Sang Castiel (Castiel, Dean, Sam)
Because I was tired and bored last night, I started looking through Encyclopedia Mythica. With the original intent to find something Dean could hunt in Pontiac for a little pre-series Dean/Jimmy romp. And then this happened instead.
An AU Castiel fic. ~5000 words. PG-13
Castiel has the power of transforming any human or animal into stone, he merely has to start talking to a person. He lives in solitude until two hunters track him down.
Gen. Unless you're reading with your slash goggles on and then it's Dean/Castiel pre-slash. I'd place it somewhere in season two if I had to but there are no spoilers for anything. Nor are there any warnings, except maybe for H/C. Castiel, Dean and Sam are all there.
Beta'd by the awesome puchuupoet
There will be a link after the fic to the myth that started this all.
Sang Castiel
**
Sometimes, Castiel thinks he must have fallen to the Earth from the skies. He has no memory of parents or siblings. He remembers a house, made of straw and mud, and it's surrounded by rocks. It's a village but it's empty. The shelters are all empty; there are blackened pits on the ground where fires used to smoulder. Flies cover old and rotting food. Everywhere there are rocks but nowhere is there anyone but Castiel.
So he must have fallen there, in the middle of this abandoned place that feels familiar.
He stays there for a long time on his own. Time isn't something he can judge except by the cycles of the sun but his hair grows long and his legs grow taller. He eats the rotting food and when that's gone, he eats the soft leaves of the plants he finds or he catches the insects that jump through the tall grass.
Eventually, others that look like him walk across the fields and to his shelter.
He hides, shoving himself between a cluster of rocks. He's never seen other living creatures except the insects. Once, he saw a wild pig and he howled at it in delight. He must have looked away and when he looked back, the pig had jumped behind a rock and snuck away. Castiel had waited, but no other animal had come to him. He's not sure how long ago that had been.
The animals that come to him now wear the skins of other animals on them and Castiel doesn't trust them. He tries to scuffle further back in the cubbyhole of the rocks but they notice and come closer. Castiel squeezes his eyes shut and he yells at them without words because he doesn't know words.
Silence falls again and when he looks, the two must have snuck away like the pig had, behind the rocks to never be seen by him again. But he hears an angry fierce yell that sounds familiar to him, just as this place has always felt familiar.
It's a demon.
A spear imbeds itself before his rock and another follows it, inches from his unprotected feet. Castiel screams and he bolts. He runs and runs and doesn't look back. He screams again out of terror and it takes him a long time, until he has no more breath, before he realizes that he isn't being pursued.
After that, he's too afraid to return to the shelters and the rocks so he walks. On and on, he walks. Hiding when he hears or sees movement, or voices like the ones that chased him from his home. He grows taller and often he finds himself unable to find food. Eventually, this drives him to find others like him. But he is still afraid and he makes sure he isn't seen. He sneaks about the outskirts, where a group that look like him but darker to blend with the plant life, have settled into shelters like the one he’d abandoned.
Their fires burn and the cooked meat makes Castiel's mouth water. After a short while, he notices that some is left out for him and he worries at first that they know he's here and it's a trap. Hunger and desire drive him forward but none harass him.
He stays, though he remains out of sight, sneaking food when he needs it and hiding nearby to watch and to listen. He learns their language and watches their games. They wear other animal’s skins like the ones before but Castiel quickly comes to realize that it's for protection, not malice. He has no way of copying them in that but he tries to imitate their speech, when he's sitting alone, in the hollow of a felled tree that he sleeps in.
Castiel decides that he should try this new found speech on someone else. He walks away from the village and out across the grasslands. He sees the Elephants from far away and he goes to them. They're eating the tops off of trees and Castiel must crane his neck upwards to see the mother. Her baby hides beneath her although it too could crush Castiel if it chose.
They look at him curiously, waiting for what he has to say. “Where are you going?” he asks and before his eyes the Elephants crack and harden. The mother’s trunk crumbles to the ground and her tusks fall and nearly pierce him where he stands. There is no time for her to trumpet in shock or outrage or her baby to squeal in fear. Castiel screams for them and he turns and runs and runs from the shapeless rock he leaves behind.
**
Centuries pass. Castiel learns to hide himself well. In the shadows, the trees, the nooks and crannies, as the world builds up around him and never does he seem to age past a human's prime. But he has learned that he isn't human, he is something else.
He looks up at the stars and wishes he could return to them.
Straw and mud shelters turn to concrete and wood and structures so immense and so many that Castiel hides easily among them. He hides out of sight among the humans and he adapts along with them. Changing in his mind the language that he is too afraid to speak. Eventually wearing animal skins and then finally, the fabric that he finds tossed into garbage bins. He eats food from these bins as well. He arms himself from them, with sharp knives that he also uses to chop back his hair.
Eventually, he thinks that perhaps he could try again to bring himself closer. Castiel is lonely. A deep gnawing ache that will never be satisfied from the trash in the bins or by watching the enormous community of people he has made himself invisible amongst. Surely he could try. Surely it could not happen again.
He finds a man cooking outside and approaches hesitantly. He's laughing with others, the hot sun baking their dark skin. They all look immediately to Castiel and he swallows deeply. He stands out, he knows, he isn't like them even before he speaks. He is wild and untamed; his white skin stands out starkly even though he has tried to hide it away. But he approaches and he asks the man, “What are you doing?”
To his horror, the man hardens and cracks, his face twisted into confusion before the stone breaks and crumbles down the middle. The others cry out in fear and Castiel turns to them with wide pleading eyes. “I'm sorry! Please, I'm sorry, I didn't mean-” But they turn to stone as well and Castiel runs.
