed - a rare occasion - Uriel helped make it so. Now, there was nothing there to see, or feel - nothing of Uriel left.
"I'm sorry, brother," Castiel whispered to the void. "Even if you believed in Lucifer, I never wanted you to die."
The void said nothing back.
It had been years since Uriel's passing, and for the first time, Castiel let the absence of his brother exist. Uriel, Anna, Zachariah - even if he'd stood against them, even considering all of the times he hadn't liked them, even though he knew better than to expect what he wanted from them, he wished that they could have been here now. There was something reassuring about having family members present to fall back on.
Castiel returned to Bobby's place in Sioux Falls, hungry and exhausted from days of travel and not sleeping. The pangs of both, he'd found, ran the gamut of experience from pain to just discomfort, but he could ignore them when preoccupied with other things. In the dead of night, he slunk up the stairs, toed off his shoes, and collapsed in bed next to Dean without removing his clothes. Some hours later, he roused to Dean's arm around his waist and Dean's warm, whisky-scented snoring on the back of his neck. Castiel sighed, relaxed against Dean's chest, and closed his eyes again.
It occurred to him then that he could get used to sleeping.
***
Castiel yawns and checks the clock on the wall. Eleven-seventeen - night's helped itself to the sky outside, Sam's in the shower, and Dean still isn't back. Castiel slouches on the study table, supporting himself on his elbows and looking at the revolver that he left on top of a stack of books.
They're useful things, guns. And he knows that. And there might be nothing for him here. Dean, of course, but only between his hunts and on the phone, which still threatens, periodically, that Castiel is almost out of minutes. Staying in to do the research that never needs to happen… It's not the life he wants. It's not a life he's ready to accept. If the aches in his back - frustrated remnants from his afternoon in the junkyard - are anything to go on, it's not a life that suits him in the least.
He slides the gun off its stack, down to the other end of the table and far out of his reach. He rubs the bridge of his nose. Yawning yet again, he opens up a book on love and magic. It illuminates nothing he didn't already know.
***
"Cas," Dean said, sitting on the sofa, two beers in hand. "Cas… we've gotta do something about this."
Castiel took his beer and stared at the wall a moment before he took a drink. Dean and Bobby had been giving him beer since he got back to South Dakota. It still wasn't as good as real liquor. He asks, "About what?"
"This," Dean repeats, gesturing at the space behind them. "You've been out of it since you got back from Illinois, and I tried giving you your space or whatever? But it's been weeks and you still haven't told me what the fuck happened-"
"Nothing happened." Lying, especially to Dean, still wrenched his stomach. "Nothing of import, anyway."
"Now, see…" Dean set his beer on the table in front of them. He draped his arm around Castiel's shoulders, and leaned into Castiel's ear: "That's how I know something happened."
Castiel sighed, and took another drink. It didn't even burn. "Amelia Novak," he said with a shrug. "She deserved to know about her husband."
Before Castiel knew it, Dean leaned in to kiss him; he returned it with a moan of relief. His beer joined Dean's on the table. He ignored none of his feelings when they kissed, because none of them felt so problematic as they often did. Without questioning himself, Castiel grabbed Dean by the shoulder, pulling Dean into his lap. As he shifted, sliding Dean's legs around his hips, Castiel exhaled; warmth spread through his muscles and his lungs as they unknotted. The certainty that so often eluded him came with the heat of Dean's chest against his and the feeling of Dean's hip beneath his hand.
The kissing paused. Dean swallowed, leaned into Castiel's ear again. "Cas, so help me: I'm gonna make you happy."
Castiel wondered: did they really need to talk? Well, Dean seemed to think so. "What makes you think that I'm not happy?" he asked. For the moment, it wasn't a lie. When this stopped, he knew that it would turn into one again.
Dean laughed - his bitter, desperate laugh. With a hint of the affectionate laugh thrown in. Dean's laughs have always been complicated. "Shit, Cas, we sleep together. I think I know - and I get why. And I'm gonna fix it."
