Fic! The Angel Came by Night (Such Angels Still Come Down remix) And my weekend....wheeeeee!
*waves*
Hello, lovelies! I got home today from a quite delightful visit with my Mum. The Bebe stayed the whole weekend with her cousin, aunt, and uncle, and my brother and his girlfriend were out of town, so it was just the two of us. Very nice! We windows shopped, and made fun of the ugly bags and clothing we saw, admired some very nice 'Mad Men-esque' dresses, ate Italian, and chocolate cake, and watched a movie. All in all, very relaxing, and it was nice to just sit and visit without any interruptions.
*hugs my Mum*
:)
Now i'm home, though, and a bit worn out from the drive, as always. It's not a long drive, but it always makes me woozy. It's nice to see my cats again, though - i missed them!
kamikazeremix fics have gone live, yay! So now I can post mine here, or of course, you can read at the comm. My own fic was also remixed, wheeeee! So there's that, too. The fic that i remixed was very different from my 'usual', so it was a bit of a challenge! I'm happy to say that the author was pleased with my effort, though, so that's pretty much all that counts. I rather like it, too. :)
So, here are the links. I put Generation Landslide up for remix, and got a lovely variation by poisontaster, Generation Landslide (The Quick Brown Fox Two-Step). Go! Read! Feed! :)
Then, my original fic was Dancers at the Lake by fannishliss.
And here's my remix. Beta'd by darkhavens, as always.
Title is from Adsum, by Richard Henry Stoddard
Castiel lost Jimmy Novak's body sometime in the second year AL. After Lucifer. The man himself had been long gone, but Castiel had become used to his shell. Fond of it, even. It was a shock to lose it. To be suddenly slung out, breathless and bodiless for the first time in years, lost, for an endless moment - unfamiliar, lizard-brain emotion scrabbling to assert itself in a form that had neither adrenaline nor instinct. Ashes and dust, and Castiel tasted them on his tongue, like grief.
The husk of the man was strewn across the battlefield by fire and motion and furious heat. Not even angels were immune to several thousand pounds of ammonium nitrate. If the demons could destroy the host, the angelic form had to waste time finding a new one - had to flee from human allies who could not look upon them without damage or death.
Dean had dug Jimmy's grave, and laid the tattered remains to a final and much-deserved rest, speaking over them a short, cracked prayer. Castiel had only hovered, knowing he couldn't speak - couldn't comfort the man he considered his friend. If indeed Dean even cared for comfort, anymore. He'd grown harder, since his brother had disappeared. Harder, more worn - less lighthearted. The days when he would spar with Castiel - joke with him, toss insults at him in the hopes of making Castiel crack - were gone.
Castiel missed them.
His new host was leaner, a little taller, and darker of eye and skin and hair. Of soul, but that was to be expected, these days. The wars had taken their toll on so many and God no long healed them. No longer seemed to care. Castiel still had faith, but his faith was tempered now. It was no longer blind. He had seen, and he had learned.
God had made man in his image, after all. And look at what man was: selfish, hateful, tyrannical, greedy. Jealous. Loving. Majestic. As below, so above. Castiel grieved for his former innocence, but in time he set that aside, as well. There was no time for it - no place for it. The wars had tempered them all. Especially Dean.
Now, sitting in some bar, in some little town, Dean looked older than his thirty-three years. He looked much like his father, with a touch of silver at his temples, and new scars on his skin. On his soul. His face was still ethereal in its beauty, but his gaze.... His gaze was hollow, distant; holding all the ugliness that he'd seen - all the misery, none of the joy. He'd lost something essential, Dean had, when his brother had slipped away, and Castiel knew that if his plan failed - then Dean would fail. His heart was no longer in the hunt, or the wars. He was running on duty and instinct; sheer force of habit. It hurt to see.