He runs towards the ocean. The vast expanse of water that he has rarely ventured near. There are few places to hide there, away from the buildings and the trees. He runs along a wooden plank that leads into the water and here he is surprised to see others like him. That look like him, working on the ships along the dock. He dares not speak again and he hides on the dock, under an overturned rowboat until the night falls when he sneaks onto one of the large ships.
He means to stay there only a day or two, until he can find somewhere else. To hide himself away from all creatures. He is a demon and he must never speak again nor be tempted into it. Half-way into the night, the very early hours of the morning, he feels the vessel move and sway as it pulls from the dock and he is trapped.
For two days, he stays stuck into his tiny hole in one of the ship's storage rooms, too afraid to move, before someone finds him. It's one who looks like him and Castiel is tempted to speak again, just to see if these people are like him as well. But fear keeps him silent and after a moment of staring, the person comes back with some food and water. The food is stale but he eats it. The water is warm but it refreshes him.
He counts the number of light cycles by how often this person visits him with food, water, a bucket that Castiel quickly realizes the use for. The person comes once every cycle. Castiel counts over a hundred before he forgets.
It takes roughly six months to reach America.
**
There is a whole new way of life to learn in this strange place.
There are more people which Castiel did not think possible. The buildings are taller. It's noisier. It's faster. There is no dirt and mud and the trees seem scarce. Castiel doesn't like it. But over decades, he has no choice but to adapt.
He keeps to himself through the years. He has learned that there is some strength in staying near the other homeless on the streets of the cities. He has no idea how old he is now but as the next thousand years approaches, he doesn't want to face another and another.
He says nothing to the people around him and even the other homeless look at him with pity. He won't speak to ask for help so he can't beg; he can't work for his money. Stealing out of garbage bins is harder in these days. Sometimes, their pity drives them to offer him their own hard earned money or their hard earned drugs. Castiel learns what it feels like not to have to feel lonely. Not after one of the others offer him a handful of pills or a bag carefully hiding drink.
He takes it all without a word and hides himself away again in the shadows for fear that he will become too free under the drugs. Eventually though, he learns the lesson that people rarely hand out anything for free.
He sighs in pleasure as another pill slides down his throat, anticipation making his heart thud. In minutes, he'll forget his miserable lonely existence. He’ll find a place, climb the fire escapes to the tops of the buildings, where he can lie on his back and watch the stars and he'll try to remember what it was like to be at home.
But this time, a hard hand locks around his wrist before he can pull away to leave. “I think you've gotten enough for free.”
Castiel frowns and shakes his head. He has nothing to give. It becomes far clearer when he's pushed to his knees but a hand digging fingers hard into his jaw makes him swear and jerk back. He doesn't need to. There's nothing more than a pile of stone before his feet and the terrified faces of the other homeless that had seen.
Castiel is so very tired of running.
The following week, a pair of men walk down the ruined street Castiel has called home for so many years. He knows immediately that they don't belong here. They're healthy, their clothes aren't ripped, their hair is clean. Castiel watches from the shadows of an old broken fire escape.
“Run this by me one more time?” one grumbles, kicking at a pile of rocks they stop in front of.
“There have been rumours, Dean,” the other starts in patiently, as if he's only just finished explaining this, “Of a homeless guy that turned another one into stone.”
“And drugged out of their mind homeless guys are a great source of information,” Dean complains.
Castiel tries not to make a noise and knows they're talking about him. If they've come to kill him, would he welcome it?
“Actually, it's an old myth. I think it originated in Asia or something. This guy, wanders the plains and whenever he makes any noise, any, not just saying something, people or animals around him turn to stone. He shows up a few times over the centuries, kills a few people, and then disappears.”
“Awesome. So this thing could be watching right now, ready to say 'gotcha' and we'd be dead? This was a great idea.”
“That's why I brought these.”
Castiel watches as he holds up a package and Dean rolls his eyes before taking it. They're earplugs, Castiel realizes and his stomach drops. They're here to kill him and he couldn't stop them if he did want to. He watches as the pair communicates with hand signals and tries to shrink further back into the shadows. He doesn't want to die like this but he doesn't want to hurt anyone else.
Dean gestures directly at him and the next thing Castiel knows, there's a gun pointed in his face. He nearly cries out but he clamps down on his tongue so hard that he can taste the metallic tang of his blood. He shakes his head, his eyes wide and fearful, and presses back as far as he can. He never meant to hurt anyone.
Dean mouths something at the other, makes a hand gesture that Castiel doesn't understand and he closes his eyes and waits for the noise of the gun. He's surprised to hear their voices again instead.
“This isn't him, Sam. Look at him; we scared the fuck out of some homeless guy.”
“Yeah,” Sam agrees and Castiel risks opening his eyes to peer up at them. Sam kneels down and grimaces. “Sorry, man. You alright?”
Castiel shakes his head. He can't talk and he is very far from alright.
Dean crouches down beside Sam. “We're looking for this guy. Maybe you saw something last week. Maybe one of your buddies around here went missing?”
Castiel shakes his head again and raises a hand to press over his mouth. He knows by the look the two men share that they suddenly understand who they're talking to.
“You did that? You turned people into stone?”
Castiel nods, slow and hesitant and his eyes fall down to the gun still gripped in Dean's hand. His own hand stays firmly over his mouth. The pair trade a look again and as one, they rise to their feet, making Castiel flinch back but all they do is turn and Castiel only catches snatches of their conversation.
“The hell are we supposed to do?”
“Pop him! He's killed people.”
“Accident?”
They look back to Castiel again and he very carefully doesn't move until Dean lets out a harsh sigh. “Well, shit.”
**
Castiel finds himself with tape tightly across his mouth, there is the pinch of a needle at his arm and he grows groggy. He's being led through the dark and empty street. He follows because there's nothing else for him to do. His mind floods through with questions that he can't ask.
