SPN: The End of Innocence (3/8) [T]
Fandom:
Supernatural
Title:
The End of Innocence
Chapter 3:
Second Opinions
In which the shit hits the fan in the real world and Castiel becomes the talk of the camp.
Author:
lt_indigo
Pairing(s):
suggestions of possible Dean/Cas. [Spoiler (click to open)]Unrequited, complicated Dean/Claire
Warning(s):
[Spoiler (click to open)]character death
Disclamer:
Kripke owns, not me.
Word count:
2,485
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The Illinois refugees quickly settled into their new roles in the camp. Dean and Castiel reassigned one of the crews working on the perimeter fence to Jane, to remodel the First Aid cabin as their new clinic, and Melody was reassigned to the clinic as Jane’s personal supply officer. Claire approved of this immensely because, she had discovered while bonding with her new friend, before the Croatoan virus had started spreading, Melody had been saving up to go to school to study nursing. Claire was pretty sure that Chuck knew this too, and was keen for Melody to do something she would be well-suited to.
Over the first few days, Claire discovered that while Dean was technically in charge, he deferred a lot to Bobby Singer, a crotchety, wheelchair-bound man with a heart of gold who treated both Dean and Castiel like his own sons. It transpired that he was the one who had assigned tasks to his boys that they still stuck to, months down the line: Dean was responsible for the militia, training any man and woman who was able in the defence of the camp, and in striking out into the field for supplies; Chuck was in charge of said supplies, as Claire already knew; and in what had clearly been a fit of irony, Castiel was in charge of the people themselves. Anything to do with housing and finding the right people for the jobs that needed doing around camp was Castiel’s domain. And, somewhat surprisingly, he was good at it.
Bobby tended to hole himself up in the accessible cabin they had transformed for him: it already had its own bathroom facilities (unlike the rest) and a bedroom, but also a large open area that was stuffed with books they had rescued from his home before they fled. A table had been adapted to serve him as a desk for research, and Dean produced a chair for Claire too. Bobby was resistant to this plan at first, but Claire had always been a quick study, even before Castiel’s interference, and she now had a head filled with titbits on the supernatural that might have taken Bobby months to discover from reading alone.
At first, their research was almost purely focussed on reinforcing the security of the camp; a task they drafted Castiel for, given his extensive knowledge of warding symbols and millennia of experience in battling the forces of evil. Together, they drew up plans detailing exactly what wards were needed, and where they should be placed.
Claire’s days were spent with Bobby, her head buried in books, cross-referencing carefully to ensure that her information was accurate and could be used usefully. Her nights were spent in the cabin she shared with Castiel: it had two rooms, each with a bed, but after multiple nightmares, from all of them, they tended to share the queen-size, curled up together, protecting each other from their own demons and the encroaching winter. Claire considered herself very lucky that she still had her dad, that Castiel had been able to protect him for this long.
.oOo.
The days started to bleed together after a while. The only ones that stood out was when a group went out to gather supplies. Sometimes they brought back stray survivors, sometimes they came back fewer than they had been. Occasionally, one of them was unlucky enough to bring the Croatoan virus back with them after being injured in the field. All the men and women who went out had gotten used to looking for the early symptoms and, about three months after they arrived, Claire saw Dean shoot one of his men in the back of the head, eyes filled with regret. Claire stifled a scream and ran back into Bobby’s cabin. The old man asked no questions, only held his arms out to her and given her a little time to compose herself before gruffly insisting they carry on with their work.
That evening, Claire shook, unable to let go and sleep, and it was Castiel who held her rather than her dad. He too had been out in the field (he was horribly proficient with a gun), and had seen it for himself.
“One of my biggest regrets in my choice to leave Heaven is the loss of my healing ability,” he confided in her. “It is events such as this that truly remind me what I have lost, when I cannot help my allies.”
She couldn’t think of anything to say to that, really, so she turned in his arms so that she was facing him, and wrapped her arms around him, hugging him back, reassuring him.
.oOo.