Castiel crossed the room, taking in nothing but the scarred leather over Dean's shoulders, the weary slump of his spine. Castiel wished to put his hand to Dean's shoulder once again and pull him from this perdition, as well, but he knew he could not. No one could, but Sam.
He settled next to Dean, refusing the bartender's offer, and looking steadily over until Dean lifted his gaze from his marred knuckles and acknowledged him. Castiel took a deep breath, knowing his next words would set the plan in motion. "The wars are nearly over."
"I'm through, that's for sure," Dean said. He drank the last of his beer - started to stand, and Castiel put a hand to his shoulder, gripping too tightly in his urgency, making Dean flinch. Dean didn't realize how true those words were - the deadly finality in them; the thing that Castiel must change.
"There is still something more for you to do."
The garrison was sadly empty now. So many of his brothers and sisters had fallen. Nearly as many as had Fallen, long ago. Oh, so long ago. Castiel sat slumped against a wall, watching two of the Principalities spar, their host bodies sweating - spinning - moving with precision and grace. He could see, as well, their other selves, curling light that flamed and foamed, singing with an unearthly pitch that resounded in Castiel's bones like the song of the stars. Of the Infinite.
As he watched, he sensed another hovering nearby. One of the highest choirs - Seraphim. Drakones, in the old words; serpents. And they were. Beings of pure fire, who continuously looped and coiled, straining ever upward, toward God. They had no name - no self. They were the pure - the divine - and they had no business in the garrison.
The Principalities slipped away, their own nature answering the Seraphim and flaring bright for a moment before being damped down into the host-bodies. Castiel felt his own Grace yearning toward the Seraphim; yearning for the clean, white light and utter certainty of it. Seraphim had not ever taken hosts or descended to the Earth and their faith was burnished bright. Untouched, unwavering, and pure. It was like a draught of sweet water and Castiel....
Rejected it. All but choked on it; bitterness on his tongue like gall. Disappointment.
"What will you?" he asked, and the Seraphim drifted to him, engulfed him for a moment - sheer heat and energy, a voice like a silver flame. "It's nearly over. We're nearly done. Only a few remain," Castiel said, and the flame burned in him, making his host-body shudder. It was too immense for pleasure, too distant for pain. It simply was, and Castiel did not want it. Did not want that loss of self. He'd fought too hard for what he had.
"No. Sam must live. We will find a way. I will not be moved." Disobedience, yes, but he learned in the second year of the wars that God would not punish him. Only the others, and they no longer dared. Castiel had grown infamous in this long and ugly conflict.
The Seraphim coiled away from him - out and up and gone, leaving behind a wavering smoke, a scent compounded of the reek of the burnt sacrifice and attar of roses. He hated it. The Choirs wanted Sam dead. They were scouring the Earth for the last of the demons, and Sam and his 'followers' - whatever they were - were not looked upon with favor. Only Castiel seemed to care that Sam killed as many as he kept.
Castiel ran his fingers back through his host's coarse hair - settled his jacket on the thin shoulders. Dean had seen Sam - had seen what he was doing, and how. Now Castiel had to know what Dean thought. If Sam was truly able to be saved.
Dean and the demon-called-Ruby were in a booth at a restaurant, and Castiel slipped in next to Dean silently, startling a flare of black in the demon's eyes. Castiel noted it, but he did not look. Changed though it was, it was still a demon, and its true face pressed up against the face of the poor, dead soul that it had taken, grey and groaning and distorted as through a wavering glass. Black pits for eyes and scabrous, claw-tipped hands. Everything Castiel was loathed it, and he kept his attention - his focus - on Dean, lest he break, and remove the twisted thing from the Earth once and for all.
It seemed to wish for forgiveness - it seemed to repent. But it had willfully sold itself into bondage for power, ages ago. And willingly committed atrocities once it had been immured in Hell. Those acts could never be erased, and their echo grated across Castiel's nerves, a ratcheting shriek just on the edge of hearing that made his whole being recoil.