Sam and Dean take him to a black car and Castiel stands back from it warily. He's never travelled in a car before. The boat all those years ago had landed him at a port in New York City and he had stayed there, walking the streets. Walking, as he had always done.
Dean opens the back door and raises his eyebrows impatiently when Castiel only stands and looks in. What Dean wants is unmistakable and Dean still holds the gun in his hand so Castiel slides in, shoulders stiff and he leans forward, wanting to touch as little of the car as possible. The car starts and pulls forward with a slight lurch and Castiel finds himself pushed back against the seat anyway. He sits tightly in one corner, staring out the window at the fast passing streets, feeling the tight press of the tape across his mouth. He's thankful for it.
They pull up in front of a motel and again, Castiel follows passively as he's taken to a room. He stands in the center, under the men's scrutiny. He stares back at Dean until Dean looks away to Sam.
“Now what do we do with it?”
“Dean,” Sam admonishes and shakes his head. “He's not an ‘it’.”
“If he's been alive for a thousand years or so he's not human, either.”
Sam glares at him and approaches Castiel, eyebrows raised and imploring. “Are you hungry? Tired?” Castiel nods but after the last time he was offered a free handout, he glances down to Sam's crotch and then takes a step back. “Go sit at the table,” Sam tells him so Castiel does and watches with a curious head-tilt as Sam opens the room's fridge.
They offer him food, real food not rotting and half-eaten, and Sam carefully peels the tape from his mouth. It hurts but Castiel makes no sound and he eats while Sam and Dean talk a few feet off.
“This is dangerous, Sam.”
“I don't think so. I mean...look at him. It's like dealing with a kid. He's not going to hurt us.”
“Yeah, maybe not purposefully.”
“So what are you suggesting, then? Get him de-barked?”
Dean casts a considering look over at Castiel, who jumps a little at suddenly being noticed and stares back. “Maybe?” Castiel still watches them, as he shovels the food away quickly, wondering what will come next. Eying the beds in the hopes that he can sleep on one of those instead of a concrete floor. He thinks he would be willing to pay for that, if they asked.
Sam rubs a hand up over his face, approaching Castiel when he notices that Castiel has finished eating. “Tired?” he asks and Castiel nods but Dean snorts.
“He’s not sleeping in here.”
“Dean...”
“What? He might talk in his sleep.” Castiel flushes and looks down. In no way can he be near people. “Cuff him. Put him in the backseat of the Impala for the night, he can sleep there. Hell, it’ll probably feel like the lap of luxury to him anyway.”
It’s exactly what they do. Sam presses a fresh piece of tape over his mouth and Dean tugs his arms behind his back and secures them there with hard bands of metal around his wrists. Castiel tugs half-heartedly but it does no good and he has no fight in him to test them more than that. Dean takes Castiel back to the car and guides him into the back seat, taking Castiel’s arm to hold his balance as he sits down heavily.
“Just uh...settle in. Take a nap. Don’t touch a thing or I’ll shoot you. Got it?”
Castiel nods hard with wide eyes but still Dean cleans the car out of absolutely anything he can and eventually, Castiel is left alone with only the neon of the hotel sign and the yellow glow of the street lamps. He’s too scared to move for a long time but eventually exhaustion wins out and he lies down, arms bound awkwardly behind him but he still finds it the most comfortable thing he’s experience. He tucks his legs up and presses his face down against the leather which is soft under him.
In the morning, Sam is there to wake him gently and take him back inside where Castiel is again offered food after he’s released from his bindings. Sam and Dean both sit at the table opposite him and Castiel has to fight off the urge to hover over his food. Sam and Dean are well fed and they won’t take it from him. The two trade looks and Castiel wonders what silent communication they have and if he could ever have that with another.
“So, we’ve talked it over and we know you didn’t mean to hurt those people.”
Castiel shakes his head. He never meant to hurt anyone.
Sam produces a pad of paper and a pen and pushes them across the table towards Castiel. “Can you write?”
Castiel hesitates, before he takes the pen in clumsy fingers and for long minutes, all he does is think. He has tried to teach himself many things, as he did with the language of humans. He can read some but he has never had the means to write. He knows what he wants to say but to translate that to the blank page in front of him takes him time. Sam and Dean wait.
It is hard. He eventually scratches onto the paper. To never make a noise.
“That man in the alley, why did you...make a noise around him?”
Castiel thinks awhile and leans over the paper. He wanted sex.
“Christ,” Dean mutters. “And you didn’t?” Castiel shakes his head. “Guess we can’t fault you for that one. What about others?”
I had to know. I had hope. Sam and Dean look at each other, each with a look of sympathy written across their faces. I am alone. I did not mean to hurt them. His hand is turning sore so he puts the pen down and stares at the empty plate in front of him and to the words scrawled on a messy slant across the paper.
“Okay. We might have an idea,” Sam begins and Castiel looks hopeful while the other two look only guarded.
**
It starts with a haircut and a shave.
“No one is going to want to come near you if you look like a creepy hobo. Now sit still,” Dean admonishes when Castiel fidgets at the sight of the razor and he stills immediately. Dean shaves the hair from his face first, pulling faces and cursing the entire time. “Gross. Gross gross,” he keeps saying and Castiel only watches Dean’s eyes.
When Dean is finished, Castiel touches his smooth skin and shivers at the sensation.
Dean shears the hair from his head nearly to his scalp, leaving it prickly to Castiel’s touch. He pulls the dirty and torn clothes from Castiel’s body and fills a tub with warm water to clean the dirt from Castiel’s skin. This, Castiel must do on his own while Dean sits on the toilet with his eyes covered, singing things that Castiel doesn’t recognize but finds soothing. If only because no one has ever sung to him before.
He gets new clothes to dress in and shoes for his feet. Sam pokes his head into the bathroom when Castiel is shoving a mint covered brush into his mouth and scrubbing his painful teeth. He gives Dean a pained look and Dean relents, taking the brush away and glancing to Sam.
