Fic: Life on Earth - Part 5/? [SPN]
TITLE: "Life on Earth" - Part 5/?
AUTHOR: Nansense
RATING: This part R for swearing and adult themes
PAIRINGS: Dean/Castiel, Dean/Lisa
SPOILERS: All of Season 5, and Season 6... kinda?
SUMMARY: With Lucifer dead, Sam in the ground and the world effectively saved, Dean has forsaken hunting and everyone associated with it to settle into a life of domestic bliss with Lisa and her son, Ben. The only ghosts left for Dean to lay to rest are his own, but they are plenteous indeed, and some of them don't go down without a fight.
DISCLAIMER: Supernatural and all associated content is, sadly, owned by others much more fortunate and creative than I. Up yours, Kripke.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This part was really difficult to write; it started off as a bunch of dialogue that took part right on the heels of the previous part, all in Dean and Lisa's living room... but eventually I realized how much that didn't work and set to furiously re-writing. I think it now works much better, as a scene, and hopefully I'm not alone in thinking that. At least this way I got to throw in some wing action, if yaknowwhatimean. Or, not. This remains un-beta'd, but I continue to thank extraonions for her willingness to do so.
Life on Earth (Pt. 5/?) by Nansense
He gives no more warning than that before covering Dean’s hand with his own, and within the space of a blink they are standing on the altar of a church. At least, Castiel is standing; Dean is bent double and fighting the urge to vomit. After a few seconds, it passes, and he straightens to look around. In the near-darkness, the air is cool and incense-stuffy in a way that Dean has always secretly liked. Had the Winchesters ever been religious, that alone would have been a reason to go to church on Sundays. Cas is looking at him as though he both understands the feeling, and is amazed that Dean has given it any thought.
To shift the focus away from himself, Dean says, “Really, Cas? You tryin’ to convert a sinner after all these years?”
“We enjoy the irony too much to do that,” Cas responds with a half-smile, and Dean knows it’s the royal ‘We’ that he’s invoking. “Come with me,” he says, beckoning.
The church is small, provincial; the primary materials of construction seem to be wood and stone, and Dean wouldn’t be surprised if they were in the countryside somewhere. He’s been in dozens of little churches like this before. Cas crosses the alter in fewer than four strides, approaching a nondescript wooden door that probably leads to the sacristy. He opens it and motions for Dean to enter.
Much like the church itself, the sacristy is small and dusty. With the lights off and all the props put away, it looks like any other unremarkable room. Dean is trying to figure out why Castiel is showing this to him, but it turns out to be just a shortcut on their way to the clergy house at the back of the church.
Housed in a separate building, unlike most boarding houses for the celibately-inclined, it looks more like some guy’s house than anything-albeit with roughly the same level of personality and charm as a retirement home. Before Dean can make a stupid joke about the statues of mournful angels littering the shelves, Cas cuts him off with a glare and a gesture to be silent, and directs them up to the second level. His footfalls make far less noise than Dean’s on the stairs, which sound increasingly like elephant steps the more he tries to be quiet. Their destination turns out to be a smallish bedroom at the far end of the second floor, whitewashed and barely more welcoming than a monk’s cell.
Castiel shuts the door after Dean, who takes this as invitation to speak up. “Great tour, Cas. I like the ambience of repressed sexual urges and old guy. Also, what gives?”
A dim lamp comes on to illuminate the room at a wave of Castiel’s hand, and when he simply folds his arms and looks around, Dean forces himself to do the same. Aside from the bed that doesn’t look like it has ever been slept in, there is the lamp and a wooden table next to a worn reading chair. A small, overloaded bookshelf slumps in the corner. Nothing in the room can tell Dean anything about its occupant, until he notices a familiar black suit hanging from the back of the closet. He has to squint in the low lamplight for a moment until it clicks.
“Dude, you live here?” splutters Dean, because the idea is weird. “You actually come here to sleep?”
“I do not need to sleep,” Cas reminds him, indignant. “Usually there is much to occupy my time, but on the occasion that I have a moment to myself, it is useful to have someplace to retire instead of waiting on street corners all the time. I make sure that no one disturbs me here.” Typical of Cas, to sound so resentful and reasonable at the same time, that Dean can’t really argue. He wonders if hanging up the suit was Cas’s idea of interior decorating.
“What’d you do,” he asks instead, “con a priest?”
“This was the one place I could think of that I could access by revealing my true nature, rather than hiding it. I might have insinuated that granting me this space would be in the service of my Father.” Cas’s head tilts in the usual way, just one floppy ear short of a starring role in Marley and Me 2 . “Politely.”
“Did you have to flash a little wing?” goads Dean. “Have you caught him trying to peek underneath your jacket?”