Winter faded into spring, and one day, they managed to bring back news. Sometimes, the radio worked, picking up signals from DC or New York, both of which had inexplicably managed to hold out against the Croats, keeping some semblance of government in the east even though the Midwest had been written off completely and the south and west coast were falling fast. (On days where she was feeling particularly cynical, Claire suspected demonic involvement; possibly keeping some of humanity pure in case Lucifer needed them for some ritual or other.) Dean had come back from a hunt inexplicably angry, and Castiel dragged him off somewhere to calm down. This wasn’t an unknown turn of events: Bobby explained that Dean’s temper had been on a hair trigger since Sam had said yes, frustration at not being able to save his brother spilling over when something else riled him up, and only Cas could calm him down. Claire, along with the rest of the camp, had seen it on a few occasions; generally when they lost people. The worst until now had been the day they had lost Rufus, but this seemed worse still even though the whole crew had returned, unscathed but subdued.
Dean and Castiel’s absence was noticed at the evening meal. Melody very indiscreetly asked Claire if ‘Uncle Cas’ was with their fearless leader. In that way. Claire wished that the answer was yes, even if she would keep it secret to protect the two men’s privacy, but given that she and Cas had slept in the same bed every night since she had arrived, she knew it definitely wasn’t the case. So she answered honestly.
“But you must have seen how they look at each other,” Juanita, a fellow Illinois refugee and one of Melody’s bunkmates butted in. “And how Cas goes, like, extra quiet and distant whenever Dean’s in a foul mood.”
This was a phenomenon Claire had noticed. She didn’t think anyone else would have, though, although even the perceptive Juanita wouldn’t know that the same carried over to her dad too. Sometimes Claire thought the weird, uncomfortable, contemplative silences were caused by arguments she couldn’t hear, where her dad and Castiel were disagreeing about something.
“No!” Rhonda, another bunkmate declared, breaking into Claire’s thoughts. “Dean’s not gay. And Cas? He’s… Is he anything?”
Claire sighed. “He’s… complicated,” she allowed.
“You got that right, sister,” Rhonda said with a smile. Claire knew that all three of her friends were actually almost fond of Cas: he was always nice to them, in his own way; a little less distant than normal.
“I reckon he’s asexual,” Tracy, their final roommate mused, and Claire had to bite her lip to stop herself from smiling: she didn’t know how right she was. “I mean, he never seems to look at anyone, and it’s not as if there aren’t other good-looking men here, if that’s what he’s in to.
“Cody Payne?” Juanita suggested, making Tracy blush.
“Come on, Claire: spill,” Rhonda demanded. “What’s the deal with Cas?”
Claire shrugged. Okay, so she knew, but it wasn’t anyone’s business but Castiel’s. And hopefully Dean’s, but she wasn’t going to hold her breath.
“I honestly don’t know,” she admitted. “He’s never had a girlfriend, or a boyfriend.”
“That you know about,” Melody pointed out. “Didn’t you say your folks were religious?”
“Yes, but they weren’t like that,” Claire pointed out huffily. “If God made us the way we are, then He made gay people gay and straight people straight, and everything in between too. If God gives a rat’s ass about anything, I’m pretty sure it isn’t who we screw.”
“Speaking of,” Rhonda said, leaning forward on her elbows, “is there anyone you want to screw?”
The other four were all pretty open about themselves, but they were older, and it was easier for them: eighteen-year-old Rhonda and twenty-year-old Juanita were together, but kept it discrete in their room because they liked the atmosphere of the dorm; nineteen-year-old Tracy had her eyes on the slightly older Cody Payne, and Melody, the eldest at twenty, hadn’t yet found anyone in the camp who took her fancy. Claire wasn’t even fifteen yet, her birthday was a few weeks away yet. And yes, there was someone in camp she wanted, but that was even more complicated than Castiel’s relationship with Dean. Quite possibly because it was Castiel’s relationship with Dean: she didn’t know for sure whether the feelings were hers or not. And he was eighteen years her senior.
Even if he wasn’t old enough to be her father, this was either a teenager’s schoolgirl crush, or the completely unfathomable depth of emotion of a being who had seen the first fish leave the ocean, who had been created to love. Neither was fair to put on a man who was leading one of the last outposts of humanity, and so she would take this secret to her grave.
“I’m underage,” she replied simply.
“Sweetie, it’s the end of the world,” Melody pointed out; “I’m pretty sure age of consent issues went out the window months ago: you’re not exactly a kid, Claire, and the very survival of the human race could depend on our having kids.”