“This is the weirdest hunt we have ever done.”
Sam laughs, a sound that warms Castiel and one he longs to make himself but he makes no noise. Eventually, Dean deems him presentable and marches Castiel from the bathroom.
“Check this out, Sammy. There was almost a real boy under all that.”
Castiel turns from Dean and looks at himself in a mirror. He does not recognize himself. This is not the him that has stared back at him from a water hole’s reflection or a window’s. He looks suddenly like the others that walk the streets in the daylight. He looks like Sam or Dean. He looks normal. He feels amazing and his mouth turns into an expression he has not made in centuries.
“Like that, huh?” Dean asks him and Castiel nods. Even more, he likes the spark of affection that is momentarily in Dean’s gaze before he frowns. “You got a name?”
Castiel thinks for a moment before nodding more slowly. It is among those things that he knows but isn’t sure how he knows. Brought down with him when he fell from the stars? Or was it spoken to him from the people in his first village, before he turned them all to stone, as he knows must have happened now?
“Can you spell it?”
Sam hands him the pad of paper and pen and Castiel frowns in concentration. He is not sure how to spell what he calls himself in his head. He has never seen it written and can’t picture it. He tries the sounds in his mind but when three letters are written, he doesn’t know how to get any further. He hands it back to Sam.
“Cas?”
Castiel waves his hand vaguely but Dean is grinning so he nods.
“Cas. That’s awesome. Alright.” Dean turns his attention on Sam. “You work it out with Bobby?”
“He thinks we’re both insane, called us soft-hearted girls but yeah. He knows a guy who knows a guy and he got hold of them. There’s a doctor in Chicago whose hip to the supernatural, understands our situation, and agreed to do a little...vocal...cutting. This is really weird, right?”
“Yeah.” Dean shrugs. “But what other choice is there?”
**
The restraints are back on Castiel when the three of them head back into the car.
“It isn’t that we don’t trust you,” Dean says, “It’s just... Yeah.”
Castiel doesn’t mind. The tape is still a level of security for him and though the cuffs are uncomfortable, he knows that Dean and Sam would be uncomfortable if he didn’t wear them. The journey is long. Many times, Castiel thinks that he would rather walk it but he has no way to communicate this. He sits in the back of the car and stares out at the passing scenery. They pass fields and he misses his earliest days, alone in a village of rocks with the insects his only company and nothing to worry him other than his next meal.
He sleeps and when he wakes, it’s dark. Sam is sleeping in the passenger seat and Dean is at the wheel. They’ve switched at some point and Castiel hadn’t stirred. Dean glances at him through the mirror. “Guess you don’t talk in your sleep.”
Castiel keeps his eyes on the mirror, on the reflection of Dean he can see and the car travels on in relative silence until Dean glances at him again. “You stare a lot, you know that?” Castiel only stares more and Dean huffs out a laugh. “Can’t imagine what you’ve been through, man. Most people would have gone mad by now. Most...things, most creatures, probably would have started killing people just for kicks.” Castiel shakes his head hard because he would never. “I know, not you.” There’s another spark of affection, this time to Dean’s tone and Castiel longs to return it.
They reach the city of Chicago in the early morning. Sam rouses from sleep at the city limits and he’s immediately alert, listing directions to Dean. They pull up before a large and brightly lit building and Castiel cranes his neck to try to see it all from the car’s window. Dean exits the car, only to join him in the back seat and Castiel looks at him, eyes trusting.
“We gotta sedate you before we go in. It’s just a precaution, cause there’s a lot of people in there. Right?”
Castiel isn’t entirely sure he understands but he nods and watches as Sam hands Dean a small case and Dean readies a needle. Castiel turns as Dean directs him and Dean’s fingers rub the crook of his elbow and make him sigh.
“It’s gonna pinch a little, might sting. Just for a second.” Castiel holds his breath and bows his head and barely feels it when the needle pierces his skin. Dean sits back and allows Castiel to turn to face him. “Everything’s gonna be fine soon.” Castiel nods and his vision starts to blur around the edges, his mind starts to fog and his heart starts to pound. “You won’t have to worry anymore. I promise.”
Castiel collapses into nothing.
He wakes on a soft bed, in a quiet room. The quality of the light coming through the blinds says that it’s evening and he’s somehow missed the entire day. He can’t panic because his mind feels slow and groggy and he remembers the needle Dean had stuck into his arm. His throat hurts, in a distant sort of way.
“Hey, buddy.”
Castiel rolls his head to the side on the soft pillow under him and meets Dean’s gaze. Sam is standing behind him.
“Can you make a noise?” Dean asks, leaning forward. Castiel immediately shakes his head vehemently. “It’s okay. Remember, we talked about this? This is the hospital; the doc already did his thing. Remember?”
Castiel gives a cautious nod. The doctor was going to go in and cut the thing inside him that allowed him to make noise, Dean had explained to him. So Castiel opens his mouth and he tries to talk, to shape his mouth around Dean’s name and nothing comes out. Dean and Sam do not turn to stone before his eyes. They do not crack or crumble.
Elation makes him shake, the grin splits his face and before Dean or Sam can react, he’s thrown himself forward and he’s hugging Dean so hard that Dean wheezes against his neck. Castiel is free. At last free. He will live among these people, his kin.
Dean and Sam take him to an older man called Bobby where they leave him. Bobby shows him many things. To write and read. To work on a car or fix a wobbly table leg. Bobby shows Castiel how to live the life that Castiel waited a thousand years for. That Sam and Dean gave to him.
Five years after his vocal chords are cut, Castiel realizes that he is finally ageing again and he looks forward to that day as well.