Castiel's grip on Dean's hip tightened without him thinking about it. "Fix it how?"
"We're gonna start with pie-"
"Dean, not everything can be solved with pie-"
"You could use some pie-"
"I am not thin enough to require emergency pie-"
He held a hand up. "Hear me out, Cas." A punctuating kiss. "Let's just stick to the facts, okay? You're miserable; I'm making you happy. It's going to start with pie. Then I'm going to take you to bed-"
"I know how nice sleeping is, Dean."
That laugh had a smile with it. "I meant… Biblical knowing, Cas." Dean had a point: the last time they'd had sex had been in a flurry of excitement and relief, preceded by a frantic kiss, itself preceded by their successful defeat of the Devil. They didn't experience each other as much as they came together, running on no sleep, stress, and charging emotions. Perhaps that was a part of Castiel's malaise.
Castiel kissed Dean slowly, deeply, dragging it out as though trying to inhale whatever Dean had that made him feel so certain. "You could know me now," he pointed out. "Sam and Bobby might not appreciate it, but we can always clean the couch-"
A loud cough interrupted him. Sam stood in the doorway, with his phone. "Dean," he hazarded. "We've got a case in Minnesota… vampires. Looks nasty. Five people are dead already."
Dean sighed, "Dammit."
They'd mostly resolved their differences, but sometimes, Castiel still found the sound of Sam's voice grating. Or maybe it was what he had to say, and the fact that it meant Dean had to go.
***
It's past midnight when Dean returns. He stumbles through the front door, boots sounding like a stampede, and he tromps toward Castiel without removing them. Leaning against the door to the study, he smirks and holds up a bag.
"You would not believe how hard it was, finding a decent place for pie at this time of night," he says.
By the collar of his shirt, Castiel jerks Dean into a kiss - it's only been five days - Castiel knows it's only been five days - not even five, just over four, four-and-a-half - but, ferociously, he cleaves his mouth to Dean's, thinking of his former thoughts, needing them to go away, trying to promise not to think them again.
They separate to breathe. Stunned, Dean blinks.
"Whoa," he says. "Remind me to stay out late more often."
***
Dean argues with a box that doesn't want to open; Castiel waits on their bed. Although he wants to sit up straight, the exhaustion has other ideas, and he barely manages to slouch. Both of his hands sink into the mattress. He shuffles to the headboard and leans on it. He curls his knees up - and everything still feels like it's teetering. Castiel closes his eyes and kneads his thumb against his forehead.
The mattress shifts as Dean joins him. Dean says nothing, but after a moment, something prods at Castiel's lips. He opens his mouth to cool metal and something sticky. Tangy. Crusty. Perplexed, Castiel opens his eyes and frowns at Dean. Dean smiles, and removes the fork. He has a slice of pie on a plate, with one chunk removed.
"It's apple," he clarifies. "Not the best I could've got, but everything else looked like it'd just fought its way out of the Devil's Gate."
Castiel chews. Swallows. "That was… interesting," he says flatly. "Not bad, I mean - it wasn't a cheeseburger, but it was still not entirely awful."
Dean smirks, and holds up another forkful of pie. "Good enough for another go at it?"
Castiel sits up, and nudges Dean's arm down. He leans into another kiss - a short one - and whispers, "The pie is tolerable, Dean. But I'd rather have you right now, if that's all right."
Dean nods; the plate of pie sits on the bedside table, by the lamp.
Stretching out his legs, Castiel slides down onto the mattress; he coaxes Dean along with him, and onto him. In some quick consideration, Dean slips his knees around to rest by Castiel's knees. He straightens up and kneels. With both hands, he eases Castiel's shirt up, off and then removes his own. The burn, a perfect imprint of Castiel's hand, shines - bright white in the lamplight.
Dean trails a palm, coarse and warm, down to Castiel's hip. Impatient, Castiel sits again, kisses Dean again in slow, languorous movements; he knocks a foot into Dean's, and, one hand around Dean's hip, heaves them together, hair and skin on hair and skin. He breathes deeply, just to feel Dean's chest pressing against his own. Some part of the burn brushes against Castiel's shoulder. He lays his hand against its shadow. Gingerly, he kisses it; with less delicacy, brings them to the mattress.
