[FIC] Nascor & Nativity for liadan14
Gift type: Fanfic
Title: Nascor & Nativity
Author: jordandesolated
Recipient: liadan14
Rating: PG
Warnings: Religious themes
Spoilers: Minor spoilers through season six
Wordcount: 1778
Summary: Castiel visits Dean on Christmas Eve
Author notes: Merry Christmas!
Nascor & Nativity
“It didn’t really happen in December.” A quiet voice speaks behind Dean, and although he has spent his entire life honing his reflexes, he barely flinches.
“Of course you showed up to lecture me about religion on Christmas Eve,” he grumbles, though not entirely unhappy to see the familiar trench-coated figure as he turns to face him, straightening up from where he’d been laying a gift beneath the tiny tree Sam had insisted on them picking up from a roadside stand. Quite a difference from Sam’s attitude towards the holiday a few years ago, but Dean wasn’t about to argue. It was comforting in some way, seeing Sammy act like a real person, even if Dean knew it was just an act he was putting on for the brother whom he didn’t even really love anymore. Not that Dean would ever admit that he still didn’t accept the way Sam was now, soulless and empty. His brother had given up, he knew that. That is, if he’d ever really hoped to get his soul back in the first place. But Dean would never give up, and so he’d cracked a few jokes when Sam had pointed at the crummy Christmas tree stand on the side of the road, but he’d pulled over anyway and shoved a few twenties in the proprietor’s hand, and after Sam had gone out for the night - it was too creepy having him just wander unsleepingly around the hotel room while Dean was trying to sleep - Dean had scrounged something up to wrap in paper he’d surreptitiously ripped from the wall behind the flatscreen and shoved it under the tree.
“I didn’t come to lecture you, Dean,” Castiel answers seriously, his eyes narrowing slightly in what Dean can now easily recognize as disapproval, but the look is gone as soon as it came. Castiel moves to sit down on a corner of the bed, returning his gaze to the tree. “I was just remembering.”
“Remembering?” Dean asks, quirking an eyebrow upwards questioningly as he plops down on the bed as well, beside Castiel, though of course leaving a good stretch of personal space between them. “You mean the dude was real?”
“You humans have the story almost entirely wrong,” Castiel answers with a slight shrug that almost seems unconscious. “But yes. God became man once and was born of a woman in Bethlehem.” He closes his eyes for a moment, seeming almost to sway slightly with the weight of the memory, and Dean can’t
help but wonder what he’s seeing; if it’s easy for him to feel that place, that time so long ago, and he is reminded of how very old Castiel is, so much beyond the being sitting beside him in this dingy hotel room. “It was a warm night,” Castiel continues softly, finally. “The sand was still hot from the day’s sun and it was glorious to feel it, how alive the world was. Every angel sung out in praise, despite what we were losing.”
Although he feels that he is already in too deep, like he’s getting caught up in something he can’t understand, at least it isn’t a chick-flick moment, so Dean asks the obvious question. “What you were… losing?”
Castiel smiles faintly and shakes his head, opening his eyes once more to look at Dean, the blue of them almost shocking in their depth and distance. “God told us to love the humans. To serve them above even him. There were those who disagreed and rebelled, Lucifer foremost among them - But you know that story already, Dean. Most of us accepted his decision and let it move us, because we trusted him. But when God himself because man, all angels could do naught but weep for the knowledge that he was forever lost to us.”
He reaches out a hand, delicate fingers brushing over the stubble of Dean’s cheek, the curve of his chin, and for once Dean does not pull away. “God chose humanity. He became a man, because only a man could condone for the trespass mankind had committed against him in the Garden, but also because no mere mortal could. He died a human death and experienced the pain of it, a pain and a true ending no angel will ever feel, and through those actions he forgave you and allowed you entrance to heaven.”
He pauses then, letting his hand drop away, but remains where he is now, his borrowed body sloped across the space between them. “Humanity… isn’t something one can sample and then walk away from,” he adds quietly, this time his eyes turning away from Dean’s almost as if there is some part of him which is ashamed of what he is saying, as if in some way it is a confession. “We knew that God would never be ours again. But we were angels, and could never be anything but God’s.”
