And the Moment Lingers On - DCBB - 6/6
Part 6
Previous II Master Post II Coda
“He’s going to die dearest, and you’re going to watch.”
The words echo through his ears as he hears the shouts of the people in the square. Angry, vicious, violence streaming through the air. It’s so thick it suffocates him, inescapable from where he’s bound overlooking the square, thick rope twining around his legs and his arms, holding him in place on the ledge just outside the Cathedral walls.
The humans are all in cages below him, Lucifer’s men swarming the square, axes and swords out. Beyond the circle, other angels have gathered, the expression on their faces half terrified, half absorbed. And in the center, in the center Dean is bound to a wooden pole, straw laid at his feet, the torches on either side glistening menacingly.
“Please,” He whispers, to someone, to no one. “Please, help.” But Dean is gone, and Balthazar is locked away, and he has no one, there is no one left to listen, no one is going to come. There won’t be any saving this time. He knows that, in his heart. It’s all over now. He never should have left these walls. All the trouble it’s caused - everything it’s going to cost.
Dean.
The drums start their heavy beats down below and Lucifer steps forward, addresses the crowd, speaks of purity and truth, the need for extermination. His wing snaps out of its own accord. Struggle, it seems to whisper, fight. But I can’t, he shakes his head at it, I can’t.
“And he will be the first to fall.”
Friendship, Cas, life. You can’t stay up here forever.
But what good has leaving done, it’s ruined everything.
Abomination.
“The punishment is death.”
Cassy.
“And the punishment is just.”
If you ever need me.
He yells in frustration too many voices playing in his head, tugs forward, something filling him, something strong that floods through him as he tries to drown out the noise. It whispers through his body, softly at first, but building and building. It’s like every time Dean’s touched him, like when Balthazar’s arms made their way around his body, but stronger. He’s never felt it like this, the hurtling energy rushing through him, but it comforts him despite its strength. He recognizes it like a familiar dream that he’s had over and over again, but has been snatched away the moment he wakes.
Grace.
Love.
It surges through him, makes him strong enough to try to struggle, to push forward and fight. He yanks and the rope gives a little, he can scarcely believe it, again and his hand is free. The power rushes absurdly through him and he doesn’t understand it, except he knows with sudden clarity that it’s going to save Dean, and he needs nothing else.
But even the grace, which frees him, doesn’t grow him another wing, even though for a moment, he’d been so sure that it might.
“Please,” He whispers again, flapping as hard as he can, Lucifer nears Dean below him, “Just this once.”
He flaps in place, jumps forward as hard as he can as the straw starts to burn, for ceremony, he knows Lucifer could smite Dean on sight, again, he tells himself, throwing himself forward, falling over, but it doesn’t hurt, the grace healing the bruises before they so much as form, so much quicker than before. He thinks he understands now, maybe just a little, why he’s felt so small this whole time, so halved.
But there’s no time now, no time to think. He has to do this, he’s the only one left who can, this lands on him. He shuts his eyes, making the decision, the last image he sees before he leaps straight off the edge, is one of Dean’s terrified eyes glinting in the firelight.
The air rushes past his face, the wind cold, carrying with it the scent of smoke and he loses himself in sensation for a moment, in the freedom as his wing pushes through the air, carries him down, but he isn’t falling. No, no, he thinks with a sudden start, eyes opening, no, he’s flying. He’s flying. The square coming into sharper focus as he nears, as he wings down, lands in front of Dean and cuts through the rope with the knife his hands grab for.
And before Lucifer can so much as close his mouth, he’s gone again, taken off soaring up towards the Cathedral, Dean cradled in his arms unconscious, the fact the human was ever a heavy weight for him, nothing more than a memory.
“Sanctuary.”
He yells down to the crowd when he lands, yells until his voice is hoarse, eyes looking out at the mass of people, at the fire that eats away at the straw. Sanctuary.
--
“After them,” Lucifer roars, “Attack, now.” That damned monster, he is going to kill him, he is going to kill them both. He doesn’t care where they are or what sanctuary they plead. He is going to murder them with his own hands.
‘
“You can’t,” A voice sounds from his side. “You can’t actually attack the Cathedral, bro.”
“I can,” He roars, ignoring the way the angels in the crowd are looking at him, confused, frightened, perhaps a little disgusted. He’ll kill them too if he has to. “This is my city; I’ll do as I please.”
He shoves Gabriel aside and moves forward, yelling the orders to attack once more. But his brother is in front of him again, something like open horror in his face as he looks up at his brother. “‘Fraid I can’t let you. That’s too far.”
The crowd that’s watching murmurs their assent, looks from Lucifer, to the humans, to the cathedral and the men that have started assailing it.