Their chests, their hips collide. Something hard in Dean's pocket grinds into Castiel's hip. He doesn't ponder what it is or what it could be, only raises his hips to Dean's, ruts into him as though trying to remove all the barriers between them. Their movement against each other makes so many knots in so many muscles undo themselves.
He sighs into Dean's neck and kisses him just below the ear. "I missed you," he says. Dean gives his cheek a lick, a kiss. "More than the usual amount, I mean."
As they fall into another kiss, Castiel tries to use his knee to nudge Dean's jeans out of the way; it does not go as planned. He halfway considers sitting again. Instead, he only fumbles around, trying to find Dean's button and his fly while not compromising their kiss. This, too, does not go as planned. A frustrated grunt - Castiel grimaces at what his hands have trouble finding. Humans just have to make everything complicated, don't they? No matter. He practically tears the fly apart, shoves the zipper down, and bunches Dean's jeans up somewhere around his knees. He drags a leg down the inside of Dean's thigh and pulls Dean into another kiss, rubs down from his hips to his loins-
Dean catches him by the wrist and drops Castiel's arm to the mattress; Castiel frowns at him, not upset but confused. Where they relaxed, his muscles tense again. His breath catches in his throat. He reaches for Dean's groin again and, again, Dean grabs him by the wrist. Sighing, he struggles against Dean's grip and, for his efforts, Dean tightens it. Castiel pushes against Dean's arm. Dean pushes back. He presses Castiel's arm back into the bed, repeats this action when Castiel tries with the other arm.
Castiel sighs. "I know how to know you, Dean."
"Oh, I know you do," Dean says. "Just let me do this right, okay?"
This isn't the relief Castiel wants, not even close. He doesn't mean to, but he snaps, "What's to get right?" Dean sighs. He sits up, reaches for his jeans, fumbles in the pocket. He comes back with a little blue box. Skeptically, Castiel knots his brow. "What's that?" he asks.
Dean doesn't answer, but he opens the box, removes a ring. It's small, and Castiel can't tell if it's tarnished or not. Something's been carved into it, though. The box ends up on the floor. "That seems unnecessary," Castiel mutters.
"Yeah, I should've known better than listening to Sam." Dean swallows, and shakes his head. The arm supporting him quivers. "Cas, I... I'm not blind. I've seen you since you got back. And I'm not… I can't let you slip through the cracks on me."
Castiel wriggles out from under Dean. He sits, and kisses him. "I don't plan to-"
"But it's looked like-"
"I won't, but… I'm a warrior, Dean. It was all I knew for millennia." A kiss. An exchange of glances. He whispers, "…I want to come with you. On the next hunt."
Dean nods. "Just… put this on first."
Castiel acquiesces, sliding the circlet on his right ring finger. Jimmy's wedding ring was always on the left, until Castiel took it off. In the lamplight, he can't quite make out what the words are. "Did you try to teach yourself Enochian?"
Dean smiles, claps a hand on Castiel's shoulder, laughs - the affectionate one. "It's supposed to say, 'I love you.'"
"It's clumsy," Castiel says. He pulls Dean into a kiss, then knocks one of Dean's legs out from under him. Castiel turns him over onto the mattress. "But I reciprocate."
Author: amor_remanet.
Rating: R.
Characters/Pairings: Dean/Castiel; also features Sam & Amelia Novak.
Prompt: "This one last bullet you mention is my one last shot at redemption."
Spoilers: general for seasons 4 & 5; especially: 4.20, 5.6, 5.16, 5.17, 5.18, & 5.21.
Word count: ~3,900.
Warnings: Slash & sexuality, implied sex, language, making out, heavy petting, hurt/comfort-fic, & (highlight to read) Fallen/human!Castiel.
Summary: "Cas," Dean said, sitting on the sofa, two beers in hand. "Cas… we've gotta do something about this."