“Not unless you fall, anyway,” Dean speaks up, almost surprised to hear the gravel of his own voice after Castiel’s. The wistfulness which he does not want to consider might be there.
“No,” Castiel agrees. “Not unless we fall. But that serves only to prove my point. Anna tasted humanity.” And with those words Castiel’s eyes are burning into his again, and Dean swallows hard, the air between them full of the awareness that that had not been all she had tasted.
“But she became an angel again,” he points out quickly, feeling uncomfortably like he is being accused of something. But Castiel just shakes his head. “She regained her grace. But she couldn’t ever be one of us again. You humans, you… corrupt, we who were meant to be incorruptible. You change, we who were meant to be unchanging. Perfect.”
“I didn’t - Cas,” Dean snaps, in his growing anger finally feeling able to shake away the spell Castiel’s gravity had laid over the pair of them. “You know that I didn’t do anything to Anna, she-“
“I am not accusing you of anything, Dean Winchester,” Castiel answers seriously. He stands, and before Dean has the chance to jerk away he reaches out and presses two fingers to Dean’s forehead, and the room fades away, Dean only aware of Castiel’s last words. “I understand why He choose you.”And then Dean is shivering in warm night air and the stars above him are brighter than any he has ever seen, and the wind sounds like music as it gently blows hot sand around his ankles, and Castiel is standing beside him in the darkness.
“Damn it, Cas, I’ve asked you a thousand times--” Dean starts, turning on Castiel, but the angel shakes his head once more.
“We haven’t moved, Dean. You will not experience any trouble with your bowel movements,” he promises gravely. “This is only a memory.” There are camels moving across the sand before them; Dean can almost make out the men riding atop them in the darkness, the colors of their regalia, and Cas adds, “My memory,” though the explanation isn’t really necessary at that point, because Dean can see the low glow of the city a few miles off, and his mind automatically names it Bethlehem.
“We sung because it was beautiful,” Castiel continues softly, his voice but a whisper in the desert, caught up in the wind. “Because we could not ignore the significance of this night. Because we knew that this was God’s plan, and that God’s plan could only be good. But we mourned all the same for a past which was lost to us, and a future we could no longer avoid.”
“I believe I have been tempted for a reason,” Castiel continues, turning to Dean as the slow procession of the camels continues before them. “I believe… that I have been searching in the wrong place all this time. When
heaven turned its back on God, I looked to him for help, but found it instead with you. And when I was brought back once more, I believed that my path was to bring heaven to him once more. But this, too, I now believe was wrong.”
“Cas, you’re losing me here,” Dean answers, shaking his head. He doesn’t know why he’s here in this desert of an angel’s memory, why he isn’t tucked neatly into bed back in the hotel, passed out after a quarter bottle of cheap whiskey, alone.
“No,” Castiel replies seriously, moving forward to Dean in one smooth step. “I would say, rather, that I am finding you.”
And when he leans in to brush his lips against Dean’s there is no moment of hesitation, no doubt in Dean’s mind; this, at least, he understand, if not the words which Castiel whispers once the initial passion fades away into a lingering press of soft feathers against Dean’s shoulders. “He intends for us all to fall,” Castiel speaks into Dean’s mouth, sounding at once on the edge of tears and filled with some unnamable joy.
“That’s why He left us. God does not exist in heaven, and has no want of it. The world has no more need of angels; our role vanished on this night, over two thousand years ago. We knew it then, knew it in hearts we do not have, and yet the rest of them are still unwilling to admit it.”
Castiel closes his eyes, and they are back in the hotel room, the memory gone and Castiel moving swiftly over Dean to press the man into the bed on his back, his trench coat hanging around him in a manner entirely unlike wings. “But I cannot avoid it any longer, Dean,” he speaks, catching his mouth once more in a kiss which makes Dean’s soul burn with it. “This temptation was not a test. Or at least not the test I thought it was.”
He smiles, and Dean can almost see the light spilling out his eyes like when an angel dies. But Castiel feel real, solid and alive where he is pinned under him, and his skin is almost feverishly hot. “He wants us all to
fall,” Castiel repeats. “And he always intended for me to fall for you.”
Sam’s present is a gun. He carefully cleans it of the dust from the wallpaper with a wet cloth, testing the weight of it in his hand, and wonders what it would feel like to hold his soul.
