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alchemyaliceTitle: On the Wings of War
Author: Alchemy Alice
Genre and/or Pairing: Action/Adventure/Horror, Dean/Castiel
Rating: R for violence
Warnings/Spoilers: Up to 5.14-ish.
Disclaimer: The characters and the sandbox in which they play does not belong to me. I am simply borrowing for a short time.
Summary: The Horsemen are not just people with fancy rings. They aren’t even demons with fancy rings. They are another species entirely, a force unto themselves, and Lucifer is kidding himself if he thinks that they are at his beck and call. They are separate. They are neutral. Dean Winchester is not built like them.
Prologue | Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four | Chapter Five | Chapter Six | Chapter Seven | Chapter Eight | Chapter Nine | Chapter Ten | Chapter Eleven | Chapter Twelve | Chapter Thirteen | Chapter Fourteen | Chapter Fifteen | Chapter Sixteen | Chapter Seventeen | Chapter Eighteen | Chapter Nineteen | Chapter Twenty | Chapter Twenty-One | Chapter Twenty-Two | Chapter Twenty-Three | Chapter Twenty-Four | Chapter Twenty-Five | Chapter Twenty-Six
Author: Alchemy Alice
Genre and/or Pairing: Action/Adventure/Horror, Dean/Castiel
Rating: R for violence
Warnings/Spoilers: Up to 5.14-ish.
Disclaimer: The characters and the sandbox in which they play does not belong to me. I am simply borrowing for a short time.
Summary: The Horsemen are not just people with fancy rings. They aren’t even demons with fancy rings. They are another species entirely, a force unto themselves, and Lucifer is kidding himself if he thinks that they are at his beck and call. They are separate. They are neutral. Dean Winchester is not built like them.
Prologue | Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four | Chapter Five | Chapter Six | Chapter Seven | Chapter Eight | Chapter Nine | Chapter Ten | Chapter Eleven | Chapter Twelve | Chapter Thirteen | Chapter Fourteen | Chapter Fifteen | Chapter Sixteen | Chapter Seventeen | Chapter Eighteen | Chapter Nineteen | Chapter Twenty | Chapter Twenty-One | Chapter Twenty-Two | Chapter Twenty-Three | Chapter Twenty-Four | Chapter Twenty-Five | Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The earth remained fixed on its axis.
Order was restored, left to be maintained by people and creatures that actually belonged there.
Dean had the highly suspicious (though hardly unjustified) thought that this feeling that gripped him, the feeling that now, after everything, now was when the rug had well and truly been pulled out from under him, was God’s final pot shot at him.
Sam found him hours later.
“Dean? Where’s Cas?” he asked.
“Gone to find himself, apparently,” Dean replied. His voice was rough and low and flat. “I’d have lent him the Impala to do the clichéd road-trip thing, but he didn’t seem interested.”
Sam blinked. “He left?” he said, after a second, “But he just came back!”
“So he did,” Dean agreed, not looking up. He didn’t move as he listened to Sam walk forward and then lean back against the counter next to him.
They sat in silence for a long moment. Then Sam said fiercely, “What the fuck is wrong with him?”
Dean raised his eyebrows. “How d’you know it’s his problem? ‘Cause you know me, I’m awesome at putting my foot in my mouth.”
“Yeah, and of all people Cas is one of the few who actually knows how to deal with that,” Sam replied. “What the hell happened? When all the shit was coming down you guys were all…” He gestured widely in a way that made Dean crack a crooked smile and snort.
“‘We were all…’?” he parroted. “Sammy, this college thing really didn’t do much for your vocab.”
Sam glared at him. “Dean. The only person you’ve sacrificed more for is me. And I’m your brother.”
“What do you want me to say?” Dean spread his hands, his expression closed and still. “We talked, he had an identity crisis and left. I can’t blame him. Millions of years being an angel, and now he’s a half-angel, half-horseman thing. I’ve only been me for thirty-some years, and I had a hard time, too.”
“Michael seems to be dealing with the arrangement just fine,” Sam bitched, “I don’t see why Cas has to leave you in the lurch.”
Dean rolled his eyes. “You make it sound like he left me at the altar or something.”
Sam just looked at him expectantly.