---
Notes: A link to the original myth: Kelembai
Also, there is an explanation for the title at the bottom of the myth and what 'Sang' means: Sang is an honorific and endearing term used by the Malays to refer to characters, animals, or objects in stories about them.
An AU Castiel fic. ~5000 words. PG-13
Castiel has the power of transforming any human or animal into stone, he merely has to start talking to a person. He lives in solitude until two hunters track him down.
Gen. Unless you're reading with your slash goggles on and then it's Dean/Castiel pre-slash. I'd place it somewhere in season two if I had to but there are no spoilers for anything. Nor are there any warnings, except maybe for H/C. Castiel, Dean and Sam are all there.
Beta'd by the awesome puchuupoet
There will be a link after the fic to the myth that started this all.
Sang Castiel
**
Sometimes, Castiel thinks he must have fallen to the Earth from the skies. He has no memory of parents or siblings. He remembers a house, made of straw and mud, and it's surrounded by rocks. It's a village but it's empty. The shelters are all empty; there are blackened pits on the ground where fires used to smoulder. Flies cover old and rotting food. Everywhere there are rocks but nowhere is there anyone but Castiel.
So he must have fallen there, in the middle of this abandoned place that feels familiar.
He stays there for a long time on his own. Time isn't something he can judge except by the cycles of the sun but his hair grows long and his legs grow taller. He eats the rotting food and when that's gone, he eats the soft leaves of the plants he finds or he catches the insects that jump through the tall grass.
Eventually, others that look like him walk across the fields and to his shelter.
He hides, shoving himself between a cluster of rocks. He's never seen other living creatures except the insects. Once, he saw a wild pig and he howled at it in delight. He must have looked away and when he looked back, the pig had jumped behind a rock and snuck away. Castiel had waited, but no other animal had come to him. He's not sure how long ago that had been.
The animals that come to him now wear the skins of other animals on them and Castiel doesn't trust them. He tries to scuffle further back in the cubbyhole of the rocks but they notice and come closer. Castiel squeezes his eyes shut and he yells at them without words because he doesn't know words.
Silence falls again and when he looks, the two must have snuck away like the pig had, behind the rocks to never be seen by him again. But he hears an angry fierce yell that sounds familiar to him, just as this place has always felt familiar.
It's a demon.
A spear imbeds itself before his rock and another follows it, inches from his unprotected feet. Castiel screams and he bolts. He runs and runs and doesn't look back. He screams again out of terror and it takes him a long time, until he has no more breath, before he realizes that he isn't being pursued.
After that, he's too afraid to return to the shelters and the rocks so he walks. On and on, he walks. Hiding when he hears or sees movement, or voices like the ones that chased him from his home. He grows taller and often he finds himself unable to find food. Eventually, this drives him to find others like him. But he is still afraid and he makes sure he isn't seen. He sneaks about the outskirts, where a group that look like him but darker to blend with the plant life, have settled into shelters like the one he’d abandoned.
Their fires burn and the cooked meat makes Castiel's mouth water. After a short while, he notices that some is left out for him and he worries at first that they know he's here and it's a trap. Hunger and desire drive him forward but none harass him.
He stays, though he remains out of sight, sneaking food when he needs it and hiding nearby to watch and to listen. He learns their language and watches their games. They wear other animal’s skins like the ones before but Castiel quickly comes to realize that it's for protection, not malice. He has no way of copying them in that but he tries to imitate their speech, when he's sitting alone, in the hollow of a felled tree that he sleeps in.
Castiel decides that he should try this new found speech on someone else. He walks away from the village and out across the grasslands. He sees the Elephants from far away and he goes to them. They're eating the tops off of trees and Castiel must crane his neck upwards to see the mother. Her baby hides beneath her although it too could crush Castiel if it chose.
They look at him curiously, waiting for what he has to say. “Where are you going?” he asks and before his eyes the Elephants crack and harden. The mother’s trunk crumbles to the ground and her tusks fall and nearly pierce him where he stands. There is no time for her to trumpet in shock or outrage or her baby to squeal in fear. Castiel screams for them and he turns and runs and runs from the shapeless rock he leaves behind.
**
Centuries pass. Castiel learns to hide himself well. In the shadows, the trees, the nooks and crannies, as the world builds up around him and never does he seem to age past a human's prime. But he has learned that he isn't human, he is something else.
He looks up at the stars and wishes he could return to them.
Straw and mud shelters turn to concrete and wood and structures so immense and so many that Castiel hides easily among them. He hides out of sight among the humans and he adapts along with them. Changing in his mind the language that he is too afraid to speak. Eventually wearing animal skins and then finally, the fabric that he finds tossed into garbage bins. He eats food from these bins as well. He arms himself from them, with sharp knives that he also uses to chop back his hair.
Eventually, he thinks that perhaps he could try again to bring himself closer. Castiel is lonely. A deep gnawing ache that will never be satisfied from the trash in the bins or by watching the enormous community of people he has made himself invisible amongst. Surely he could try. Surely it could not happen again.
He finds a man cooking outside and approaches hesitantly. He's laughing with others, the hot sun baking their dark skin. They all look immediately to Castiel and he swallows deeply. He stands out, he knows, he isn't like them even before he speaks. He is wild and untamed; his white skin stands out starkly even though he has tried to hide it away. But he approaches and he asks the man, “What are you doing?”
To his horror, the man hardens and cracks, his face twisted into confusion before the stone breaks and crumbles down the middle. The others cry out in fear and Castiel turns to them with wide pleading eyes. “I'm sorry! Please, I'm sorry, I didn't mean-” But they turn to stone as well and Castiel runs.
He runs towards the ocean. The vast expanse of water that he has rarely ventured near. There are few places to hide there, away from the buildings and the trees. He runs along a wooden plank that leads into the water and here he is surprised to see others like him. That look like him, working on the ships along the dock. He dares not speak again and he hides on the dock, under an overturned rowboat until the night falls when he sneaks onto one of the large ships.