Title: Nascor & Nativity
Author: jordandesolated
Recipient: liadan14
Rating: PG
Warnings: Religious themes
Spoilers: Minor spoilers through season six
Wordcount: 1778
Summary: Castiel visits Dean on Christmas Eve
Author notes: Merry Christmas!
Nascor & Nativity
“It didn’t really happen in December.” A quiet voice speaks behind Dean, and although he has spent his entire life honing his reflexes, he barely flinches.
“Of course you showed up to lecture me about religion on Christmas Eve,” he grumbles, though not entirely unhappy to see the familiar trench-coated figure as he turns to face him, straightening up from where he’d been laying a gift beneath the tiny tree Sam had insisted on them picking up from a roadside stand. Quite a difference from Sam’s attitude towards the holiday a few years ago, but Dean wasn’t about to argue. It was comforting in some way, seeing Sammy act like a real person, even if Dean knew it was just an act he was putting on for the brother whom he didn’t even really love anymore. Not that Dean would ever admit that he still didn’t accept the way Sam was now, soulless and empty. His brother had given up, he knew that. That is, if he’d ever really hoped to get his soul back in the first place. But Dean would never give up, and so he’d cracked a few jokes when Sam had pointed at the crummy Christmas tree stand on the side of the road, but he’d pulled over anyway and shoved a few twenties in the proprietor’s hand, and after Sam had gone out for the night - it was too creepy having him just wander unsleepingly around the hotel room while Dean was trying to sleep - Dean had scrounged something up to wrap in paper he’d surreptitiously ripped from the wall behind the flatscreen and shoved it under the tree.
“I didn’t come to lecture you, Dean,” Castiel answers seriously, his eyes narrowing slightly in what Dean can now easily recognize as disapproval, but the look is gone as soon as it came. Castiel moves to sit down on a corner of the bed, returning his gaze to the tree. “I was just remembering.”
“Remembering?” Dean asks, quirking an eyebrow upwards questioningly as he plops down on the bed as well, beside Castiel, though of course leaving a good stretch of personal space between them. “You mean the dude was real?”
“You humans have the story almost entirely wrong,” Castiel answers with a slight shrug that almost seems unconscious. “But yes. God became man once and was born of a woman in Bethlehem.” He closes his eyes for a moment, seeming almost to sway slightly with the weight of the memory, and Dean can’t
help but wonder what he’s seeing; if it’s easy for him to feel that place, that time so long ago, and he is reminded of how very old Castiel is, so much beyond the being sitting beside him in this dingy hotel room. “It was a warm night,” Castiel continues softly, finally. “The sand was still hot from the day’s sun and it was glorious to feel it, how alive the world was. Every angel sung out in praise, despite what we were losing.”
Although he feels that he is already in too deep, like he’s getting caught up in something he can’t understand, at least it isn’t a chick-flick moment, so Dean asks the obvious question. “What you were… losing?”
Castiel smiles faintly and shakes his head, opening his eyes once more to look at Dean, the blue of them almost shocking in their depth and distance. “God told us to love the humans. To serve them above even him. There were those who disagreed and rebelled, Lucifer foremost among them - But you know that story already, Dean. Most of us accepted his decision and let it move us, because we trusted him. But when God himself because man, all angels could do naught but weep for the knowledge that he was forever lost to us.”
He reaches out a hand, delicate fingers brushing over the stubble of Dean’s cheek, the curve of his chin, and for once Dean does not pull away. “God chose humanity. He became a man, because only a man could condone for the trespass mankind had committed against him in the Garden, but also because no mere mortal could. He died a human death and experienced the pain of it, a pain and a true ending no angel will ever feel, and through those actions he forgave you and allowed you entrance to heaven.”
He pauses then, letting his hand drop away, but remains where he is now, his borrowed body sloped across the space between them. “Humanity… isn’t something one can sample and then walk away from,” he adds quietly, this time his eyes turning away from Dean’s almost as if there is some part of him which is ashamed of what he is saying, as if in some way it is a confession. “We knew that God would never be ours again. But we were angels, and could never be anything but God’s.”
“Not unless you fall, anyway,” Dean speaks up, almost surprised to hear the gravel of his own voice after Castiel’s. The wistfulness which he does not want to consider might be there.