Dean looked incredulous. “Dude. We’re not—”
“Yeah, of course ‘you’re not’. Bullshit. I call hardcore bullshit. You and Cas have this ‘thing’—”
“Use air quotes again and I will disown you.”
“—That practically announces itself every time you guys are in the same room. He watches you wherever you go, and when you say ‘jump’ he asks how high. And you…you gave him your wings, Dean.”
Dean flinched, and looked away, mouth twisted and tightly shut.
Sam sighed. “Shit. I shouldn’t even be yelling at you, this clearly isn’t your fault. Cas just needs to get his head out of his ass. I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine.” Dean exhaled, and shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. We saved the world, we’re alive. That’s enough.”
Sam bit the inside of his cheek to keep himself silent. He tasted copper in his mouth.
***
Dean didn’t let them talk about it after that. They had other things to occupy themselves with anyway, after a while.
The Pax conjuration Castiel had given his wings for hadn’t lasted long, just long enough to let everyone take a breath and maybe a step back from the edge. But evil things generally shake off doubt pretty easily, so there were still things to clean up. Bobby got a call about a mess of rogue demons causing havoc in Vermont, so Sam and Dean went to clear them out.
As it turned out, Dean still had enough War in him to set the fuckers against each other, which made getting them into a devil’s trap to await Sam’s fluent exorcism a fun exercise instead of a dangerous chore.
As smoke angrily climbed up and out of the three broken human bodies to crack apart in shards and sparks, Dean cocked his head and dusted some ash off his shoulder with a smirk.
“I gotta say—this, along with being able to fit inside my baby again? This, I can live with.”
“Horrifying innuendo aside,” Sam said, closing his travel Bible with a snap, “I’m glad to hear it.”
They started the drive back, the Impala humming contentedly, with Black Sabbath screaming through the speakers.
Halfway to South Dakota, Crowley appeared in the back seat, and Dean nearly swerved off the road.
“Fucking shit!” He slammed on the brakes. “What the fuck, Crowley?”
“Calm down, I wouldn’t have let you crash,” Crowley said airily, crossing his legs and lounging against the car door. “Would’ve been terribly uncharitable of me.”
“What do you want?” Sam said, waiting for his heart rate to slow.
“I want,” Crowley said, reaching into his inside coat pocket and drawing out a card, “You to have my number. Permanently. Consider it a thank you for keeping things from going to hell, literally.”
“And when should we call this number, exactly?” Sam said, taking the card. The number was different from the one he had on that old and yellowed scrap of paper, which he was pretty sure had disintegrated in the wash.
“If you need any assistance. And also,” Crowley studied his nails, “If any of the dark forces you come across are doing anything but crossroad deals and influence. Because that…that’s the extent of what I want Hell’s presence to be, here on earth.”
“I’m gonna guess that’s not a very popular idea downstairs,” Dean said, after an incredulous pause.
“You’d be surprised,” Crowley said, smirking. “The apocalypse is no more. No one has any plans anymore; they’re looking for some ideas, some leadership, and with Lucifer gone they’re left with me. And I’m tired of dealing with sycophantic hierarchies and petty wars. My rules are simple: Be an influence peddler, and live on earth, or torture souls, and live in Hell. I think it’s fair, really.”
“That’s not going to stop us going after any demon that crosses our path,” Sam said.
“I didn’t think so. But you should also recall the rules of influence: No outright contact, no tricks, no forcing the issue. If a human succumbs to our wishes, it’s because deep down, he wants to. May I remind you gentlemen that sometimes, people are just evil?”
“No need for that,” Dean muttered.
Sam hesitated, and then took the card from Crowley’s fingers. Before he could say anything, the demon was gone.
“Everything’s starting up again,” Dean said quietly.
Sam didn’t disagree.
***
So the hunts began again. But Heaven and Hell were quiet, at least on Earth.
Sam got in the habit of leaving chocolate bars on the kitchen table. When they were gone the following day, he found himself inordinately relieved.
Dean was subdued. When they went into town, he wore layers even when the sun was high in the sky.
Bobby got a hold of a couple of new cars that needed to be fixed up. “Good thing too,” he said. “You two are drinking me out of house and home.”
