Thirty-seven moments...
Title: Thirty-seven moments...
Author: fate_incomplete
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Spoilers: Set somewhere mid to late Season 6 though no specific spoilers
Characters: Pre Dean/Castiel or Friendship, however you want to see it
Word Count: ~2,500
Summary: Castiel is exhausted, pulled in a thousand directions. There is never enough time, and the small moments with Dean are all he has, in a war that threatens to consume him...
A/N: Thanks to my wonderful beta pyjamagurl
...................
It is an insignificant moment in time, a bare few seconds that mean nothing but everything at the same time. One of those moments that is overlooked at the time, filed away to analyse at some later occasion that will probably never come. In the vastness of his memories, he files it between the memory of sunlight glinting of grains of dust in a yet to be named desert, and the first time he understood what it was to smile.
His eyes connect with Dean's across the room. It's a murky pre-dawn light, yet he can still trace the fines lines of Dean's face that show the worry and guilt he carries with him eternally. Cas can't quite bring himself to count the lines that pertain to him, that he has caused. He never intended to cause them, or to even care that they were there. Yet he did anyway.
It's just a fleeting glance. They are separated by a mere 3 metres, yet so much more lies between them. Everything that holds them together but at the same time keeps them apart. The distance worries him, for the first time he stops to wonder why and how it got there in the first place.
Before he can ponder on the complexities of his connection with this frustratingly contrary human, the moment passes and he has to leave. He hesitates for a split second, long enough to take count of the particles of dust that float in the space between them, and then he is gone.
...................
Dean turns his back to him, tension held in every fibre of the muscles in his shoulders. Cas wonders if Dean is using those muscles to resist the urge to turn back to him, or if it's the effort of holding in his anger. He's not sure he understands either impulse. He studies the lines of Dean's neck, as if the answer exists in the flesh there. It doesn't.
Cas can feel words tingling on the end of his tongue, struggling to be released into the tense air between them, but he doesn't know which ones they are, so he says nothing. He waits for Dean to yell some more. He doesn't.
The silence hangs. He can feel it fill the void between them.
It has been two weeks since they have been in the same room. It feels longer, and for a being that sees time as fluid, he doesn't know how that can be. He has existed for thousands of years, hundreds of thousands of weeks. Time was never something he had felt constrained by until he had met Dean, yet now there never seemed to be enough.
He wonders when he had started to count the seconds.
"Dean," he whispers.
The name almost catches in his throat. There is so much more that should go with it, yet the single word feels like a whispered conversation that hangs in the air, as if the angel lent it his wings, before the silence swallows it.
He can't see, but he knows that Dean closes his eyes against the whispered plea. He wants more than a declaration of how little time there is, yet time is the one thing Cas doesn't have, not even for an explanation. Already the clamour of voices calling him back to Heaven is becoming overwhelming, compelling him back.
Cas thinks that in better times, Dean would have called it ironic. He decides he isn't a fan of irony as he flies away.
...................
Dean takes a step back in the face of Cas' anger. It has been so long since he unleashed this depth of emotion towards Dean. Dean's own anger takes a step back, leaving room for a hint of satisfaction, of longing to show through.
Cas wonders at how wide the gap between them is, that Dean would clutch to even his anger in an effort to bridge the divide. Dean's grim satisfaction that at last he has reached the angel, causing a crack to appear in the edifice Cas has erected against the things he can't change, nearly causes the whole structure to fall. But he can't afford to let his guard down, to peer beyond the wall between him and Dean and wonder what might be.
He had come to tell Dean of trouble brewing in Utah. He knows Dean doesn't really want to hear about it, but he had told him anyway. He watches as the moment of longing in Dean's eyes fades as he stares at Cas' carefully constructed granite expression.
"Was that all you came for?" Dean asks. "To tell me some dick angel is causing havoc and you want me to do something about it?"
"He has to be stopped."
"No shit. Then why don't you do it?"