Notes: Many thanks to my betas, slartibartfst42 & aurieal.
It's been six weeks since Lucifer went back into his cell, and, sweat sliming down his forehead and his neck, Castiel sits on the hood of some busted car or other that Bobby hasn't fixed since getting back the use of his legs. Maybe it's beyond repair - that would explain its state of neglect. Castiel sighs. He doesn't want to empathize with the defective thing, but what else can he do?
The filthy t-shirt feels like a second layer of skin, it cleaves so close to his chest; the jeans he borrowed from Dean only work in this weather because they're threadbare to begin with. A sticky breeze ambles through, throwing the July heat back in his face, making his body twinge all over, in every spot where he shoved his shoulder into a car door, or fell over trying to scale something. In retrospect, he probably shouldn't have tried turning the junkyard into an obstacle course just to test himself.
With the Apocalypse's end came new living arrangements; with them, Castiel finds a good amount of time alone. Sam and Dean went after some vampire coven four days ago, and Bobby's on the trail of some wendigo two states over; Castiel is supposed to be inside by the phone, with the lore books, just in case they need something. So far, Dean's called once, to check in and make sure that Cas isn't "driving himself crazy, holed up alone like that." That's ridiculous - it was and still is; Castiel was sure to tell Dean so.
The hunts are routine, though. Things everyone but Castiel has seen before. Sam and Dean don't need help with vampires; Bobby has killed wendigos before. Castiel isn't going crazy; he's just realistic. And, since Dean left this last time, he's wondered why he's still here.
The biggest reason, Castiel thinks, that there is not to kill himself is that he knows that suicides go to Hell and he doesn't want to give demons the satisfaction of having an angel, even a fallen one, to torment. Hell, he knows, is not an improvement on his present uselessness. But, even so, when he stumbles off the broken hood, when he closes his eyes and tries to teleport like he used to, when he feels a wind on his face and opens his eyes to find his position unchanged... he can't help wondering whether or not there's something to his suicidal notions.
He slumps onto the car again. There's nothing to them, no, and if he dies again, then he's going out on his terms, some way that's going to get him back into Heaven. Even so, without a fight, there still might not be a place for him.
***
The first thing Castiel did after the Apocalypse failed to happen, and after the rush of stopping it died down, was get on a bus to Pontiac, Illinois without Sam or Dean or anyone in tow. Dean tried to protest, to ask just where the Hell Cas thought that he was going; Castiel didn't clarify anything, but promised he wouldn't go unarmed. He only took a knife and a revolver he could hide in his jacket.
He spent the ride looking over his shoulder for Dean's Impala, or Bobby's truck, or some inconspicuous car, easily disguised, the way Dean said Sam likes his hot-wired transportation. Once, Castiel even wondered if he saw Crowley board the bus, then the man started chatting up some blonde girl from Ohio and the accent wasn't right. No one showed up for him at all. Plenty of strangers came and went, but Castiel was alone.
As he trudged up a still-familiar street, toward a house he'd left two years before, every movement, every breath seemed impossible, but he'd known since waking up in the hospital that, if he lived through putting Lucifer away, this day would have to come. The doctors there had thought that he was brain-dead. Even if an angel can't be active, his vessel should still show activity on an EEG. Jimmy didn't.
Castiel had been worried about Jimmy before Van Nuys, before Sam's grating message had sent him to Blue Earth, before they learned that God no longer cared. Inexplicably, things hadn't felt right. Jimmy's complaints about the abuse his body suffered and how Castiel and Dean looked at each other came less and less frequently. He fought his way through everything, the way he always had, against Hell, against Heaven, for humanity, for Dean: in the fight burned the fire of conviction, the certainty he wanted.
So he kept fighting. He drank, and he kept fighting. His convictions wavered, and he kept fighting. Until the two weeks he spent unconscious. The lack of brain activity confirmed Castiel's suspicions: Jimmy was dead. Castiel was on his own in their body - now his alone - and he was without his Grace.