“What we do best,” Dean agreed. But after a few days of banging away at one of the cars until it purred like it was brand new, he roped Sam into going a couple of towns over to hustle pool. They returned with a few hundred dollars to sneak into Bobby’s lockbox. They knew that Bobby knew they did it, but sneaking it in was part of the ritual they’d established even when John Winchester was still alive, so they did it now as well. It was almost sickeningly normal, at least for them. Just one more grounding action for them to cling to.
Sam thought that it was a turning point. But after a brief period of more characteristic garrulousness, Dean quieted again.
Two months passed.
Hell, but more importantly Heaven, and all of its Hosts, remained quiet.
Dean got quieter.
Sam got fed up.
Two months, one week and three days later, four o’clock in the morning, when both Bobby and Dean were asleep, and Sam was the one left awake, he lost his patience in the dark and silence of the dusty house.
“Listen, douchebag,” he muttered, sitting at the kitchen table, one hand holding a beer, the other in a fist. Dean had barely spoken a word that day, working on an old Ford pickup, the aborted stems of wings shifting restlessly beneath his t-shirt, and fuck if it hadn’t just ripped Sam up inside to watch him. “You need to come back here,” he said to the empty kitchen, “I don’t care what he says, and I don’t care what you said, but you need to come back and get over yourself. We’re doing our thing here, as well as we can, but you’re part of this family now, better or worse, and family…family doesn’t leave without a good goddamn reason. And I know how hypocritical that sounds, coming from me, but it’s fucking true.”
He didn’t look up at the sandpaper whisper of wings. “Took you fucking long enough,” he said, eyeing his beer instead.
Cas hovered awkwardly in the kitchen. “I didn’t think I was…so missed,” he said carefully.
Sam finally looked up with a glare. “You left him. He gave you his wings, and you left.”
The angel flinched. “I…I hadn’t thought of it that way.”
“Obviously,” Sam said. He glanced over to the clock, and then finished his beer as he stood up. “Fuck, it’s late. I’m going to bed. You are going to stay here, and talk to him when he gets up. Okay? Just…we’re going to keep hunting, I think. Dean’s got some serious advantages now, what with War still in his system a bit, so I don’t think he wants to do anything else, and now he might even stand a chance of not getting himself killed, too. And I don’t think I can leave the life now either, not unless something really amazing happens. And that’s fine, I think that’s okay. But it would be better if you were there with him. I wouldn’t mind. At least then, if I ever find someone, I’ll know that I won’t be leaving him alone.” He winced at his beer. “Sorry, that was a lot more articulate in my head. I need to sleep. Just…do you—”
“I understand, I think,” Castiel said. The air moved behind him with the sound of calloused skin and leather, a sound that jarringly now reminded Sam of his brother. “Sleep well, Sam.”
Sam nodded, and stumbled up to bed.
Castiel took his seat at the table, his expression inscrutable. His hands were restless on the tabletop, though. He let the sunrise slowly fill the room without moving.
At eight in the morning, Dean stumbled down the stairs. He came to an abrupt stop when he spotted Cas. It only took a few seconds for him to bristle, however. Castiel remained seated and still.
“Well hi, Cas. Long time no fucking see,” Dean said, after long silence.
“Hello, Dean.” He kept his eyes averted.
Dean stared at him for a long moment. “Are you still angry?” he said finally, his voiced pitched low and hard, “Because honestly, everyone’s angry, but some of us have actually put some of that anger to good use, and—”
“Mostly, I am angry that everything happened the way it did,” Castiel interrupted. “It was messy and unplanned and Father wasn’t there, not for one moment of it; I’m certain of that, now.”
“You left,” Dean said flatly, and at that Castiel finally turned, took one look at Dean, and stepped abruptly forward out of his chair, like he hadn’t meant to.
“I would never leave you,” he said. “Not forever.”
Dean looked at him for a long moment, and then looked away.