Cas rolls his eyes, hilariously, Dean thinks, because he tries not to look like he’s doing it; and at this he realizes that any peevishness he felt earlier about Cas infiltrating his family, about being so difficult to understand, is just gone. Rather, he’s kind of charmed that the angel has developed a consistent repertoire of expressions over the last four years that are so Cas-never exaggerated, always a little baffled, a little grumpy-when he’s not trying too hard to fit in, that is. That he waffles between childlike incomprehension and Sam-worthy expressions of impatience makes Dean want to push every button he has, repeatedly, like a kid taunting an angry goose with a stick. The payoff, those flashes of raw emotion that Cas sometimes has, is so much more satisfying when Dean has to work for it, when it belongs to him and no one else. There’s only one other person in the world Dean has ever felt that possessive of: it isn’t Lisa or Ben.
Plopping down to recline on the bed, which gives an ancient squeak of protest, Dean can see Castiel evaluating whether or not to take the seat next to him. Dean would like him to. He doesn’t, but still looks conflicted about it, eyes moving from Dean to the bed almost comically.
They stare at each other for an endless minute until Dean finally says, “So.”
This word, however innocuous, seems to flip a switch in Cas, who bursts out with, “What the hell do you want from me?” in a voice somewhere between a plea and a growl. Dean blinks. So much for unexaggerated feelings, for constancy. He wonders whether spending too much time between Heaven and Earth hasn’t made Cas a little bi-polar.
“Well, holy shit,” he responds. “Do you want to tell me how you really feel?”
“Don’t patronize me,” Cas scoffs, and gee, isn’t that ripe. “Perhaps you should just tell me what you’d like me to be, since clearly I don’t have any clue. Angel, human, what is it? When we first met, I was other to you, and I felt like I did not fully understand those differences until I started to Fall-which, by the way, you wanted me to do. Yet I did it, because apparently I do everything you want, and because everything you did was a mystery that I wanted to understand.”
He’s actually pacing, which resembles a stressed-out dude far less than it does a tiger at the zoo, stalking the confines of the cage with fury and a very inhuman sense of self-righteousness. Cas’s tirade sounds pretty human, but he’s got the primal fury and indignation thing going for him in spades.
He continues, “Instead of being thankful, of even acknowledging what I gave up, Dean, you chose to understand me less. You… you refused what I’d become for you. So now I no longer know.” Outburst having lost its steam, Cas stops and adds, more lamely, “And that is how I really feel.”
In all the millions of things there are to process from that information, Dean true to form, settles on the most trivial. “For future reference, Cas, when someone asks you to tell them how you really feel, you shouldn’t actually do as they say.”
“And the alternative is to continue lying to each other, is that it? Perhaps we can beat each other to a pulp and see if the truth is visible in our entrails.”
Dean makes a face of disgust at that mental picture. “Jesus, Cas. I get your point already.”
“Clearly you don’t, since you’re still making jokes at me.”
“Well, what else am I supposed to say?” demands Dean, launching himself from the bed and attempting to physically intimidate the angel with his measly extra two inches in height. Castiel’s glower and sheer angelic presence more than prevents this from being successful, but Dean refuses to back down. “You haven’t said or done one thing that I understand since you showed up, and dude, you were the one who left when I was totally alone. Now you’re trying to blame me because you feel bad about it?”
“I left because you pushed me away!” Cas shouts, shoving against Dean’s chest, and at that there is the sound of movement from elsewhere in the house, the priest’s voice calling out in confusion.
Dean glances at the door when he hears footsteps begin to approach, a light coming on in the hallway, and looks back at Cas in concern. Any moment now they will have questions to answer and lies to tell, and Dean thinks it’s a sign of Castiel’s distress that he didn’t bother to keep the old man asleep throughout their argument. The angel, however, is unperturbed.
“Don’t think this is over,” he warns, as the doorknob turns.
The priest, who is actually closer to middle age than Dean assumed, opens the door and takes in the scene with confusion, more so when he recognizes Castiel. Although there is a shotgun cocked under his arm, his face is a combination of anger and fear. “What on Earth--” he begins to say, losing his voice when Castiel’s wings snap out behind him and all the glass in the room shatters.
The gun goes off and blows a hole in the wall somewhere to the left of Dean, who is thrown back onto the bed by the force of Castiel’s power unleashed even a little bit; at the same time, he has to cover his head with his arms to shield himself from the exploding window, although the wings protect him from most of the glass. A gale begins outside as though God felt the moment called for extra special effects. Wind and rain pound through the broken window and Dean is soaked through and freezing in a matter of seconds.