He means to stay there only a day or two, until he can find somewhere else. To hide himself away from all creatures. He is a demon and he must never speak again nor be tempted into it. Half-way into the night, the very early hours of the morning, he feels the vessel move and sway as it pulls from the dock and he is trapped.
For two days, he stays stuck into his tiny hole in one of the ship's storage rooms, too afraid to move, before someone finds him. It's one who looks like him and Castiel is tempted to speak again, just to see if these people are like him as well. But fear keeps him silent and after a moment of staring, the person comes back with some food and water. The food is stale but he eats it. The water is warm but it refreshes him.
He counts the number of light cycles by how often this person visits him with food, water, a bucket that Castiel quickly realizes the use for. The person comes once every cycle. Castiel counts over a hundred before he forgets.
It takes roughly six months to reach America.
**
There is a whole new way of life to learn in this strange place.
There are more people which Castiel did not think possible. The buildings are taller. It's noisier. It's faster. There is no dirt and mud and the trees seem scarce. Castiel doesn't like it. But over decades, he has no choice but to adapt.
He keeps to himself through the years. He has learned that there is some strength in staying near the other homeless on the streets of the cities. He has no idea how old he is now but as the next thousand years approaches, he doesn't want to face another and another.
He says nothing to the people around him and even the other homeless look at him with pity. He won't speak to ask for help so he can't beg; he can't work for his money. Stealing out of garbage bins is harder in these days. Sometimes, their pity drives them to offer him their own hard earned money or their hard earned drugs. Castiel learns what it feels like not to have to feel lonely. Not after one of the others offer him a handful of pills or a bag carefully hiding drink.
He takes it all without a word and hides himself away again in the shadows for fear that he will become too free under the drugs. Eventually though, he learns the lesson that people rarely hand out anything for free.
He sighs in pleasure as another pill slides down his throat, anticipation making his heart thud. In minutes, he'll forget his miserable lonely existence. He’ll find a place, climb the fire escapes to the tops of the buildings, where he can lie on his back and watch the stars and he'll try to remember what it was like to be at home.
But this time, a hard hand locks around his wrist before he can pull away to leave. “I think you've gotten enough for free.”
Castiel frowns and shakes his head. He has nothing to give. It becomes far clearer when he's pushed to his knees but a hand digging fingers hard into his jaw makes him swear and jerk back. He doesn't need to. There's nothing more than a pile of stone before his feet and the terrified faces of the other homeless that had seen.
Castiel is so very tired of running.
The following week, a pair of men walk down the ruined street Castiel has called home for so many years. He knows immediately that they don't belong here. They're healthy, their clothes aren't ripped, their hair is clean. Castiel watches from the shadows of an old broken fire escape.
“Run this by me one more time?” one grumbles, kicking at a pile of rocks they stop in front of.
“There have been rumours, Dean,” the other starts in patiently, as if he's only just finished explaining this, “Of a homeless guy that turned another one into stone.”
“And drugged out of their mind homeless guys are a great source of information,” Dean complains.
Castiel tries not to make a noise and knows they're talking about him. If they've come to kill him, would he welcome it?
“Actually, it's an old myth. I think it originated in Asia or something. This guy, wanders the plains and whenever he makes any noise, any, not just saying something, people or animals around him turn to stone. He shows up a few times over the centuries, kills a few people, and then disappears.”
“Awesome. So this thing could be watching right now, ready to say 'gotcha' and we'd be dead? This was a great idea.”
“That's why I brought these.”
Castiel watches as he holds up a package and Dean rolls his eyes before taking it. They're earplugs, Castiel realizes and his stomach drops. They're here to kill him and he couldn't stop them if he did want to. He watches as the pair communicates with hand signals and tries to shrink further back into the shadows. He doesn't want to die like this but he doesn't want to hurt anyone else.
Dean gestures directly at him and the next thing Castiel knows, there's a gun pointed in his face. He nearly cries out but he clamps down on his tongue so hard that he can taste the metallic tang of his blood. He shakes his head, his eyes wide and fearful, and presses back as far as he can. He never meant to hurt anyone.
Dean mouths something at the other, makes a hand gesture that Castiel doesn't understand and he closes his eyes and waits for the noise of the gun. He's surprised to hear their voices again instead.
“This isn't him, Sam. Look at him; we scared the fuck out of some homeless guy.”
“Yeah,” Sam agrees and Castiel risks opening his eyes to peer up at them. Sam kneels down and grimaces. “Sorry, man. You alright?”
Castiel shakes his head. He can't talk and he is very far from alright.
Dean crouches down beside Sam. “We're looking for this guy. Maybe you saw something last week. Maybe one of your buddies around here went missing?”
Castiel shakes his head again and raises a hand to press over his mouth. He knows by the look the two men share that they suddenly understand who they're talking to.
“You did that? You turned people into stone?”
Castiel nods, slow and hesitant and his eyes fall down to the gun still gripped in Dean's hand. His own hand stays firmly over his mouth. The pair trade a look again and as one, they rise to their feet, making Castiel flinch back but all they do is turn and Castiel only catches snatches of their conversation.
“The hell are we supposed to do?”
“Pop him! He's killed people.”
“Accident?”
They look back to Castiel again and he very carefully doesn't move until Dean lets out a harsh sigh. “Well, shit.”
**
Castiel finds himself with tape tightly across his mouth, there is the pinch of a needle at his arm and he grows groggy. He's being led through the dark and empty street. He follows because there's nothing else for him to do. His mind floods through with questions that he can't ask.
Sam and Dean take him to a black car and Castiel stands back from it warily. He's never travelled in a car before. The boat all those years ago had landed him at a port in New York City and he had stayed there, walking the streets. Walking, as he had always done.