“I’ll decide,” Lucifer threatens, angrily, the fire flaring up as he shouts, “When it’s too far.” And with that, he spreads his wings and takes off towards the top of the building, towards the place Cas just vanished into. Obsession, mad intent, in his eyes.
Gabriel pauses to watch him and then shrugs, shaking his head, opening all the cages with a snap of his fingers. “Have it your way.”
It takes the humans moments to flood out of the cages, most of them still with swords tucked against their sides. And when they rush at the guards barging into the cathedral, pulling away at the doors, and the statues, and the decorations, at the sacred space, it only takes the angels watching seconds to join.
--
He was too late. He lays Dean’s body, motionless, heavy and still, onto the bed and kneels at his side, head bowing. He was too late, failed yet again. His shoulders shake with sobs as he clutches the human’s hand.
The green eyes won’t ever open again, and the half smile won’t ever be sent his way. He’s lost, this is a loss, and he’s never felt one so acutely before. There’s a big hollow space inside of him, one not even his grace can fill. He’d thought in snatches and snippets about what it might be like, if he could just get away, run somewhere far. Disappear and find everything the other had talked about the first time they’d met. Had imagined, though he’d barely allowed himself to, what it could be like to love the other, the way he thinks he loves Balthazar, the way he thought he saw in Dean’s eyes when their eyes had met before everything had fallen apart.
But he failed, he failed
He hears the yells growing louder as the guards storm up the stairs, as they stomp through the building, but what does he care. He was fighting a lost battle anyway.
“Oh Castiel,” He hears a soft voice from behind him and he turns around angrily. Lucifer, all his fault, this is all his fault. He reaches for the discarded knife and whirls around. “Oh Castiel, I tried to protect you.” There’s nothing but sweetness and sympathy in Lucifer’s tone. “I tried to shield you from all of this, but you insisted.”
“This is your fault.” He growls angrily, the sparks of grace humming through him and Lucifer smiles at him.
“I see you’ve retrieved your grace.” It’s almost praising, “Perhaps you are ready for it now, you could come home, be with the others.” There’s promise in the words, “Your family.”
He tries to ignore the tendrils of want that wrap around him, the images the words bring to mind, long forgotten memories of others surfacing, becoming clearer and clearer since Balthazar’s reappearance, but something about Lucifer’s presence makes them doubly so. “I thought I was an abomination.” He tries to distance himself from the spell, to remind himself that Lucifer has caused all of this, this pain, this agony.
“A harsh word,” His guardian looks apologetic. “But you’ve been very brave Castiel, exceedingly idiotic, but very brave, and we value that.”
Cas stands there for a moment, torn, and then takes just one, just a little tiny step forward, and Lucifer’s grin widens, but a cough from the bed makes him turn around and draw towards it instead.
“What -” And Cas has thrown his arms around Dean, hugging him tightly before he can get anything more out of his mouth.
“You’re alive,” He whispers as Dean hugs him back, tightly, shaking for a moment, but then all of a sudden, throws him to the side, the whistle of Lucifer’s sword just missing his body.
“Fools,” The angel roars, stabbing wildly again and Cas ducks, Dean rolling off the bed. They can’t get to the door, it’s blocked off by Lucifer and there’s no other way out but down. They run for the ledge as the sword swings turn into bolts of power which smash into the walls, sending shatterings of rock flying into the air and turning the bed into firewood.
“You can’t hide from me any longer.” Lucifer sends a bolt at Dean, he ducks, but the force of it sends him flying anyway, Cas grabbing onto him just in time. Holding him close, trying to fly again, and willing his wing to work as it did.
But it doesn’t now, now that he needs it to, not as well, and he can only hover, so he does, jumps onto the ledge below and onto a statue. Lucifer pokes his head around the balcony, lips curling and spread his own wings, majestic and whole, and flies at them, his sword in his hand again, the mania bright in his eyes.
Cas hovers up, zig zags across the side of the church, tries to lose him but it’s an almost impossible task, he’s faster and he’s stronger and even with some of Cas’s grace back, he’s still more powerful.
“Hover at him,” Dean murmurs in his ear, adjusting his grip.
“Are you insane?” Cas asks him as Lucifer’s blade just misses them, another couple feet’s distance separating them again.
“Trust me.” Dean shifts, grips onto Cas’s back, “Go at him, straight.”
So Cas does, lifts a steely gaze to Lucifer and surges, as hard as he can, almost flying again, wing batting in the air and pushes forward as directly into the other angel as he can. The older angel watches him curiously for a moment, but shifts away at the last minute and Cas slams into the stone, whimpering.