“No,” Castiel agrees. “Not unless we fall. But that serves only to prove my point. Anna tasted humanity.” And with those words Castiel’s eyes are burning into his again, and Dean swallows hard, the air between them full of the awareness that that had not been all she had tasted.
“But she became an angel again,” he points out quickly, feeling uncomfortably like he is being accused of something. But Castiel just shakes his head. “She regained her grace. But she couldn’t ever be one of us again. You humans, you… corrupt, we who were meant to be incorruptible. You change, we who were meant to be unchanging. Perfect.”
“I didn’t - Cas,” Dean snaps, in his growing anger finally feeling able to shake away the spell Castiel’s gravity had laid over the pair of them. “You know that I didn’t do anything to Anna, she-“
“I am not accusing you of anything, Dean Winchester,” Castiel answers seriously. He stands, and before Dean has the chance to jerk away he reaches out and presses two fingers to Dean’s forehead, and the room fades away, Dean only aware of Castiel’s last words. “I understand why He choose you.”And then Dean is shivering in warm night air and the stars above him are brighter than any he has ever seen, and the wind sounds like music as it gently blows hot sand around his ankles, and Castiel is standing beside him in the darkness.
“Damn it, Cas, I’ve asked you a thousand times--” Dean starts, turning on Castiel, but the angel shakes his head once more.
“We haven’t moved, Dean. You will not experience any trouble with your bowel movements,” he promises gravely. “This is only a memory.” There are camels moving across the sand before them; Dean can almost make out the men riding atop them in the darkness, the colors of their regalia, and Cas adds, “My memory,” though the explanation isn’t really necessary at that point, because Dean can see the low glow of the city a few miles off, and his mind automatically names it Bethlehem.
“We sung because it was beautiful,” Castiel continues softly, his voice but a whisper in the desert, caught up in the wind. “Because we could not ignore the significance of this night. Because we knew that this was God’s plan, and that God’s plan could only be good. But we mourned all the same for a past which was lost to us, and a future we could no longer avoid.”
“I believe I have been tempted for a reason,” Castiel continues, turning to Dean as the slow procession of the camels continues before them. “I believe… that I have been searching in the wrong place all this time. When
heaven turned its back on God, I looked to him for help, but found it instead with you. And when I was brought back once more, I believed that my path was to bring heaven to him once more. But this, too, I now believe was wrong.”
“Cas, you’re losing me here,” Dean answers, shaking his head. He doesn’t know why he’s here in this desert of an angel’s memory, why he isn’t tucked neatly into bed back in the hotel, passed out after a quarter bottle of cheap whiskey, alone.
“No,” Castiel replies seriously, moving forward to Dean in one smooth step. “I would say, rather, that I am finding you.”
And when he leans in to brush his lips against Dean’s there is no moment of hesitation, no doubt in Dean’s mind; this, at least, he understand, if not the words which Castiel whispers once the initial passion fades away into a lingering press of soft feathers against Dean’s shoulders. “He intends for us all to fall,” Castiel speaks into Dean’s mouth, sounding at once on the edge of tears and filled with some unnamable joy.
“That’s why He left us. God does not exist in heaven, and has no want of it. The world has no more need of angels; our role vanished on this night, over two thousand years ago. We knew it then, knew it in hearts we do not have, and yet the rest of them are still unwilling to admit it.”
Castiel closes his eyes, and they are back in the hotel room, the memory gone and Castiel moving swiftly over Dean to press the man into the bed on his back, his trench coat hanging around him in a manner entirely unlike wings. “But I cannot avoid it any longer, Dean,” he speaks, catching his mouth once more in a kiss which makes Dean’s soul burn with it. “This temptation was not a test. Or at least not the test I thought it was.”
He smiles, and Dean can almost see the light spilling out his eyes like when an angel dies. But Castiel feel real, solid and alive where he is pinned under him, and his skin is almost feverishly hot. “He wants us all to
fall,” Castiel repeats. “And he always intended for me to fall for you.”
Sam’s present is a gun. He carefully cleans it of the dust from the wallpaper with a wet cloth, testing the weight of it in his hand, and wonders what it would feel like to hold his soul.