Hands in the pockets of his ratty jeans - formerly Dean's - Castiel stared at the door. He rang the bell. Amelia answered it, then paused. In silent shock, she looked him over for anything familiar, any sign of her husband in his face. He knew she wouldn't find it; thinking that she knew this too didn't help at all.
Somewhere around his lungs, he felt something distantly familiar - something like the protests Jimmy had raised when looking at the child Antichrist. Breathing was difficult again. This had to be guilt - pure guilt - guilt without being able to hide behind some rationale - one of the parts of being human that he'd been in no rush to experience. Castiel looked at his shoes, but forced himself to look at her when he told her: "I'm sorry."
***
"…Cas?"
The panic room is a true testament to Bobby's creativity and dedication. Castiel runs his hand down the wall, the grains of salt somehow comforting in their coarseness. He breathes the cool, damp air in deep - after being outside, it soothes the heat, and the frustration.
"Cas…?"
True, he's been down here before, but it's always been on business. Letting Sam out on Heaven's orders. Making sure that Dean didn't say, "Yes" to Michael. Castiel hasn't had the occasion to truly appreciate the efforts before. With a sigh, he leans against the wall and tunes out the sound of panicked, pounding footsteps.
"Cas!"
Castiel pushes himself off the wall and paces to the other side of the room. All the devil's traps are high-quality; Castiel could have made them himself. There's every manner of protection against evil…. The only thing he doesn't understand is the poster of the woman on the wall. Tilting his head, he contemplates her. If Bobby were holing up in here, why would he need a picture of some woman in a swimsuit?
"Dammit. CAS!"
He ignores whoever's coming until a large hand grabs him by the shoulder and turns him around. Unfazed, Castiel looks up at Sam. Whatever has transpired between them just now, Sam does not look amused; something like panic tugs at his dark eyes.
"Jesus, Cas," he sighs. "You scared me. …What're you doing down here?"
Castiel shrugs. "I was curious."
"Did you not hear me, or-"
"Where's Dean?" he asks.
Sam pauses, then doesn't answer the question: "Did you eat yet?"
"Yes," Castiel says, ignoring the twinge in his chest. Echoing his experience of the lie, his stomach growls. He sighs. "…No."
As he's led upstairs, Castiel does not relax against Sam's hand on his shoulder. He doesn't move more willingly as they come into the kitchen, and every answer he gives Sam about dinner is, at best, noncommittal. So what, he isn't used to eating yet? And so what, he's been getting thin? Next to six thousand years as an angel, eight weeks as a human aren't anything. While Sam makes dinner, Castiel periodically asks where Dean is. It's childish, he knows, but Sam could avoid it if he would just answer the question.
Finally, Sam sets a plate of spaghetti with sauce on the table, and instructs Castiel to eat. "You're very condescending," Castiel remarks. "Where's Dean?"
"I don't know, okay?" Sam snaps. "We pulled up, I got out, and he took off somewhere."
"Why?"
"I don't know, Cas. …I'm sorry, I wish I did, but… what I do know is that he'll be pissed off if you haven't eaten when he comes home."
Castiel sits, and rolls his eyes so Sam can see it. Begrudgingly, he pokes at Sam's concoction of noodles and tomato paste. "I served Heaven for six millennia, I dragged him out of Hell, I came back from facing an archangel. You should stop talking to me like you would a child."
Sam slouches against the counter. "Well…" he says, "you should eat."
Castiel obliges Sam. It's better than listening to him talk.
***
From Illinois, Castiel went to a little park, in a little town where, once, Dean had defied him and, in so doing, saved the lives of one thousand, two hundred and fourteen people. There were more of them now, though Castiel couldn't be sure how many more. He sensed them all, all the lifeforms breathing, laughing, crying - but as he walked through their streets toward their park, he couldn't put a number on them. Some had died, but miraculously, none had been victims of the averted Apocalypse.