"I trust you are nearing success in your mission," Castiel said, and watched as Dean fumbled for words - for the right words. He needn't have bothered. Castiel could see it all, written across his soul as plain as lines on paper. He could see Dean's guarded happiness - his desperate, fragile hope, his need. He could see, with a shudder, the black-slick traces of the demon's touch upon his soul, where it had held him so close - too close.
It was an intimacy of spirits that made Castiel snarl. He clenched his teeth, and his hands into fists under the table edge and did not - did not - look at the demon. That it had had the audacity to do such a thing - that Dean was so compromised in his loneliness and grief that he had allowed.... Castiel cut off those thoughts with an inner growl. He was not to judge. He was to do one thing, and one thing alone: Save Dean, the Warrior of God, Taxiarch, the One - the only one - who had been capable of casting Lucifer back into the Pit. Anything else - could not be his concern.
He forced himself to acknowledge the demon - forced himself not to reach out and pull Dean to him - hold him close, take him from this place. Take him to safety, to rest. Dean would not want that, and it was not Castiel's place. But the temptation was...nigh overpowering. Castiel calmed himself; slowly breathed in the mingled scents of coffee and sugar, grease and chocolate and smoke that lingered in the air. Dean had a smudge of syrup at the corner of his mouth and Castiel wanted, he wanted to....
Oh, he had to go. Go now. "Bring Sam to me, Dean, and the war will be over." And then he was gone, shuddering - aching. Wanting it to end. To simply...end.
Twenty-four hours, and it was truly over. Castiel watched as Dean's soul slipped into his body once more - as he sat up, stiff, groaning a little, startling when he saw Castiel.
"How do you always know where I am?"
"I am your Angel, Dean, and you are my charge." Castiel could feel a new energy from Dean; a welling of joy, of completeness, because Sam stood there - leaner then had been, and pale as the ghosts he had once hunted, but there. Sam's gaze, though, was far away and calm, strange and serene - something like the Seraphim, and something like a madman, and Castiel shivered at its touch.
Whiff of brimstone and violets - of blood and honey. Sam had never been fully human - he was less so, now. And Dean.... Dean had been touched by it. His weary soul had bathed for a moment in peace, deep and all-encompassing, and it had mended itself here and there, started to heal - to purge the dark stains that years of war and grief had ground into it. That, alone, would have been worth anything to Castiel. It was everything to the Host. This Dean - healing, stronger, able - was a talisman against Lucifer returning; against the darkness coming back. So long as his light shone - the darkness was weak. And Castiel knew that that light depended solely upon Sam being in the world, alive and lucid and here. With Dean.
"You gonna let him go?" Dean asked, and Castiel hurried to tell him yes. To let Dean know that Sam was not Heaven's enemy. That Heaven had, in an eye-blink, forgotten Sam Winchester. Until they would remember him.
"I wanted to thank Sam in person, to see him with my own eyes, before I go home." Home. Castiel felt nothing at the word. Wanted to stay in this newly minted world and.... And what? He had no place here. No more duties to perform. No more tasks to undertake. Dean had Sam and there was...nothing, now. The truth of that - the weight of it - suddenly came down upon Castiel like the weight of the world. He murmured something - he didn't know what - and then was gone, fleeing the palpable warmth and love, the joy, the SamandDean that was a rolling, roaring undercurrent to every bit of stray energy in the room. There was nothing that could deflect it, lessen it, or divide it again. Castiel could not be of it, and so could not bear to be near it. In the end, there was nothing he could do but stay away, and try to forget.
Three months later
The sun was rising, a smudge of bloody red behind clouds mercury silver and pewter grey. Rain had come in the night and then eased in the twilight just before dawn. Now it seemed to be coming down again, a slowly-accelerating patter against concrete and steel and asphalt, and Dean dragged himself fully awake, pushing reluctantly out of the warm cocoon of sheets and blankets, and going to stand beside Sam.
