[Supernatural fanfic] Breathe in the Air -2/2
Title: Breathe in the Air -part 2/2
Summary: It's 2011, and the Angels are leaving. Castiel is left behind.
Rating: PG-13 for drug use
Warnings: Drug use
Characters: Castiel, Michael, Dean
Notes: For my hc_bingo card: the prompt was "Fallen Angels." Set in the 5.04!verse. Continued from Part One.
It’s been two years, three months and one week since Dean has last seen Sam, but he’s there again now, leaning against the oak that marked the start of the path that leads to Camp Chitaqua. Dean sees the familiar slump of his shoulders; the same jeans and shirt that he’d seen him in last. From this vantage point, it’s as if nothing has changed.
“Sammy.” He stops where he is, not knowing how long he has been walking. “Been awhile.”
“Yeah.” His younger brother turns to face him, swift and predatory. “Long time no see, big bro.”
His eyes flash black-
“Dean.” Someone is kneading his shoulder, and not in the slim-fingered, erotic massage way. “Deandeandean.” The kneading turns to shaking. “Wake up.”
“Wha’?” He rolls over onto his back and tiredly rubs his eyes. “I’m not due on any of the patrols until eleven…” And it can’t be that late, can it? His nightmares never last that long; he always wakes up sometime just shy of six, when he isn’t supposed to be on duty before then.
“The angels are gone.” Chuck finally lets go of his shoulder and sis down at the foot of his cot, far too intimate a gesture for Dean.
“What are you talking about? The angels have been AWOL for months -hell, must be a year or more now, ever since after the virus began. You know that.” Chuck should have known it better than anyone, except maybe Cas. Chuck had been the one to tell him that his pet archangel and all the rest had finally given up their dress-Dean-like-Mike campaign in the first place; let him know that they really were on their own for the Zombie Apocalypse.
“Yeah, but they were always… there.” Chuck waves his hand around, indicating what Dean thinks is omnipresence. “Like they were the audience or backstage or something, and we were acting out the Apocalypse onstage.”
“And now?” Dean sits up, pulling his legs away from where the prophet was sitting on them.
“They’re gone. I saw-”
“You had another vision?” Dean interrupts sharply. Funny how those two words manage to wake him up quicker than his morning coffee ever had, although if they still had coffee, he supposes that it might qualify as a nighttime drink at this point. Given the darkness, he’ll be damned if it’s past four, and that’s definitely not daytime to him.
“That’s what I just said. I saw them leaving, and Raphael told me that it was over. ‘It’s over;’ those were his exact words. And now… I don’t know.” Chuck shrugs, looking as helpless as most of the survivors these days feel. “It feels different.”
“What feels different?” He can think of a thousand and one things that this could mean, and he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to be most worried about, or what to deal with first, or how he can deal with any of the potential issues that this could bring.
“Me. The air. Everything.” Chuck shrugs again. “I don’t know how to describe it. I’m terrible with words, you know that.”
“Yeah.” Dean shrugs out of his boxers, not caring if Chuck is there because really? Now is a crappy time to start being worried about modesty. Not to mention that he’s probably seen Dean naked before in his visions, and probably in more compromising positions then.
He gets dressed, and then he realizes that he doesn't know what to do.
"Fuck," he mutters, and then he repeats the oath again because, well, fuck. They really are alone now. Just him and the rest of survivors; they're the last hope of humanity, and that's a really, really sad thought.
Dean does his best to pull his thoughts together into something coherent and manageable. "Look, Chuck," he says, turning around and glancing at Chuck, who waited in silence while he got dressed. "Don't spread this around, okay? I think -I think that most people just figure they're already gone, anyway, and no one's going to get hurt if they think they're still there." He only feels guilty about letting everyone think they've still got a snowball's chance in Hell for a moment before the more cynical part of him ('coping mechanism' someone -Sammy, maybe- called it a long time ago) takes over and tells him that even if he told them it wouldn't make a difference. Hope's a special sort of drug, and humanity in general tends to be addicted to it. The only detox is reality, but hell, paying attention to that isn't doing anyone any good.
The metaphor crept into his mind from some screwy little resource in the back of his head, and he can't help but think that he's going to be a friggin' poet by the time all this is over-
And then it hits him, what he should have realized immediately. Drugs. Addiction. Cas.
Fuck.
“Chuck, have you seen Cas at all? Since the vision?”
“Castiel? No. No, I haven’t.” Chuck pauses, and Dean can tell that he understands the question that he can’t bring himself to ask outright. “I don’t think… I mean, Cas must still be here. He isn’t a real -he fell. He shouldn’t have had to leave with all of them.”
“Right.” He’s right, of course, because Chuck knows how their holier-than-thou minds work better than he does. Right? He has to; he’s the one who’s had them hanging over his should since he was a kid. “He was on lake patrol, wasn't he?”
“Yeah, graveyard to sunrise shift.” Chuck stands. “Do you want me to come with you?”
It’s a good idea, actually -if Cas is hurt he might need an extra pair of hands, not to mention that a few Croats could have sneaked passed him, if they’ve learned to swim or sail a boat or something, and anyway, having Chuck next to him will be extra motivation to calm down and not fly into panic mode-- but no, he doesn't want company. It might be selfish and stupid, but that doesn't matter: right now, he wants to be alone, and he will be.
"No. I can make it alone. Just stay here and keep an eye on things." He hurries to the door, grabbing his coat as he walks, almost missing Chuck's response of, "I always do."