But his groan isn’t the only one, the small knife in Dean’s hand wet with blood. It’s the same one he’d freed Cas with at the festival, not a fancy blade, but it’s as angel killing as any, and it sheers through Lucifer’s left wing as he flies away.
“Again,” Dean tells Cas, and Cas is already flying, “Again, now.” And the stab wound gets bigger, as Lucifer so distracted and shocked by the injury, fails to look up in time, another one gracing his right wing. He sends a slam of power their way in retaliation and Dean almost stumbles off and they pause panting on a ledge.
“He’ll heal in a moment,” Cas whispers, taking Dean’s hand when it comes over his shoulder to twine with his own.
“I know,” Dean breathes hard. “I know.”
So Cas takes off again, hovers from statue to balcony despite the exhaustion, the way his body hurts, and lunges once again. Lucifer flying to the side and then slamming into them, his sword landing exactly against Cas’s chest. His wings come crashing around them, squeezing too tightly, so they can’t struggle away. Cas feels his wing twist in all the wrong ways.
“Goodbye.”
But instead of the kiss of the knife, Cas sees a brilliant light and at the same time, feels Dean’s weight lift off of him and fall away, his own body dropped suddenly and crumpling down, wing painfully moving, barely coordinated enough to get him to the nearest wall, and he looks down fast enough to see Lucifer’s body falling, a knife plunged into his heart, and Dean’s right next to it.
--
Of all the ways he’d thought he’d die today, falling had been pretty low on the damn list. Burning, stabbing, those had been more par for the course. But this, well he’s pretty damn sure there’s some kind of really not funny, but maybe, he’ll laugh about this later if he survives, irony going on here.
Sorry, Cas. He thinks to himself. And Sam, and Dad, probably Balth too, pretty damn sorry that people care for him and he’s a mess who can’t keep himself from dying for thirty seconds.
He never should have gotten in Lucifer’s way, never should have given Cas the map. He hopes they aren’t dead, the rest of them. They don’t deserve that for his stupidity.
“So little trust,” A voice hums in his ear but it’s probably just the whistling of the damn wind trying to fool him into opening his eyes so he can see his impending doom, because that would really be the only thing that could possibly make this better.
But winds don’t really lift you up, do they? Not usually, and don’t feel kind of warm as they pull you from your doom. But there’s been kind of a lot of dooms lately and maybe he’s sick and tired of them, maybe it would be easier to just be doomed already and get it over with
“You know,” Balthazar’s voice whispers in his ear as they soar upwards. “Now that it’s over would be a really moronic time to die. Even for you.”
“Fuck,” He groans, finally opening his eyes, but cracking a smile when he sees Cas waiting at the top of the ledge, relief written all over his features, “Just let me fall.”
--
They’re all a little, a lot, banged up. And kind of worse for wear, Cas’s wing is at a contorted angle, though he assures Dean it will heal, the cut across Balth’s chest is open and glowing again, and there’s all kind of other smaller ones that get hidden when Dean’s eyes linger too long. They’ll heal, it’s snapped.
And he’s well, he’s okay, he thinks. Killed the really bad bad guy, collapsed in a heap with an angel and a half in a destroyed room, still got his limbs, lost his knife, but Cas makes up for that when he hands back the amulet.
“Yeah,” He shakes his head, “Sorry about that. I didn’t think they’d be all gung ho with the angel killing stuff, my dad -”
“Yes,” Balthazar agrees, “Clearly, you didn’t think.”
And Cas nudges him with an elbow and turns a smile onto Dean. “We are quite alright.”
And well, for that smile, and the whole you know, victory thing, and the fact that he’s right there and close and it’s Cas and probably, he fought for all of this without really knowing what he was missing, he leans forward and brings their lips together. Feels that jolt which Cas explains as something like his grace responding positively to Dean, which strange, but hey, he can dig it, and kisses him.
It’s pretty much everything he “hadn’t” been imagining that day at the festival - soft and innocent, for all the angel’s newfound power, even though he can taste that too, ozone and energy, something strong lingering behind everything he’s come to know Cas to be.
When he pulls away Cas is smiling up at him. He looks a little bewildered, but curious, and Dean’s thinking he could do that a couple more times, he’s thinking maybe they might even have the time.
Maybe it should, but doesn’t, bother him that Balth and Cas are holding hands now. He’s not sure how this relationship is going to work exactly, but then again after the last week of his life, he’s pretty sure he can handle anything the world decides to throw in his face. A whacked out relationship in the face of maniacal angels just seems to kind of pale in comparison.
They sit collapsed for a while longer, Cas leaning against Dean, his hand in Balthazar’s, their legs all in a kind of twisted heap. But eventually, this momentary bubble of peace they’ve built on the floor of the wrecked room has to end, he knows that much. But he’s glad he’s not the one who has to do it when it happens, because he likes it here, in the quiet, with Cas and Balth.