Without needing to look that hard, Castiel found a bench he'd sat on with Uriel once, after Dean had saved these people and their town. He knew that it would be fruitless before he started, but he still closed his eyes and tried to feel any remnants of his brother and his essence that were left. Even if he had no Grace with which to sense the other angels - if they were there to sense; he hadn't heard them talking since Lucifer had gone back in his cage - Castiel tried to reach out. He thought of Uriel, of all their time together, of his betrayal and how long the pain had resonated, of watching Anna kill him.
For centuries, they'd fought together, away from home, away from what they thought was their Father's presence. Always, it was the same: Castiel was "too serious" and Uriel too willing to suspend the rules, too disrespectful of their different human charges. If he ever laughed - a rare occasion - Uriel helped make it so. Now, there was nothing there to see, or feel - nothing of Uriel left.
"I'm sorry, brother," Castiel whispered to the void. "Even if you believed in Lucifer, I never wanted you to die."
The void said nothing back.
It had been years since Uriel's passing, and for the first time, Castiel let the absence of his brother exist. Uriel, Anna, Zachariah - even if he'd stood against them, even considering all of the times he hadn't liked them, even though he knew better than to expect what he wanted from them, he wished that they could have been here now. There was something reassuring about having family members present to fall back on.
Castiel returned to Bobby's place in Sioux Falls, hungry and exhausted from days of travel and not sleeping. The pangs of both, he'd found, ran the gamut of experience from pain to just discomfort, but he could ignore them when preoccupied with other things. In the dead of night, he slunk up the stairs, toed off his shoes, and collapsed in bed next to Dean without removing his clothes. Some hours later, he roused to Dean's arm around his waist and Dean's warm, whisky-scented snoring on the back of his neck. Castiel sighed, relaxed against Dean's chest, and closed his eyes again.
It occurred to him then that he could get used to sleeping.
***
Castiel yawns and checks the clock on the wall. Eleven-seventeen - night's helped itself to the sky outside, Sam's in the shower, and Dean still isn't back. Castiel slouches on the study table, supporting himself on his elbows and looking at the revolver that he left on top of a stack of books.
They're useful things, guns. And he knows that. And there might be nothing for him here. Dean, of course, but only between his hunts and on the phone, which still threatens, periodically, that Castiel is almost out of minutes. Staying in to do the research that never needs to happen… It's not the life he wants. It's not a life he's ready to accept. If the aches in his back - frustrated remnants from his afternoon in the junkyard - are anything to go on, it's not a life that suits him in the least.
He slides the gun off its stack, down to the other end of the table and far out of his reach. He rubs the bridge of his nose. Yawning yet again, he opens up a book on love and magic. It illuminates nothing he didn't already know.
***
"Cas," Dean said, sitting on the sofa, two beers in hand. "Cas… we've gotta do something about this."
Castiel took his beer and stared at the wall a moment before he took a drink. Dean and Bobby had been giving him beer since he got back to South Dakota. It still wasn't as good as real liquor. He asks, "About what?"
"This," Dean repeats, gesturing at the space behind them. "You've been out of it since you got back from Illinois, and I tried giving you your space or whatever? But it's been weeks and you still haven't told me what the fuck happened-"
"Nothing happened." Lying, especially to Dean, still wrenched his stomach. "Nothing of import, anyway."
"Now, see…" Dean set his beer on the table in front of them. He draped his arm around Castiel's shoulders, and leaned into Castiel's ear: "That's how I know something happened."
Castiel sighed, and took another drink. It didn't even burn. "Amelia Novak," he said with a shrug. "She deserved to know about her husband."
Before Castiel knew it, Dean leaned in to kiss him; he returned it with a moan of relief. His beer joined Dean's on the table. He ignored none of his feelings when they kissed, because none of them felt so problematic as they often did. Without questioning himself, Castiel grabbed Dean by the shoulder, pulling Dean into his lap. As he shifted, sliding Dean's legs around his hips, Castiel exhaled; warmth spread through his muscles and his lungs as they unknotted. The certainty that so often eluded him came with the heat of Dean's chest against his and the feeling of Dean's hip beneath his hand.