Castiel tilted his head, consternation in the lines of his brow and mouth. After an interminable time, he said, “I’m angry that things happened as they did. That this is what fate dealt us. But then a certain part of me imagines how else it could have happened, what would have changed and stayed the same had we made different decisions and chosen different allies. And I find myself…troubled, because I can’t find it in myself to prefer those paths, even the ones in which Father comes home and enforces his laws and his love, because at least—”
He stopped abruptly. Dean was caught in the middle distance, but he took a long breath and tore himself away, force himself to focus on the angel. There was a weight to Cas’s words that he could sense but didn’t dare anticipate. “At least what, Cas?” he asked.
He watched the muscles in Castiel’s jaw flex, and wondered when that had happened, that anxiety had begun to translate into Cas’s features in such a visible and human way.
Cas took a breath, and said, “At least here and now, I am assured that you survive, and I don’t have to wait a lifetime to see you again.”
Dean exhaled, and said roughly, “There is that.”
There was no reason it to be, after everything, so difficult still. But here they were. Dean put it down to Castiel’s compete inability to be anything but obtuse, and his own fucking emotional hangups that he wasn’t actually prepared to contemplate.
He and Cas were both men…angel…things of action, one way or another. And they’d been through far too much together to do anything but act.
“You know, someone pretty smart told me that I should start forgiving myself for things I can’t control. Maybe you should take your own advice, Cas.”
“I have never had any illusions about what I can and cannot change,” Castiel growled. “What frustrates me is what it means, when all that has happened is over. We’ve upended the entire course of reality. And proven what? That the only way to survive is to change?”
“Sounds like a pretty good moral to me,” Dean commented.
“Did our Father make us wrong?”
“No,” Dean said sharply. “No. Don’t you dare believe that. You know what I feel like, nowadays? I feel unfinished. Like someone set out to make me and got bored halfway through. But that’s okay, I think I can make that okay now, you know why?”
Castiel looked at him, waiting.
“Because I’ve changed so many times, the pieces of me rearranging themselves so many times by now, that feeling unfinished doesn’t bother me anymore. Because maybe, some day down the line, I’ll change again, and then maybe I’ll feel more complete. What I’ve lost or given up can be filled up, not with those same missing things, but with different things, and maybe that’ll be even better than before. That’s what I’m choosing to take from this clusterfuck. Everything else would be stupid, trite bullshit.” He took a breath, and let it out. Then he tilted his head slightly. “Look at me, Cas.”
The angel raised his head. The shadows under his eyes had never looked deeper.
“We don’t know what we are. We’re some weird-ass goddamn monsters. But we saved the world. So,” Dean paused, “Clearly what we are doesn’t matter. It just matters that who we are is the same. Right?”
“We change our bodies, but not our souls,” Castiel said, after a long moment. “And thus we remain worthy of heaven.”
“‘Swhat I said, isn’t it?”
He smiled, very slightly. “Yes. It is what you said.” He paused, and then said carefully, “I too feel unfinished.”
“Yeah?” Dean said, watchful.
“Yes. I feel…overwhelmed. Like I have put on a coat that is too large for me.”
“The way I see it, you do that every day.”
Castiel quelled him with a look. But then he looked down at his hands, and said, “You told me once that I was your soldier now.”
“I’m not War. You said it yourself, I’m not anything,” Dean replied, somewhat confused. “What do I know about things that could or couldn’t be mine?”
“You are still War, Dean,” Castiel said, with absolute certainty. “A part of you will always be War. And War’s wings…you gifted them to me, Dean. You took that part of the Horseman, and you bequeathed it to me. They saved my life, and now they are mine, but they are too large for me to bear alone. That is what feels unfinished, not because I am incomplete, but because you have made me too much. They are what feel too big, ill-fitted to me. They make me think that I…that you have…you have in some way annexed me. And I…I left because that frightened me.”
Dean exhaled in a harsh, terrified burst. “I didn’t want that for you,” he said, when he managed to draw air into his lungs. “Cas. I never, Jesus Christ, I would never want that for you, don’t want you to—”
“Belong to you?” Castiel finished lightly. “You don’t have a choice, anymore.”
“Jesus, Cas,” Dean burst out, “What do you want me to do? Jesus, no wonder you ran, I would have…Do you want freedom, because I’ll give it to you, any way I can, it’s not right that you—”
“Dean.”
“What?” he asked, and he could hear how his voice had dropped low and hoarse, how he was so close to Cas, wanting him and terrified to touch him, like that would seal a Devil’s bargain that could never be undone. “What do you want me to do, Cas?”