Dean opens the back door and raises his eyebrows impatiently when Castiel only stands and looks in. What Dean wants is unmistakable and Dean still holds the gun in his hand so Castiel slides in, shoulders stiff and he leans forward, wanting to touch as little of the car as possible. The car starts and pulls forward with a slight lurch and Castiel finds himself pushed back against the seat anyway. He sits tightly in one corner, staring out the window at the fast passing streets, feeling the tight press of the tape across his mouth. He's thankful for it.
They pull up in front of a motel and again, Castiel follows passively as he's taken to a room. He stands in the center, under the men's scrutiny. He stares back at Dean until Dean looks away to Sam.
“Now what do we do with it?”
“Dean,” Sam admonishes and shakes his head. “He's not an ‘it’.”
“If he's been alive for a thousand years or so he's not human, either.”
Sam glares at him and approaches Castiel, eyebrows raised and imploring. “Are you hungry? Tired?” Castiel nods but after the last time he was offered a free handout, he glances down to Sam's crotch and then takes a step back. “Go sit at the table,” Sam tells him so Castiel does and watches with a curious head-tilt as Sam opens the room's fridge.
They offer him food, real food not rotting and half-eaten, and Sam carefully peels the tape from his mouth. It hurts but Castiel makes no sound and he eats while Sam and Dean talk a few feet off.
“This is dangerous, Sam.”
“I don't think so. I mean...look at him. It's like dealing with a kid. He's not going to hurt us.”
“Yeah, maybe not purposefully.”
“So what are you suggesting, then? Get him de-barked?”
Dean casts a considering look over at Castiel, who jumps a little at suddenly being noticed and stares back. “Maybe?” Castiel still watches them, as he shovels the food away quickly, wondering what will come next. Eying the beds in the hopes that he can sleep on one of those instead of a concrete floor. He thinks he would be willing to pay for that, if they asked.
Sam rubs a hand up over his face, approaching Castiel when he notices that Castiel has finished eating. “Tired?” he asks and Castiel nods but Dean snorts.
“He’s not sleeping in here.”
“Dean...”
“What? He might talk in his sleep.” Castiel flushes and looks down. In no way can he be near people. “Cuff him. Put him in the backseat of the Impala for the night, he can sleep there. Hell, it’ll probably feel like the lap of luxury to him anyway.”
It’s exactly what they do. Sam presses a fresh piece of tape over his mouth and Dean tugs his arms behind his back and secures them there with hard bands of metal around his wrists. Castiel tugs half-heartedly but it does no good and he has no fight in him to test them more than that. Dean takes Castiel back to the car and guides him into the back seat, taking Castiel’s arm to hold his balance as he sits down heavily.
“Just uh...settle in. Take a nap. Don’t touch a thing or I’ll shoot you. Got it?”
Castiel nods hard with wide eyes but still Dean cleans the car out of absolutely anything he can and eventually, Castiel is left alone with only the neon of the hotel sign and the yellow glow of the street lamps. He’s too scared to move for a long time but eventually exhaustion wins out and he lies down, arms bound awkwardly behind him but he still finds it the most comfortable thing he’s experience. He tucks his legs up and presses his face down against the leather which is soft under him.
In the morning, Sam is there to wake him gently and take him back inside where Castiel is again offered food after he’s released from his bindings. Sam and Dean both sit at the table opposite him and Castiel has to fight off the urge to hover over his food. Sam and Dean are well fed and they won’t take it from him. The two trade looks and Castiel wonders what silent communication they have and if he could ever have that with another.
“So, we’ve talked it over and we know you didn’t mean to hurt those people.”
Castiel shakes his head. He never meant to hurt anyone.
Sam produces a pad of paper and a pen and pushes them across the table towards Castiel. “Can you write?”
Castiel hesitates, before he takes the pen in clumsy fingers and for long minutes, all he does is think. He has tried to teach himself many things, as he did with the language of humans. He can read some but he has never had the means to write. He knows what he wants to say but to translate that to the blank page in front of him takes him time. Sam and Dean wait.
It is hard. He eventually scratches onto the paper. To never make a noise.
“That man in the alley, why did you...make a noise around him?”
Castiel thinks awhile and leans over the paper. He wanted sex.
“Christ,” Dean mutters. “And you didn’t?” Castiel shakes his head. “Guess we can’t fault you for that one. What about others?”
I had to know. I had hope. Sam and Dean look at each other, each with a look of sympathy written across their faces. I am alone. I did not mean to hurt them. His hand is turning sore so he puts the pen down and stares at the empty plate in front of him and to the words scrawled on a messy slant across the paper.
“Okay. We might have an idea,” Sam begins and Castiel looks hopeful while the other two look only guarded.
**
It starts with a haircut and a shave.
“No one is going to want to come near you if you look like a creepy hobo. Now sit still,” Dean admonishes when Castiel fidgets at the sight of the razor and he stills immediately. Dean shaves the hair from his face first, pulling faces and cursing the entire time. “Gross. Gross gross,” he keeps saying and Castiel only watches Dean’s eyes.
When Dean is finished, Castiel touches his smooth skin and shivers at the sensation.
Dean shears the hair from his head nearly to his scalp, leaving it prickly to Castiel’s touch. He pulls the dirty and torn clothes from Castiel’s body and fills a tub with warm water to clean the dirt from Castiel’s skin. This, Castiel must do on his own while Dean sits on the toilet with his eyes covered, singing things that Castiel doesn’t recognize but finds soothing. If only because no one has ever sung to him before.
He gets new clothes to dress in and shoes for his feet. Sam pokes his head into the bathroom when Castiel is shoving a mint covered brush into his mouth and scrubbing his painful teeth. He gives Dean a pained look and Dean relents, taking the brush away and glancing to Sam.
“This is the weirdest hunt we have ever done.”