Castiel’s wings, which Dean has never seen in true form, are truly enormous, an oily black mass of feathers touched with silver and gold. They seem to overtake the room, pressed almost flush against the ceiling, beating at the walls as though confined. They are both frightening and beautiful. When the priest falls to his knees in terror, Dean kind of understands the feeling.
“Cas!” he shouts over the wind, slamming the wall with his fist. “This is such bullshit!”
“Excuse me?” Cas demands, like Dean just called him a dirty word.
Before he rounds on Dean, he reaches out and sends the priest into dreamland with a touch to the forehead, catching the man in mid-slump so he can lay him upon the floor with gentleness at odds with his rage. When he finally turns, his wings smack Dean in the face, smelling of snow and ice. Dean beats them back out of impatience.
“Is that all you have to say to me?” Cas asks, sounding truly curious even through his anger. He’s breathing like he just ran a ten-mile footrace. However hard it is not to be intimidated by him in full angel mode, Dean suspects that the display is more of a knee-jerk emotional reaction than a scare tactic. Or so he hopes, anyway.
“No, it’s not,” Dean tells him, voice still a holler. He takes a deep, steadying breath, though what he’s about to say is going to require a lot more than air. “I didn’t fucking want to push you away, Cas. I know what you gave up for me. I--” His voice falters. Cas is still looking at him expectantly. Dean knows he won’t enjoy the next thing to come of Dean’s mouth. “I’m just.. I’m a fucking idiot. Distancing myself seemed better than letting you watch me fail again,” he finishes, suddenly feeling very exposed and very, very damaged.
For a moment, the only movement in the room is the wind blowing the curtains and the restless fluttering of Castiel’s wings. Dean tries to read his face for a sign of understanding, of recognition, even if only to acknowledge his own stupidity and selfishness, but there is too much to decipher in Cas’s expression, too much pain. He is angry at himself for putting it there. Perhaps this is why he flinches when Castiel drops in close to him on the bed, letting his wings support his weight against the wall; he doesn’t know what to expect.
Their faces are so close that Dean can taste his strange, odourless breath, feel the warmth of Cas’s body bleeding into his own like the blast of heat from an oven. The brand on his right shoulder sears with an intense, pleasurable fire, and in a surge of realization he opens himself to the unmistakable pull he’s spent so long running from. At this, Dean inhales so sharply that the sound changes Castiel’s face when he hears it, expression softening as though someone has either drugged him or hit a sensitive spot. As the wind dies down and moonlight floods through the window, Dean sees that Cas’s eyes have darkened almost to black, pupils blown, confliction and want flashing across his furrowed brows and pale, slack mouth like a thunderstorm. Eyes locked, breathing in the air that is almost thick between them, Dean wants to kiss him so badly his hands are shaking with it.
Castiel’s lips are on his before the thought has passed his mind. The kiss is not gentle, which makes Dean give an involuntary moan from the very back of his throat. An answering noise from Cas tightens Dean’s chest and fills his stomach with warmth, and he drives his hands into Castiel’s hair to hide the tremors. After four years of burying this feeling into the darkest and most vulnerable corners of his psyche, the effect is of lightning striking a brush, electrifying and instantly setting everything aflame. Balancing fully on his wings, which brush against Dean’s skin and send shivers through his body, Dean feels one hand on his side and the other on his neck, holding them close, together. Cas kneels in the V of Dean’s legs and presses him back against the wall, even as Dean arches into his body and wraps one hand around the back of Castiel’s thigh for support. The feel of those soft full lips and biting kisses only burns him up more, to the point that he wants to breathe and breathe from Castiel’s mouth until he loses consciousness.
Without warning, Castiel’s lips are gone and Dean is left staring into his flushed, panting face, eyes half-lidded. He’s sure his own face is a mirror image of frustration and crazed arousal. Dean tightens his fingers in Cas’s hair experimentally, savouring the hitch of breath he gets in response, but Cas doesn’t allow him to reinitiate the kiss, only continues looking at him.
Dean says, “Cas, what?” and nearly falls forward when he is suddenly released.
Castiel has been known to do some pretty outlandish things from time to time, among them molotoving Michael the Archangel and the small matter of pulling Dean out of Hell. Dean is ready to add “cockteasing” to the list when Cas seems to shy away from him, actually looking more distressed and miserable than before he turned Dean’s life upside down; he raises a hand as though preparing to poke Dean unconscious with his two-fingered salute. It would be a mistake, though, because this is nothing compared to the reality of the surprising shit Cas is capable of. Rather than putting Dean to sleep or kissing him back, Castiel grimaces and pulls back his hand. Dean barely has time to register the fist before it is smashing into his head.
Part Six