The cold outside isn't a system-shocking change from what he felt when he was in his uninsulated cabin, but he still registers the drop in temperature. He seems to recall some dead poet or someone saying that April is the cruelest months (thanks, Sammy; nice to know that all that useless crap you learned and passed on is good for something these days) but December has to be pretty close in the running.
His walk to the beach is relatively short -half a mile, maybe a little more- and he knows the trail well. Still, after he's been out for five minutes, he really wishes that he had a flashlight. The sun is at least two hours away from rising, and he doesn't like being out in the dark without someone to watch his back. The thick woods block out whatever light the waning moon would have reflected, and it's only Dean's knowledge of the terrain that keeps him from losing his balance as he increases his pace from a walk to a steady jog.
So despite the poor visibility, it isn't long until the trees give way to the clearing and the rockier land that precedes the lake. At first glance, it's empty.
"Cas? You there?" He steps further out of the trees and scans the shores. "Hey? Hey!"
He can see a figure now, and as he hurries closer, he can tell for certain that it's Castiel sitting there on the rocks, unmoving. "You hurt?"
There's no response and he fears the worst (can angels -former ones, anyway- even get infected? He's never had the opportunity to test that idea, and he hopes that he never will) but even those fears aren't enough to stop him from going forward.
Finally, he hears a quiet, "No."
"That's a relief." He squints and manages to get a better idea of the sight before him. "Jesus. Aren't you cold out here?" Cas is just perched there on rocks dampened by a recent slushy downfall that was a mixture of rain and snow, not wearing a jacket or boots or anything that would signify that he realized how friggin' cold it gets during these December nights.
"No."
"Bullshit." He ignores Cas' monosyllabic speech; ignores how he sounds exactly like he did when Dean first met him: not stoic, but incapable of emotions at all. He hesitates, then figures that he would have already been attacked if something bad had happened and Castiel was no longer batting for their pathetic team, and he lowers himself to the ground so that he's lying on his back next to the angel. It's damp, yeah, but he's been in far worse conditions, and the few stars that he can see are beautiful. It's a sight worth the discomfort. "I've been out here for ten minutes and I'm freezing."
Castiel doesn't reply, and Dean presses on. "Have you been smoking?" He already knows the answer to that; the smoke clings to Castiel's clothes and skin and even the faint smell makes him feel slightly dizzy.
"Yes."
Fuck this, he thinks, because they aren't going anywhere by dancing around the issue, and he isn't going to spend all night sitting here saying things that aren't going to get responses. "Chuck had a vision. He said that the angels have left."
"I know."
"Yeah? How'd you find out? Some sort of angel-radar?" It's not funny; a really pathetic attempt at a joke, if it was an attempt at all.
"Michael."
"Michael was here?" He sits up. "You didn't think that was worth mentioning?"
"You haven't been here long." Cas still stares straight ahead, as if there's something fascinating out on the lake that demands his complete attention.
Dean bites his lip, knowing that if he yells Castiel will just ignore him the way he always does when he's high. "Cas. Tell me about Michael now. What did he want?"
"He didn't come for you. He's gone now." His voice hardens, like he's trying to hold his emotions back now.
"Then why was he here?"
"He was leaving. They all were. He said I was too strong, still, to be left behind."
"Did he hurt you?" Rage curls inside him at the thought. The fucker disappears only to come back and say he's moving on; don't miss him too much? He'd better hope he's far away, because if Dean ever catches up with him again he won't be singing hymns of praise. Hell, he won't say anything; he'll just act, and what he does won't be pretty.
"No. There isn't any pain." Cas shifts next to him, drawing his knees up to his chest and folding his arms.
"I didn't ask that. What did he do?"
"He removed the remnants of my Grace, as much as he could." He seems to anticipate Dean's next question, or maybe he just wants to talk now. Maybe he doesn't have anything left to lose. "I can't feel them. I can't feel Heaven, and I can't leave my vessel. For all purposes, I am human."
"Fuck. Cas... are you okay?" The words are foolish and meaningless, and he knows how damned stupid they sound as they come off his lips, but what else is there for him to say?
Castiel finally turns to him, his face blank. "Do you think I'm okay?" he asks, the bitterness of his tone contrasting with the expression.
"No, not really." He starts to draw back and stops. "Look, if you want me to go, just say so." He shivers and thinks that, as crappy a friend as it would make him, he might just leave anyway if he can't get anywhere with this. Better to be sleeping warmly inside than to be freezing his ass off for a lost cause outside.
"Dean. My brothers have just left for another planet -another dimension, for all that I know. I'm trapped in the body of a dead man. I once burned with enough fire to kill anyone who saw me, and now I am incapable of setting a pile of dry brush on fire without fuel. Do you think that I want to be left alone?" Bitterness gives way to something eerily patient.
"Well, I'd want to. Gonna guess that you don't, though," he hastily adds as Cas' expression begins to darken. "I won't leave." He draws closer to the fallen angel, hesitantly. "But you must be freezing."
"I don't feel it."
Dean reaches out and carefully touches Castiel's hand. "Bullshit. You're cold enough for the Titanic to crash into you." Forsaking his dignity he drapes an arm around Cas and pulls close to him. "Don't suppose you want to get back to the camp?"
"No," comes the muffled reply as Cas allows his head to fall and rest on Dean's shoulder, and for once Dean ignores the smell of weed and the damp stones beneath him, and they just stay like that until the sun comes up.