“I want you,” Castiel said, taking his hand carefully, weighing it in his own, “To be at peace, Dean Winchester.”
Dean coughed, shaking his head. “You’ve got a hell of a way of showing it, Cas.”
“I have never been best at articulating what I feel,” Cas allowed. “I was afraid of what it meant, before. Having a part of you with me, perhaps even capable of controlling of my actions, should you choose to direct me. But I had forgotten that you are the best person that I have ever known, and that I could trust you with that connection. That is why I want you to be at peace with what we have both, purposefully or accidentally, done. Is that…is that acceptable?”
Dean stared at him for a long moment, a moment in which Castiel’s expression shifted just slightly towards trepidation, just enough that it was visible, and that alone was enough. Dean caught it, and exhaled. He leaned forward to touch his brow to the angel’s. They were a mere breath apart. The air between them was warm.
“Yeah,” he said roughly. “Yeah, I think I can deal with that. Just…c’mere.”
Castiel went. His mouth was cool, tasting slightly of ash, and already slightly of Dean himself.
Epilogue.
The earth remained fixed on its axis.
Order was restored, left to be maintained by people and creatures that actually belonged there.
Dean had the highly suspicious (though hardly unjustified) thought that this feeling that gripped him, the feeling that now, after everything, now was when the rug had well and truly been pulled out from under him, was God’s final pot shot at him.
Sam found him hours later.
“Dean? Where’s Cas?” he asked.
“Gone to find himself, apparently,” Dean replied. His voice was rough and low and flat. “I’d have lent him the Impala to do the clichéd road-trip thing, but he didn’t seem interested.”
Sam blinked. “He left?” he said, after a second, “But he just came back!”
“So he did,” Dean agreed, not looking up. He didn’t move as he listened to Sam walk forward and then lean back against the counter next to him.
They sat in silence for a long moment. Then Sam said fiercely, “What the fuck is wrong with him?”
Dean raised his eyebrows. “How d’you know it’s his problem? ‘Cause you know me, I’m awesome at putting my foot in my mouth.”
“Yeah, and of all people Cas is one of the few who actually knows how to deal with that,” Sam replied. “What the hell happened? When all the shit was coming down you guys were all…” He gestured widely in a way that made Dean crack a crooked smile and snort.
“‘We were all…’?” he parroted. “Sammy, this college thing really didn’t do much for your vocab.”
Sam glared at him. “Dean. The only person you’ve sacrificed more for is me. And I’m your brother.”
“What do you want me to say?” Dean spread his hands, his expression closed and still. “We talked, he had an identity crisis and left. I can’t blame him. Millions of years being an angel, and now he’s a half-angel, half-horseman thing. I’ve only been me for thirty-some years, and I had a hard time, too.”
“Michael seems to be dealing with the arrangement just fine,” Sam bitched, “I don’t see why Cas has to leave you in the lurch.”
Dean rolled his eyes. “You make it sound like he left me at the altar or something.”
Sam just looked at him expectantly.
Dean looked incredulous. “Dude. We’re not—”
“Yeah, of course ‘you’re not’. Bullshit. I call hardcore bullshit. You and Cas have this ‘thing’—”
“Use air quotes again and I will disown you.”
“—That practically announces itself every time you guys are in the same room. He watches you wherever you go, and when you say ‘jump’ he asks how high. And you…you gave him your wings, Dean.”
Dean flinched, and looked away, mouth twisted and tightly shut.
Sam sighed. “Shit. I shouldn’t even be yelling at you, this clearly isn’t your fault. Cas just needs to get his head out of his ass. I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine.” Dean exhaled, and shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. We saved the world, we’re alive. That’s enough.”
Sam bit the inside of his cheek to keep himself silent. He tasted copper in his mouth.
***
Dean didn’t let them talk about it after that. They had other things to occupy themselves with anyway, after a while.
The Pax conjuration Castiel had given his wings for hadn’t lasted long, just long enough to let everyone take a breath and maybe a step back from the edge. But evil things generally shake off doubt pretty easily, so there were still things to clean up. Bobby got a call about a mess of rogue demons causing havoc in Vermont, so Sam and Dean went to clear them out.