Sam was looking outside, his fingers pressed against the screen of the window, the rain-wet breeze lifting the hair off his forehead and ruffling it at the nape of his neck. Dean pushed up next to him, shoulder to shoulder, thigh to thigh. Not saying anything, just waiting. Eventually, Sam seemed to sink down a little - to relax out of his tense, listening pose, and Dean made a wordless, interrogatory sound.
"I don't...know. Just. There was something. Some...."
"You felt a disturbance in the force, Obi-Wan?"
"Shut up," Sam said, little smile flickering over his face, and Dean sighed and leaned into him a little harder, silent comfort. "I think something's happened. With...the Lake. The demons there. I think.... I don't think it's there anymore."
"What'd you mean? They...like...ascended or something?" Dean asked, and Sam shook his head.
"No. I felt...fear. Anger. And then...nothing. Nothing at all." Sam turned back to the window, frowning - putting his hand back to the screen and Dean finally gave in and reached up. Ran his fingers up the nape of Sam's neck and then let his hand rest there, lightly rubbing.
"You think it was...Lucifer? Some other demons?"
"I think it was the angels, Dean," Sam said, and Dean sighed, slumped for a moment, looking utterly exhausted.
"I think you're probably right," he said softly. The rain began to fall harder, then - silvery sheets that threw up a mist across the ground, that muffled any sound, any light, and spattered them both through the screen, cold droplets against warm skin. After a few more moments, Dean tugged gently and they both moved away from the window. Back to the bed, and warmth, and forgetfulness, maybe. Comfort, of a certainty. Peace...someday.
It had to be, Kemeul said.
Now it is finished, Seraphiel said.
Now we rest, Metatron said, and the Seraphim brightened - thinned - vanishing into the starry sky. From his place above, Castiel watched the energies of the Lake boil into nothingness, and the residue of the demons ravel away, essences shredding into the ether in a matter of moments. And he could feel a weary resignation from Dean, sorrow and affection and desire. And then nothing, because the wars were truly over, and Castiel was no one's angel now. No one's at all.
Hello, lovelies! I got home today from a quite delightful visit with my Mum. The Bebe stayed the whole weekend with her cousin, aunt, and uncle, and my brother and his girlfriend were out of town, so it was just the two of us. Very nice! We windows shopped, and made fun of the ugly bags and clothing we saw, admired some very nice 'Mad Men-esque' dresses, ate Italian, and chocolate cake, and watched a movie. All in all, very relaxing, and it was nice to just sit and visit without any interruptions.
*hugs my Mum*
:)
Now i'm home, though, and a bit worn out from the drive, as always. It's not a long drive, but it always makes me woozy. It's nice to see my cats again, though - i missed them!
kamikazeremix fics have gone live, yay! So now I can post mine here, or of course, you can read at the comm. My own fic was also remixed, wheeeee! So there's that, too. The fic that i remixed was very different from my 'usual', so it was a bit of a challenge! I'm happy to say that the author was pleased with my effort, though, so that's pretty much all that counts. I rather like it, too. :)
So, here are the links. I put Generation Landslide up for remix, and got a lovely variation by poisontaster, Generation Landslide (The Quick Brown Fox Two-Step). Go! Read! Feed! :)
Then, my original fic was Dancers at the Lake by fannishliss.
And here's my remix. Beta'd by darkhavens, as always.
Title is from Adsum, by Richard Henry Stoddard
Castiel lost Jimmy Novak's body sometime in the second year AL. After Lucifer. The man himself had been long gone, but Castiel had become used to his shell. Fond of it, even. It was a shock to lose it. To be suddenly slung out, breathless and bodiless for the first time in years, lost, for an endless moment - unfamiliar, lizard-brain emotion scrabbling to assert itself in a form that had neither adrenaline nor instinct. Ashes and dust, and Castiel tasted them on his tongue, like grief.