Cas doesn't know how to answer. If he had still been powerless he thinks he would sigh, but he isn't, so settles for staring at Dean instead.
He could of course deal with the troublesome angel, but there is so much else for him to be doing. He can feel at least two battles currently occurring in Heaven between angels loyal to Raphael and those who just want the fighting to be over. He can't deal with them all at once.
He stares at Dean without answering, somehow wishing that Dean would just understand. Yet all he can see in Dean is anger. He lets the tug of the fighting pull him away, but before he can leave, Dean reaches out and grabs him by the arm.
"Don't you go disappearing on me you son of a bitch."
Cas looks down at Dean's hand. He could easily leave if he wanted to, but he lets the hold keep him in place, strangely fascinated by the feel of Dean's hand on his arm. He can feel the warmth of Dean's hand through his trench coat, can feel the individual fingers digging into the flesh of his vessel. He can’t remember the last time Dean touched him.
"I'm sorry Dean," he says without looking up.
He feels Dean’s grip loosen slightly, though his hand doesn't leave Cas' arm. He looks up into Dean's eyes. The anger has dissipated, replaced by empty resignation.
"I'll deal with Utah, you go do whatever it is you have to do," Dean says.
Cas hesitates before leaving, the warmth of Dean's hand creeping along his arm, burning a trail to his very core, and reverberating against his grace. He wonders how many touches it would take to bring down the wall.
"If I can, I will come to Utah," he says quietly, though he knows there won't be time.
He leaves before he can hear Dean sigh.
...................
Cas appears on an outcrop of rock amongst the dunes of an African desert. His fingers are numb, blood trickling down his arm to drip lazily off his fingertips. His sword slips from his slick fingers to clatter nosily on the rocks.
He is exhausted. Three of his brothers were dead by his hand; the other two had teleported away. Too weary to follow them he had come here instead. His grace flares strong within him, but for the moment he is too emotionally troubled to bother healing. Killing his brothers never gets any easier.
The battle had been long, fought across the plains of Heaven, in flashes of light and energy colliding and tearing, where no mortal eyes could witness the destruction.
He felt the pull of Dean's consciousness across the vastness of the oceans. All he wants is to give in to that pull. He looks down at his fingers. The blood is cooling, even in the warm desert air. He watches idly as it dries.
He kneels down to retrieve his sword, the trench coat trailing in the sand leaving random patterns. He secrets the sword away in his coat. Reaching his hand out he trails his fingers through the sand, feeling the individual grains against his skin. Nothing in Heaven feels quite like sand. There is nothing there like wind or rain, or the touch of a hand either.
He feels its lack, all of it, while he is there.
He stands and looks to the east, the warm desert wind causing his eyes to narrow. He is in no mood to return to Heaven, to the fighting, just yet. He allows the pull of Dean to take hold of him. Wraps himself in it, for a moment of comfort against the void of Heaven.
He teleports, leaving drops of angel blood in the sand to dry and drift on the wind.
...................
Dean is asleep in the Impala. His head leant against the window, an old jacket pulled haphazardly over him against the cold. The car shifts slightly at the added weight. Dean shifts with it, aware of the change, or maybe of Cas' presence even in his sleep.
He opens his eyes and looks out the window at the foggy surrounds, before turning slightly to look at Cas.
"What now?" he asks, still not awake enough to put any real emotion into the words.
"I killed three of my brothers tonight," Cas states.
"Hmm," Dean grunts, blinking back sleep. Perhaps noticing the slight slouch of Cas's shoulders, or the worn look in his eyes, he adds quietly, "I'm sorry."
Cas thinks he probably isn't, but appreciates the sentiment anyway.
"So it's not going well I take it?"
"Depends on your definition of well."
"Yeah guess it does," Dean murmurs as he shifts, trying to find a more comfortable position.