Claire shrugged. “There’s no-one anyway. They’re all too old for me.”
And so the girls spent the rest of the evening trying to work out Claire’s type, which she tried to keep as vague as possible to throw them off the scent. Her friends could never know, because she could never explain her dilemma to them: they didn’t know about Cas. They didn’t know who he really was, so they could never know that he had once been inside her (and didn’t that sound dirty?) and possibly, maybe, left some feelings behind.
.oOo.
Claire found out what had upset Dean so much later that night, when he crept into their cabin with only the softest of knocks to announce his presence. He didn’t so much as bat an eyelid at finding them curled up together, which led Claire to believe that Castiel must have told him.
“I need some advice from you guys,” he said, sliding down the wall of the cabin. There was a bottle of whiskey in his hand, which he waved at them almost absently. They both shook their heads as they got up, grabbing the bathrobes Chuck had grabbed from a Costco back in November. “You’re the only people with any experience of this.”
“Dean, you know I’m Jimmy, right?”
“Yeah, that’s kind of the point,” Dean replied, setting the bottle aside for the moment. “It’s in Europe now.”
Claire struggled to parse this comment, but her dad seemed to follow Dean’s train of thought just fine. “I know. I heard. I hear a lot these days.”
He sat opposite Dean, back against the bed, legs crossed comfortably. Claire joined them on the floor, sitting to her dad’s side.
“The virus, Claire,” her dad explained. “It’s been found in several cities across mainland Europe. It won’t be long before it hits Asia and Africa.”
“I can’t let this carry on,” Dean said miserably. “We’re not going to win this, there’s no way. There’s only one thing left, to give us any hope of surviving.”
“Dean, you can’t,” Jimmy said, staring at Dean, who looked away.
“Don’t look at me like he does,” Dean mumbled.
“You ever think he might have got it from me?” Jimmy pointed out, his tone harsh. “Dean, you can’t.”
“Can’t what?” Claire asked. Her dad turned his bright-eyed stare on her in warning, but she felt it was a justified question: after all, Dean had come to both of them, not just him. And he had come to them, not to Castiel.
“Oh! You’re a vessel?” A pause, then it clicked into place for her. After all, she knew a little something about angels and vessels, and it wouldn’t just be down to Dean if it were any old angel. She already knew that Sam was perfectly capable of hosting an archangel without spontaneously combusting, so it stood to reason that Dean was too.
“Michael.”
“You’re too smart, kid.”
“That’s not what you said when you wanted me researching,” she teased, and was ridiculously glad to get the smallest of smiles from him.
“True. Now, you guys are the only people I know who’ve said yes and survived to tell the tale. I know Cas said Michael’ll turn my brain to jello, but say he doesn’t: what’s it like?”
“I told you already,” Jimmy said softly.
“Comet, yeah.”
“It’s indescribable,” Claire said. “You’re part of something so much bigger than you ever realised, swept away by it, and it’s amazing and terrifying all at the same time.”
“Castiel is so much more than we can possibly understand,” Jimmy continued, “but I know this: I said yes twice, and it was because he has a purpose, because this is important, and we’re not; not really.”
Jimmy frowned and gave a pained groan, massaging his head.
“Dad?”
Jimmy gave a weak smile. “Castiel disagrees.”
“Of course he does.” Dean’s smile was tolerant, his eyes soft. “Cas, I know what you think, but butt out for a few, would you? It’s your vessels I need to talk to here. Claire, did it hurt?”
Her eyes moved from the hunched figure of her father to Dean. “Castiel never hurt either of us.” Her eyes flickered back. “Not intentionally, anyway. But we both know he’s not a typical angel, and he’s nowhere near as powerful as Michael. But I can’t believe you’d be afraid of a little pain.”
Dean gave her a proper smile then. “No, you’re right. I just want to go into this armed the best I can be.”
“Are you going to do it?” Jimmy definitely sounded as if he was in pain now, drawing their attention completely.
“Cas, knock it off!” Dean yelled, just as Jimmy’s eyes rolled back into his head and he slumped sideways onto the floor.
They both watched in horror as black, ashen wings appeared, one across the floor, the other draped over the bed: the vision that haunted both of their nightmares, the one thing neither of them had ever wanted to live to see.
“Daddy?!”
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