The husk of the man was strewn across the battlefield by fire and motion and furious heat. Not even angels were immune to several thousand pounds of ammonium nitrate. If the demons could destroy the host, the angelic form had to waste time finding a new one - had to flee from human allies who could not look upon them without damage or death.
Dean had dug Jimmy's grave, and laid the tattered remains to a final and much-deserved rest, speaking over them a short, cracked prayer. Castiel had only hovered, knowing he couldn't speak - couldn't comfort the man he considered his friend. If indeed Dean even cared for comfort, anymore. He'd grown harder, since his brother had disappeared. Harder, more worn - less lighthearted. The days when he would spar with Castiel - joke with him, toss insults at him in the hopes of making Castiel crack - were gone.
Castiel missed them.
His new host was leaner, a little taller, and darker of eye and skin and hair. Of soul, but that was to be expected, these days. The wars had taken their toll on so many and God no long healed them. No longer seemed to care. Castiel still had faith, but his faith was tempered now. It was no longer blind. He had seen, and he had learned.
God had made man in his image, after all. And look at what man was: selfish, hateful, tyrannical, greedy. Jealous. Loving. Majestic. As below, so above. Castiel grieved for his former innocence, but in time he set that aside, as well. There was no time for it - no place for it. The wars had tempered them all. Especially Dean.
Now, sitting in some bar, in some little town, Dean looked older than his thirty-three years. He looked much like his father, with a touch of silver at his temples, and new scars on his skin. On his soul. His face was still ethereal in its beauty, but his gaze.... His gaze was hollow, distant; holding all the ugliness that he'd seen - all the misery, none of the joy. He'd lost something essential, Dean had, when his brother had slipped away, and Castiel knew that if his plan failed - then Dean would fail. His heart was no longer in the hunt, or the wars. He was running on duty and instinct; sheer force of habit. It hurt to see.
Castiel crossed the room, taking in nothing but the scarred leather over Dean's shoulders, the weary slump of his spine. Castiel wished to put his hand to Dean's shoulder once again and pull him from this perdition, as well, but he knew he could not. No one could, but Sam.
He settled next to Dean, refusing the bartender's offer, and looking steadily over until Dean lifted his gaze from his marred knuckles and acknowledged him. Castiel took a deep breath, knowing his next words would set the plan in motion. "The wars are nearly over."
"I'm through, that's for sure," Dean said. He drank the last of his beer - started to stand, and Castiel put a hand to his shoulder, gripping too tightly in his urgency, making Dean flinch. Dean didn't realize how true those words were - the deadly finality in them; the thing that Castiel must change.
"There is still something more for you to do."
The garrison was sadly empty now. So many of his brothers and sisters had fallen. Nearly as many as had Fallen, long ago. Oh, so long ago. Castiel sat slumped against a wall, watching two of the Principalities spar, their host bodies sweating - spinning - moving with precision and grace. He could see, as well, their other selves, curling light that flamed and foamed, singing with an unearthly pitch that resounded in Castiel's bones like the song of the stars. Of the Infinite.
As he watched, he sensed another hovering nearby. One of the highest choirs - Seraphim. Drakones, in the old words; serpents. And they were. Beings of pure fire, who continuously looped and coiled, straining ever upward, toward God. They had no name - no self. They were the pure - the divine - and they had no business in the garrison.
The Principalities slipped away, their own nature answering the Seraphim and flaring bright for a moment before being damped down into the host-bodies. Castiel felt his own Grace yearning toward the Seraphim; yearning for the clean, white light and utter certainty of it. Seraphim had not ever taken hosts or descended to the Earth and their faith was burnished bright. Untouched, unwavering, and pure. It was like a draught of sweet water and Castiel....
Rejected it. All but choked on it; bitterness on his tongue like gall. Disappointment.