As it turned out, Dean still had enough War in him to set the fuckers against each other, which made getting them into a devil’s trap to await Sam’s fluent exorcism a fun exercise instead of a dangerous chore.
As smoke angrily climbed up and out of the three broken human bodies to crack apart in shards and sparks, Dean cocked his head and dusted some ash off his shoulder with a smirk.
“I gotta say—this, along with being able to fit inside my baby again? This, I can live with.”
“Horrifying innuendo aside,” Sam said, closing his travel Bible with a snap, “I’m glad to hear it.”
They started the drive back, the Impala humming contentedly, with Black Sabbath screaming through the speakers.
Halfway to South Dakota, Crowley appeared in the back seat, and Dean nearly swerved off the road.
“Fucking shit!” He slammed on the brakes. “What the fuck, Crowley?”
“Calm down, I wouldn’t have let you crash,” Crowley said airily, crossing his legs and lounging against the car door. “Would’ve been terribly uncharitable of me.”
“What do you want?” Sam said, waiting for his heart rate to slow.
“I want,” Crowley said, reaching into his inside coat pocket and drawing out a card, “You to have my number. Permanently. Consider it a thank you for keeping things from going to hell, literally.”
“And when should we call this number, exactly?” Sam said, taking the card. The number was different from the one he had on that old and yellowed scrap of paper, which he was pretty sure had disintegrated in the wash.
“If you need any assistance. And also,” Crowley studied his nails, “If any of the dark forces you come across are doing anything but crossroad deals and influence. Because that…that’s the extent of what I want Hell’s presence to be, here on earth.”
“I’m gonna guess that’s not a very popular idea downstairs,” Dean said, after an incredulous pause.
“You’d be surprised,” Crowley said, smirking. “The apocalypse is no more. No one has any plans anymore; they’re looking for some ideas, some leadership, and with Lucifer gone they’re left with me. And I’m tired of dealing with sycophantic hierarchies and petty wars. My rules are simple: Be an influence peddler, and live on earth, or torture souls, and live in Hell. I think it’s fair, really.”
“That’s not going to stop us going after any demon that crosses our path,” Sam said.
“I didn’t think so. But you should also recall the rules of influence: No outright contact, no tricks, no forcing the issue. If a human succumbs to our wishes, it’s because deep down, he wants to. May I remind you gentlemen that sometimes, people are just evil?”
“No need for that,” Dean muttered.
Sam hesitated, and then took the card from Crowley’s fingers. Before he could say anything, the demon was gone.
“Everything’s starting up again,” Dean said quietly.
Sam didn’t disagree.
***
So the hunts began again. But Heaven and Hell were quiet, at least on Earth.
Sam got in the habit of leaving chocolate bars on the kitchen table. When they were gone the following day, he found himself inordinately relieved.
Dean was subdued. When they went into town, he wore layers even when the sun was high in the sky.
Bobby got a hold of a couple of new cars that needed to be fixed up. “Good thing too,” he said. “You two are drinking me out of house and home.”
“What we do best,” Dean agreed. But after a few days of banging away at one of the cars until it purred like it was brand new, he roped Sam into going a couple of towns over to hustle pool. They returned with a few hundred dollars to sneak into Bobby’s lockbox. They knew that Bobby knew they did it, but sneaking it in was part of the ritual they’d established even when John Winchester was still alive, so they did it now as well. It was almost sickeningly normal, at least for them. Just one more grounding action for them to cling to.
Sam thought that it was a turning point. But after a brief period of more characteristic garrulousness, Dean quieted again.
Two months passed.
Hell, but more importantly Heaven, and all of its Hosts, remained quiet.
Dean got quieter.
Sam got fed up.
Two months, one week and three days later, four o’clock in the morning, when both Bobby and Dean were asleep, and Sam was the one left awake, he lost his patience in the dark and silence of the dusty house.