Sam laughs, a sound that warms Castiel and one he longs to make himself but he makes no noise. Eventually, Dean deems him presentable and marches Castiel from the bathroom.
“Check this out, Sammy. There was almost a real boy under all that.”
Castiel turns from Dean and looks at himself in a mirror. He does not recognize himself. This is not the him that has stared back at him from a water hole’s reflection or a window’s. He looks suddenly like the others that walk the streets in the daylight. He looks like Sam or Dean. He looks normal. He feels amazing and his mouth turns into an expression he has not made in centuries.
“Like that, huh?” Dean asks him and Castiel nods. Even more, he likes the spark of affection that is momentarily in Dean’s gaze before he frowns. “You got a name?”
Castiel thinks for a moment before nodding more slowly. It is among those things that he knows but isn’t sure how he knows. Brought down with him when he fell from the stars? Or was it spoken to him from the people in his first village, before he turned them all to stone, as he knows must have happened now?
“Can you spell it?”
Sam hands him the pad of paper and pen and Castiel frowns in concentration. He is not sure how to spell what he calls himself in his head. He has never seen it written and can’t picture it. He tries the sounds in his mind but when three letters are written, he doesn’t know how to get any further. He hands it back to Sam.
“Cas?”
Castiel waves his hand vaguely but Dean is grinning so he nods.
“Cas. That’s awesome. Alright.” Dean turns his attention on Sam. “You work it out with Bobby?”
“He thinks we’re both insane, called us soft-hearted girls but yeah. He knows a guy who knows a guy and he got hold of them. There’s a doctor in Chicago whose hip to the supernatural, understands our situation, and agreed to do a little...vocal...cutting. This is really weird, right?”
“Yeah.” Dean shrugs. “But what other choice is there?”
**
The restraints are back on Castiel when the three of them head back into the car.
“It isn’t that we don’t trust you,” Dean says, “It’s just... Yeah.”
Castiel doesn’t mind. The tape is still a level of security for him and though the cuffs are uncomfortable, he knows that Dean and Sam would be uncomfortable if he didn’t wear them. The journey is long. Many times, Castiel thinks that he would rather walk it but he has no way to communicate this. He sits in the back of the car and stares out at the passing scenery. They pass fields and he misses his earliest days, alone in a village of rocks with the insects his only company and nothing to worry him other than his next meal.
He sleeps and when he wakes, it’s dark. Sam is sleeping in the passenger seat and Dean is at the wheel. They’ve switched at some point and Castiel hadn’t stirred. Dean glances at him through the mirror. “Guess you don’t talk in your sleep.”
Castiel keeps his eyes on the mirror, on the reflection of Dean he can see and the car travels on in relative silence until Dean glances at him again. “You stare a lot, you know that?” Castiel only stares more and Dean huffs out a laugh. “Can’t imagine what you’ve been through, man. Most people would have gone mad by now. Most...things, most creatures, probably would have started killing people just for kicks.” Castiel shakes his head hard because he would never. “I know, not you.” There’s another spark of affection, this time to Dean’s tone and Castiel longs to return it.
They reach the city of Chicago in the early morning. Sam rouses from sleep at the city limits and he’s immediately alert, listing directions to Dean. They pull up before a large and brightly lit building and Castiel cranes his neck to try to see it all from the car’s window. Dean exits the car, only to join him in the back seat and Castiel looks at him, eyes trusting.
“We gotta sedate you before we go in. It’s just a precaution, cause there’s a lot of people in there. Right?”
Castiel isn’t entirely sure he understands but he nods and watches as Sam hands Dean a small case and Dean readies a needle. Castiel turns as Dean directs him and Dean’s fingers rub the crook of his elbow and make him sigh.
“It’s gonna pinch a little, might sting. Just for a second.” Castiel holds his breath and bows his head and barely feels it when the needle pierces his skin. Dean sits back and allows Castiel to turn to face him. “Everything’s gonna be fine soon.” Castiel nods and his vision starts to blur around the edges, his mind starts to fog and his heart starts to pound. “You won’t have to worry anymore. I promise.”
Castiel collapses into nothing.
He wakes on a soft bed, in a quiet room. The quality of the light coming through the blinds says that it’s evening and he’s somehow missed the entire day. He can’t panic because his mind feels slow and groggy and he remembers the needle Dean had stuck into his arm. His throat hurts, in a distant sort of way.
“Hey, buddy.”
Castiel rolls his head to the side on the soft pillow under him and meets Dean’s gaze. Sam is standing behind him.
“Can you make a noise?” Dean asks, leaning forward. Castiel immediately shakes his head vehemently. “It’s okay. Remember, we talked about this? This is the hospital; the doc already did his thing. Remember?”
Castiel gives a cautious nod. The doctor was going to go in and cut the thing inside him that allowed him to make noise, Dean had explained to him. So Castiel opens his mouth and he tries to talk, to shape his mouth around Dean’s name and nothing comes out. Dean and Sam do not turn to stone before his eyes. They do not crack or crumble.
Elation makes him shake, the grin splits his face and before Dean or Sam can react, he’s thrown himself forward and he’s hugging Dean so hard that Dean wheezes against his neck. Castiel is free. At last free. He will live among these people, his kin.
Dean and Sam take him to an older man called Bobby where they leave him. Bobby shows him many things. To write and read. To work on a car or fix a wobbly table leg. Bobby shows Castiel how to live the life that Castiel waited a thousand years for. That Sam and Dean gave to him.
Five years after his vocal chords are cut, Castiel realizes that he is finally ageing again and he looks forward to that day as well.
---
Notes: A link to the original myth: Kelembai
Also, there is an explanation for the title at the bottom of the myth and what 'Sang' means: Sang is an honorific and endearing term used by the Malays to refer to characters, animals, or objects in stories about them.