"What will you?" he asked, and the Seraphim drifted to him, engulfed him for a moment - sheer heat and energy, a voice like a silver flame. "It's nearly over. We're nearly done. Only a few remain," Castiel said, and the flame burned in him, making his host-body shudder. It was too immense for pleasure, too distant for pain. It simply was, and Castiel did not want it. Did not want that loss of self. He'd fought too hard for what he had.
"No. Sam must live. We will find a way. I will not be moved." Disobedience, yes, but he learned in the second year of the wars that God would not punish him. Only the others, and they no longer dared. Castiel had grown infamous in this long and ugly conflict.
The Seraphim coiled away from him - out and up and gone, leaving behind a wavering smoke, a scent compounded of the reek of the burnt sacrifice and attar of roses. He hated it. The Choirs wanted Sam dead. They were scouring the Earth for the last of the demons, and Sam and his 'followers' - whatever they were - were not looked upon with favor. Only Castiel seemed to care that Sam killed as many as he kept.
Castiel ran his fingers back through his host's coarse hair - settled his jacket on the thin shoulders. Dean had seen Sam - had seen what he was doing, and how. Now Castiel had to know what Dean thought. If Sam was truly able to be saved.
Dean and the demon-called-Ruby were in a booth at a restaurant, and Castiel slipped in next to Dean silently, startling a flare of black in the demon's eyes. Castiel noted it, but he did not look. Changed though it was, it was still a demon, and its true face pressed up against the face of the poor, dead soul that it had taken, grey and groaning and distorted as through a wavering glass. Black pits for eyes and scabrous, claw-tipped hands. Everything Castiel was loathed it, and he kept his attention - his focus - on Dean, lest he break, and remove the twisted thing from the Earth once and for all.
It seemed to wish for forgiveness - it seemed to repent. But it had willfully sold itself into bondage for power, ages ago. And willingly committed atrocities once it had been immured in Hell. Those acts could never be erased, and their echo grated across Castiel's nerves, a ratcheting shriek just on the edge of hearing that made his whole being recoil.
"I trust you are nearing success in your mission," Castiel said, and watched as Dean fumbled for words - for the right words. He needn't have bothered. Castiel could see it all, written across his soul as plain as lines on paper. He could see Dean's guarded happiness - his desperate, fragile hope, his need. He could see, with a shudder, the black-slick traces of the demon's touch upon his soul, where it had held him so close - too close.
It was an intimacy of spirits that made Castiel snarl. He clenched his teeth, and his hands into fists under the table edge and did not - did not - look at the demon. That it had had the audacity to do such a thing - that Dean was so compromised in his loneliness and grief that he had allowed.... Castiel cut off those thoughts with an inner growl. He was not to judge. He was to do one thing, and one thing alone: Save Dean, the Warrior of God, Taxiarch, the One - the only one - who had been capable of casting Lucifer back into the Pit. Anything else - could not be his concern.
He forced himself to acknowledge the demon - forced himself not to reach out and pull Dean to him - hold him close, take him from this place. Take him to safety, to rest. Dean would not want that, and it was not Castiel's place. But the temptation was...nigh overpowering. Castiel calmed himself; slowly breathed in the mingled scents of coffee and sugar, grease and chocolate and smoke that lingered in the air. Dean had a smudge of syrup at the corner of his mouth and Castiel wanted, he wanted to....
Oh, he had to go. Go now. "Bring Sam to me, Dean, and the war will be over." And then he was gone, shuddering - aching. Wanting it to end. To simply...end.
Twenty-four hours, and it was truly over. Castiel watched as Dean's soul slipped into his body once more - as he sat up, stiff, groaning a little, startling when he saw Castiel.
"How do you always know where I am?"
"I am your Angel, Dean, and you are my charge." Castiel could feel a new energy from Dean; a welling of joy, of completeness, because Sam stood there - leaner then had been, and pale as the ghosts he had once hunted, but there. Sam's gaze, though, was far away and calm, strange and serene - something like the Seraphim, and something like a madman, and Castiel shivered at its touch.