“Listen, douchebag,” he muttered, sitting at the kitchen table, one hand holding a beer, the other in a fist. Dean had barely spoken a word that day, working on an old Ford pickup, the aborted stems of wings shifting restlessly beneath his t-shirt, and fuck if it hadn’t just ripped Sam up inside to watch him. “You need to come back here,” he said to the empty kitchen, “I don’t care what he says, and I don’t care what you said, but you need to come back and get over yourself. We’re doing our thing here, as well as we can, but you’re part of this family now, better or worse, and family…family doesn’t leave without a good goddamn reason. And I know how hypocritical that sounds, coming from me, but it’s fucking true.”
He didn’t look up at the sandpaper whisper of wings. “Took you fucking long enough,” he said, eyeing his beer instead.
Cas hovered awkwardly in the kitchen. “I didn’t think I was…so missed,” he said carefully.
Sam finally looked up with a glare. “You left him. He gave you his wings, and you left.”
The angel flinched. “I…I hadn’t thought of it that way.”
“Obviously,” Sam said. He glanced over to the clock, and then finished his beer as he stood up. “Fuck, it’s late. I’m going to bed. You are going to stay here, and talk to him when he gets up. Okay? Just…we’re going to keep hunting, I think. Dean’s got some serious advantages now, what with War still in his system a bit, so I don’t think he wants to do anything else, and now he might even stand a chance of not getting himself killed, too. And I don’t think I can leave the life now either, not unless something really amazing happens. And that’s fine, I think that’s okay. But it would be better if you were there with him. I wouldn’t mind. At least then, if I ever find someone, I’ll know that I won’t be leaving him alone.” He winced at his beer. “Sorry, that was a lot more articulate in my head. I need to sleep. Just…do you—”
“I understand, I think,” Castiel said. The air moved behind him with the sound of calloused skin and leather, a sound that jarringly now reminded Sam of his brother. “Sleep well, Sam.”
Sam nodded, and stumbled up to bed.
Castiel took his seat at the table, his expression inscrutable. His hands were restless on the tabletop, though. He let the sunrise slowly fill the room without moving.
At eight in the morning, Dean stumbled down the stairs. He came to an abrupt stop when he spotted Cas. It only took a few seconds for him to bristle, however. Castiel remained seated and still.
“Well hi, Cas. Long time no fucking see,” Dean said, after long silence.
“Hello, Dean.” He kept his eyes averted.
Dean stared at him for a long moment. “Are you still angry?” he said finally, his voiced pitched low and hard, “Because honestly, everyone’s angry, but some of us have actually put some of that anger to good use, and—”
“Mostly, I am angry that everything happened the way it did,” Castiel interrupted. “It was messy and unplanned and Father wasn’t there, not for one moment of it; I’m certain of that, now.”
“You left,” Dean said flatly, and at that Castiel finally turned, took one look at Dean, and stepped abruptly forward out of his chair, like he hadn’t meant to.
“I would never leave you,” he said. “Not forever.”
Dean looked at him for a long moment, and then looked away.
Castiel tilted his head, consternation in the lines of his brow and mouth. After an interminable time, he said, “I’m angry that things happened as they did. That this is what fate dealt us. But then a certain part of me imagines how else it could have happened, what would have changed and stayed the same had we made different decisions and chosen different allies. And I find myself…troubled, because I can’t find it in myself to prefer those paths, even the ones in which Father comes home and enforces his laws and his love, because at least—”
He stopped abruptly. Dean was caught in the middle distance, but he took a long breath and tore himself away, force himself to focus on the angel. There was a weight to Cas’s words that he could sense but didn’t dare anticipate. “At least what, Cas?” he asked.
He watched the muscles in Castiel’s jaw flex, and wondered when that had happened, that anxiety had begun to translate into Cas’s features in such a visible and human way.
Cas took a breath, and said, “At least here and now, I am assured that you survive, and I don’t have to wait a lifetime to see you again.”
Dean exhaled, and said roughly, “There is that.”
There was no reason it to be, after everything, so difficult still. But here they were. Dean put it down to Castiel’s compete inability to be anything but obtuse, and his own fucking emotional hangups that he wasn’t actually prepared to contemplate.
He and Cas were both men…angel…things of action, one way or another. And they’d been through far too much together to do anything but act.
“You know, someone pretty smart told me that I should start forgiving myself for things I can’t control. Maybe you should take your own advice, Cas.”