The kissing paused. Dean swallowed, leaned into Castiel's ear again. "Cas, so help me: I'm gonna make you happy."
Castiel wondered: did they really need to talk? Well, Dean seemed to think so. "What makes you think that I'm not happy?" he asked. For the moment, it wasn't a lie. When this stopped, he knew that it would turn into one again.
Dean laughed - his bitter, desperate laugh. With a hint of the affectionate laugh thrown in. Dean's laughs have always been complicated. "Shit, Cas, we sleep together. I think I know - and I get why. And I'm gonna fix it."
Castiel's grip on Dean's hip tightened without him thinking about it. "Fix it how?"
"We're gonna start with pie-"
"Dean, not everything can be solved with pie-"
"You could use some pie-"
"I am not thin enough to require emergency pie-"
He held a hand up. "Hear me out, Cas." A punctuating kiss. "Let's just stick to the facts, okay? You're miserable; I'm making you happy. It's going to start with pie. Then I'm going to take you to bed-"
"I know how nice sleeping is, Dean."
That laugh had a smile with it. "I meant… Biblical knowing, Cas." Dean had a point: the last time they'd had sex had been in a flurry of excitement and relief, preceded by a frantic kiss, itself preceded by their successful defeat of the Devil. They didn't experience each other as much as they came together, running on no sleep, stress, and charging emotions. Perhaps that was a part of Castiel's malaise.
Castiel kissed Dean slowly, deeply, dragging it out as though trying to inhale whatever Dean had that made him feel so certain. "You could know me now," he pointed out. "Sam and Bobby might not appreciate it, but we can always clean the couch-"
A loud cough interrupted him. Sam stood in the doorway, with his phone. "Dean," he hazarded. "We've got a case in Minnesota… vampires. Looks nasty. Five people are dead already."
Dean sighed, "Dammit."
They'd mostly resolved their differences, but sometimes, Castiel still found the sound of Sam's voice grating. Or maybe it was what he had to say, and the fact that it meant Dean had to go.
***
It's past midnight when Dean returns. He stumbles through the front door, boots sounding like a stampede, and he tromps toward Castiel without removing them. Leaning against the door to the study, he smirks and holds up a bag.
"You would not believe how hard it was, finding a decent place for pie at this time of night," he says.
By the collar of his shirt, Castiel jerks Dean into a kiss - it's only been five days - Castiel knows it's only been five days - not even five, just over four, four-and-a-half - but, ferociously, he cleaves his mouth to Dean's, thinking of his former thoughts, needing them to go away, trying to promise not to think them again.
They separate to breathe. Stunned, Dean blinks.
"Whoa," he says. "Remind me to stay out late more often."
***
Dean argues with a box that doesn't want to open; Castiel waits on their bed. Although he wants to sit up straight, the exhaustion has other ideas, and he barely manages to slouch. Both of his hands sink into the mattress. He shuffles to the headboard and leans on it. He curls his knees up - and everything still feels like it's teetering. Castiel closes his eyes and kneads his thumb against his forehead.
The mattress shifts as Dean joins him. Dean says nothing, but after a moment, something prods at Castiel's lips. He opens his mouth to cool metal and something sticky. Tangy. Crusty. Perplexed, Castiel opens his eyes and frowns at Dean. Dean smiles, and removes the fork. He has a slice of pie on a plate, with one chunk removed.
"It's apple," he clarifies. "Not the best I could've got, but everything else looked like it'd just fought its way out of the Devil's Gate."
Castiel chews. Swallows. "That was… interesting," he says flatly. "Not bad, I mean - it wasn't a cheeseburger, but it was still not entirely awful."
Dean smirks, and holds up another forkful of pie. "Good enough for another go at it?"
Castiel sits up, and nudges Dean's arm down. He leans into another kiss - a short one - and whispers, "The pie is tolerable, Dean. But I'd rather have you right now, if that's all right."
Dean nods; the plate of pie sits on the bedside table, by the lamp.