“Well,” Balthazar swings himself a little more forward, sits up a tad straighter, breaks the spell. “What now?”
Dean sighs, sits up himself and then pulls himself to his feet, reaching down a hand for Cas. Now, he supposes, they go see what the damage is.
--
It’s funny, Cas thinks, as they make their way down the stone steps that had once been so forbidden, how all at once everything seems different. The fear somehow lifted away and everything that had seemed so intimidating now is just...stone, walls, flesh.
It might be because his grace is still sparking inside of him, rolling through his veins and settling in his cells in a way that he’s not quite used to. And it makes him feel strong, something he’s never felt. Yet he knows it wasn’t the grace that let him fly, wasn’t that that pushed away the darkness and the doubt.
In any case, he pauses at the furthest point he’s ever been in the entrance hall, the thought of walking outside no longer makes him cringe. To fear that, after everything, seems laughable. And he’s no longer sneaking, no longer alone.
He watches Balthazar lean in to mutter something in Dean’s ear, something that makes the other grin, and then the door opens and sunlight is streaming in, the dark of the night faded away. It’s the first time he’ll ever walk out this door. Perhaps, it’ll even be the last. He takes one more look around him and steps forward. Yes. He should think the last.
Outside, it’s quiet now in comparison to before, the fire still smoldering quietly. Dean looks at it, face hard for a moment, but then bends to catch a gangly boy that comes running at him, a big smile breaking through the gloom.
The humans and the angels are mixed together now, listening to a stockier shorter man in the full armor of the archs give orders about what needs to be done. He doesn’t seem too pleased about the task or the attention, but when he sees Cas looking over, he turns and winks, and Cas recognizes him as the intruder to his room what seems like ages ago. Hope edges through him.
“What happened?” He wonders aloud to no one in particular, curious as how all the changes occurred, what exactly had happened while they’d fought Lucifer atop the tower.
Balthazar gives him a little smile, “Seems like you weren’t the only one tired of good old Lucy.” He laughs, “and he went a little crazy at the end there, as I’m sure you’ve noticed. Scared half the city to death. No one wants to think their leader’s a madman, but when he throws the fit right in front of you.” He shrugs. “They’ve called for Michael, I believe.” His hand slips around Cas’s waist “But I think we’re alright for now darling.” He pauses, seeming to consider for a moment before he adds “I have a house...if you’d like to...”
“Hey,” Dean cuts in, straightening, the boy running off into the cathedral, his arm slithering up to mirror Balth’s. “I gotta house too.”
“Well, considering yours is under a cemetery, in the middle of the woods, a rather ridiculous distance away, I should think mine would be preferable.” Balthazar’s hand shifts against his back and he looks from one of them to the other, torn somewhere between amused and concerned.
“Yeah, you would think that,” Dean’s lips curl in mock disdain. “I’m sure yours is just lovely, sweetheart.” The last words twist out in a high pitched mockery of Balthazar’s voice.
Cas laughs as Balthazar glowers, but he’s almost sure their hands are intertwined behind his back. “Actually, I think I’d like my own house.” He interrupts them before the whole conversation comes to blows or, well, other things. “But the two of you will be most welcome to visit.” His voice is even, but the corners of his lips quirk a little.
“Yeah, but tonight Cas.” Dean chuckles, something pleased in his tone of voice, he likes that Cas is teasing them, that Cas is here. “Gotta stay somewhere.”
He leans up looks from one of them to the other. “Are you going home?” He questions. And Dean nods.
“Yeah, gotta see if there’s a home left anyway, figure out what we’re doing from here and all that.” He casts a glance sideways to Gabriel. “If they’ll let us move back into the sunshine and all.”
Cas nods, yes that is to be expected, but for once there’s nothing expected of him, he doesn’t have a place where he must be, can do whatever it is he’d like and it’s a little overwhelming, choice.
“But there’s room for two.” Dean adds after a moment, watching Cas, gaze flicking to Balth for a moment and then straight ahead.
Cas is less subtle about it and turns his eyes to the blonde angel, waiting.
“Oh, alright.” Balthazar sighs rolling his eyes. “To the hovel we go.” And there’s a shift of movement against his back and Balthazar yelps in pain, dragging his hand away, before glaring over at Dean who smiles back widely, drawing Cas closer and then with an eye roll at Balthazar’s slight pout, reaches out for him as well.
“I don’t think it matters where we go.” Cas says after a moment, and Dean thinks about telling him you don’t really say things like that, not yet, and Balthazar considers making some kind of joke. But in the end, they both stay silent.
And the moment lingers on.
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