“I have never had any illusions about what I can and cannot change,” Castiel growled. “What frustrates me is what it means, when all that has happened is over. We’ve upended the entire course of reality. And proven what? That the only way to survive is to change?”
“Sounds like a pretty good moral to me,” Dean commented.
“Did our Father make us wrong?”
“No,” Dean said sharply. “No. Don’t you dare believe that. You know what I feel like, nowadays? I feel unfinished. Like someone set out to make me and got bored halfway through. But that’s okay, I think I can make that okay now, you know why?”
Castiel looked at him, waiting.
“Because I’ve changed so many times, the pieces of me rearranging themselves so many times by now, that feeling unfinished doesn’t bother me anymore. Because maybe, some day down the line, I’ll change again, and then maybe I’ll feel more complete. What I’ve lost or given up can be filled up, not with those same missing things, but with different things, and maybe that’ll be even better than before. That’s what I’m choosing to take from this clusterfuck. Everything else would be stupid, trite bullshit.” He took a breath, and let it out. Then he tilted his head slightly. “Look at me, Cas.”
The angel raised his head. The shadows under his eyes had never looked deeper.
“We don’t know what we are. We’re some weird-ass goddamn monsters. But we saved the world. So,” Dean paused, “Clearly what we are doesn’t matter. It just matters that who we are is the same. Right?”
“We change our bodies, but not our souls,” Castiel said, after a long moment. “And thus we remain worthy of heaven.”
“‘Swhat I said, isn’t it?”
He smiled, very slightly. “Yes. It is what you said.” He paused, and then said carefully, “I too feel unfinished.”
“Yeah?” Dean said, watchful.
“Yes. I feel…overwhelmed. Like I have put on a coat that is too large for me.”
“The way I see it, you do that every day.”
Castiel quelled him with a look. But then he looked down at his hands, and said, “You told me once that I was your soldier now.”
“I’m not War. You said it yourself, I’m not anything,” Dean replied, somewhat confused. “What do I know about things that could or couldn’t be mine?”
“You are still War, Dean,” Castiel said, with absolute certainty. “A part of you will always be War. And War’s wings…you gifted them to me, Dean. You took that part of the Horseman, and you bequeathed it to me. They saved my life, and now they are mine, but they are too large for me to bear alone. That is what feels unfinished, not because I am incomplete, but because you have made me too much. They are what feel too big, ill-fitted to me. They make me think that I…that you have…you have in some way annexed me. And I…I left because that frightened me.”
Dean exhaled in a harsh, terrified burst. “I didn’t want that for you,” he said, when he managed to draw air into his lungs. “Cas. I never, Jesus Christ, I would never want that for you, don’t want you to—”
“Belong to you?” Castiel finished lightly. “You don’t have a choice, anymore.”
“Jesus, Cas,” Dean burst out, “What do you want me to do? Jesus, no wonder you ran, I would have…Do you want freedom, because I’ll give it to you, any way I can, it’s not right that you—”
“Dean.”
“What?” he asked, and he could hear how his voice had dropped low and hoarse, how he was so close to Cas, wanting him and terrified to touch him, like that would seal a Devil’s bargain that could never be undone. “What do you want me to do, Cas?”
“I want you,” Castiel said, taking his hand carefully, weighing it in his own, “To be at peace, Dean Winchester.”
Dean coughed, shaking his head. “You’ve got a hell of a way of showing it, Cas.”
“I have never been best at articulating what I feel,” Cas allowed. “I was afraid of what it meant, before. Having a part of you with me, perhaps even capable of controlling of my actions, should you choose to direct me. But I had forgotten that you are the best person that I have ever known, and that I could trust you with that connection. That is why I want you to be at peace with what we have both, purposefully or accidentally, done. Is that…is that acceptable?”
Dean stared at him for a long moment, a moment in which Castiel’s expression shifted just slightly towards trepidation, just enough that it was visible, and that alone was enough. Dean caught it, and exhaled. He leaned forward to touch his brow to the angel’s. They were a mere breath apart. The air between them was warm.
“Yeah,” he said roughly. “Yeah, I think I can deal with that. Just…c’mere.”
Castiel went. His mouth was cool, tasting slightly of ash, and already slightly of Dean himself.
Epilogue.