Whiff of brimstone and violets - of blood and honey. Sam had never been fully human - he was less so, now. And Dean.... Dean had been touched by it. His weary soul had bathed for a moment in peace, deep and all-encompassing, and it had mended itself here and there, started to heal - to purge the dark stains that years of war and grief had ground into it. That, alone, would have been worth anything to Castiel. It was everything to the Host. This Dean - healing, stronger, able - was a talisman against Lucifer returning; against the darkness coming back. So long as his light shone - the darkness was weak. And Castiel knew that that light depended solely upon Sam being in the world, alive and lucid and here. With Dean.
"You gonna let him go?" Dean asked, and Castiel hurried to tell him yes. To let Dean know that Sam was not Heaven's enemy. That Heaven had, in an eye-blink, forgotten Sam Winchester. Until they would remember him.
"I wanted to thank Sam in person, to see him with my own eyes, before I go home." Home. Castiel felt nothing at the word. Wanted to stay in this newly minted world and.... And what? He had no place here. No more duties to perform. No more tasks to undertake. Dean had Sam and there was...nothing, now. The truth of that - the weight of it - suddenly came down upon Castiel like the weight of the world. He murmured something - he didn't know what - and then was gone, fleeing the palpable warmth and love, the joy, the SamandDean that was a rolling, roaring undercurrent to every bit of stray energy in the room. There was nothing that could deflect it, lessen it, or divide it again. Castiel could not be of it, and so could not bear to be near it. In the end, there was nothing he could do but stay away, and try to forget.
Three months later
The sun was rising, a smudge of bloody red behind clouds mercury silver and pewter grey. Rain had come in the night and then eased in the twilight just before dawn. Now it seemed to be coming down again, a slowly-accelerating patter against concrete and steel and asphalt, and Dean dragged himself fully awake, pushing reluctantly out of the warm cocoon of sheets and blankets, and going to stand beside Sam.
Sam was looking outside, his fingers pressed against the screen of the window, the rain-wet breeze lifting the hair off his forehead and ruffling it at the nape of his neck. Dean pushed up next to him, shoulder to shoulder, thigh to thigh. Not saying anything, just waiting. Eventually, Sam seemed to sink down a little - to relax out of his tense, listening pose, and Dean made a wordless, interrogatory sound.
"I don't...know. Just. There was something. Some...."
"You felt a disturbance in the force, Obi-Wan?"
"Shut up," Sam said, little smile flickering over his face, and Dean sighed and leaned into him a little harder, silent comfort. "I think something's happened. With...the Lake. The demons there. I think.... I don't think it's there anymore."
"What'd you mean? They...like...ascended or something?" Dean asked, and Sam shook his head.
"No. I felt...fear. Anger. And then...nothing. Nothing at all." Sam turned back to the window, frowning - putting his hand back to the screen and Dean finally gave in and reached up. Ran his fingers up the nape of Sam's neck and then let his hand rest there, lightly rubbing.
"You think it was...Lucifer? Some other demons?"
"I think it was the angels, Dean," Sam said, and Dean sighed, slumped for a moment, looking utterly exhausted.
"I think you're probably right," he said softly. The rain began to fall harder, then - silvery sheets that threw up a mist across the ground, that muffled any sound, any light, and spattered them both through the screen, cold droplets against warm skin. After a few more moments, Dean tugged gently and they both moved away from the window. Back to the bed, and warmth, and forgetfulness, maybe. Comfort, of a certainty. Peace...someday.
It had to be, Kemeul said.
Now it is finished, Seraphiel said.
Now we rest, Metatron said, and the Seraphim brightened - thinned - vanishing into the starry sky. From his place above, Castiel watched the energies of the Lake boil into nothingness, and the residue of the demons ravel away, essences shredding into the ether in a matter of moments. And he could feel a weary resignation from Dean, sorrow and affection and desire. And then nothing, because the wars were truly over, and Castiel was no one's angel now. No one's at all.