Stretching out his legs, Castiel slides down onto the mattress; he coaxes Dean along with him, and onto him. In some quick consideration, Dean slips his knees around to rest by Castiel's knees. He straightens up and kneels. With both hands, he eases Castiel's shirt up, off and then removes his own. The burn, a perfect imprint of Castiel's hand, shines - bright white in the lamplight.
Dean trails a palm, coarse and warm, down to Castiel's hip. Impatient, Castiel sits again, kisses Dean again in slow, languorous movements; he knocks a foot into Dean's, and, one hand around Dean's hip, heaves them together, hair and skin on hair and skin. He breathes deeply, just to feel Dean's chest pressing against his own. Some part of the burn brushes against Castiel's shoulder. He lays his hand against its shadow. Gingerly, he kisses it; with less delicacy, brings them to the mattress.
Their chests, their hips collide. Something hard in Dean's pocket grinds into Castiel's hip. He doesn't ponder what it is or what it could be, only raises his hips to Dean's, ruts into him as though trying to remove all the barriers between them. Their movement against each other makes so many knots in so many muscles undo themselves.
He sighs into Dean's neck and kisses him just below the ear. "I missed you," he says. Dean gives his cheek a lick, a kiss. "More than the usual amount, I mean."
As they fall into another kiss, Castiel tries to use his knee to nudge Dean's jeans out of the way; it does not go as planned. He halfway considers sitting again. Instead, he only fumbles around, trying to find Dean's button and his fly while not compromising their kiss. This, too, does not go as planned. A frustrated grunt - Castiel grimaces at what his hands have trouble finding. Humans just have to make everything complicated, don't they? No matter. He practically tears the fly apart, shoves the zipper down, and bunches Dean's jeans up somewhere around his knees. He drags a leg down the inside of Dean's thigh and pulls Dean into another kiss, rubs down from his hips to his loins-
Dean catches him by the wrist and drops Castiel's arm to the mattress; Castiel frowns at him, not upset but confused. Where they relaxed, his muscles tense again. His breath catches in his throat. He reaches for Dean's groin again and, again, Dean grabs him by the wrist. Sighing, he struggles against Dean's grip and, for his efforts, Dean tightens it. Castiel pushes against Dean's arm. Dean pushes back. He presses Castiel's arm back into the bed, repeats this action when Castiel tries with the other arm.
Castiel sighs. "I know how to know you, Dean."
"Oh, I know you do," Dean says. "Just let me do this right, okay?"
This isn't the relief Castiel wants, not even close. He doesn't mean to, but he snaps, "What's to get right?" Dean sighs. He sits up, reaches for his jeans, fumbles in the pocket. He comes back with a little blue box. Skeptically, Castiel knots his brow. "What's that?" he asks.
Dean doesn't answer, but he opens the box, removes a ring. It's small, and Castiel can't tell if it's tarnished or not. Something's been carved into it, though. The box ends up on the floor. "That seems unnecessary," Castiel mutters.
"Yeah, I should've known better than listening to Sam." Dean swallows, and shakes his head. The arm supporting him quivers. "Cas, I... I'm not blind. I've seen you since you got back. And I'm not… I can't let you slip through the cracks on me."
Castiel wriggles out from under Dean. He sits, and kisses him. "I don't plan to-"
"But it's looked like-"
"I won't, but… I'm a warrior, Dean. It was all I knew for millennia." A kiss. An exchange of glances. He whispers, "…I want to come with you. On the next hunt."
Dean nods. "Just… put this on first."
Castiel acquiesces, sliding the circlet on his right ring finger. Jimmy's wedding ring was always on the left, until Castiel took it off. In the lamplight, he can't quite make out what the words are. "Did you try to teach yourself Enochian?"
Dean smiles, claps a hand on Castiel's shoulder, laughs - the affectionate one. "It's supposed to say, 'I love you.'"
"It's clumsy," Castiel says. He pulls Dean into a kiss, then knocks one of Dean's legs out from under him. Castiel turns him over onto the mattress. "But I reciprocate."