Cas can feel Dean's eyes on him, but he continues to stare out the windshield. It's quiet here in the field Dean has chosen to spend the night in. Different to the quiet of the empty plains of Heaven, this quiet doesn't seep away the warmth. He likes it.
He can almost feel the questions in Deans' eyes, he's glad when he doesn't ask them, just pulls the coat up higher under his chin.
"Wake me up in an hour will you. I have to meet Sam in Green River at Noon."
"I will," Cas answers absently as Dean drifts back to sleep.
An hour later exactly, Cas wakes Dean.
"Thank you," Cas says. He watches Dean's brow crinkle slightly, as if he's not sure what he did that was helpful.
"Sure," Dean replies with a confused smile.
He feels that Dean isn't as angry when he leaves this time.
...................
A lightning storm seethes over southern Kansas, nothing unusual perhaps, except for the stink of Enochian magic Cas can feel clinging to the drops of rain. He reaches out with his grace through the stinging, cold rain, probing for the angels he knows are here somewhere.
He feels them below. He tumbles with the wind, plummeting towards the ground. He feels a pull on his consciousness. A whisper from Dean wanting to talk, wanting help Cas can't give just now. Distracted he pulls out of his dive a fraction too late. A blade grazes his torso before he can turn it aside.
He pushes thoughts of Dean aside as he parries another blow. The angels assail him from two fronts. He barely manages to evade a killing stroke, before countering with an attack of his own. They battle for over an hour, the storm intensifying around them, before he inflicts a grave injury to one of them and they retreat.
Cas settles on the ground as the storm abates around him. Cold water streams down his face, mixed with blood. He reaches out for Dean, but wherever he had been he is gone, and without the connection he can't find him. He hides himself with wards so he can rest, and hopes whatever Dean needed, hadn't been life threatening.
...................
He is drifting across an empty corner of Heaven, searching for signs of rebel angels amongst the whispers of the dead, when he feels an urgent tingling in the back of his mind. It has been over a week since he heard from Dean. He concentrates and hears Sam shouting his name.
He teleports to Sam's location. Is about to ask what is wrong when he sees Dean, unconscious in his arms. He ignores Sam's angry words of 'where were you', or some variation of that.
Kneeling, he places a hand on Dean's forehead. He is bleeding internally. Cas can sense the trace of werewolf that lingers on his wounds. The cloying mixture of the scent mixing with Dean's blood, clings to the oesophagus of his vessel.
He heals Dean's wounds. Knits muscle and organs back together atom by atom, grateful that the hunter is unconscious and unable to protest. He lets his grace curl around Dean for a moment as he stirs, easing him back into wakefulness.
Dean's eyes flutter open. He looks up at Cas, a smile tugging at his lips in gratitude, before his hands automatically check where he had been wounded. Apparently satisfied that he is indeed whole again, he shoves Cas' hand away.
"Let me up, I'm fine," he says, giving Sam's worried hands the same treatment.
"You sure?" Sam asks, unable to fight the mother hen instinct, even when Dean glares at him for what Cas assumes Dean would refer to as, ‘being a girl'.
"What are you doing here," Dean asks gruffly, turning the glare from Sam to Cas.
"Sam called me."
"What, and you suddenly decided to answer?"
"Yes," Cas says simply, knowing it will no doubt send Dean off on a rant.
"Yes? Just yes? Fuck you, Cas!"
Dean grabs his knife from where it had presumably fallen during the fight, and proceeds to storm off in the direction of the Impala.
Cas stares at his retreating back, understanding Dean's frustration but unable for the moment to do anything about it. He feels the urge to smite something. He disappears, leaving Sam staring at the empty space where he had been standing.
...................
Anger boils through Cas, his grace shimmering with it. He stretches his wings and thunder rolls, echoing off distant hills. He takes his frustration out on a random werewolf he finds hiding out in an abandoned warehouse, the blood of it latest victim still drying on its hands. He tears it to pieces from the inside out.
...................
Three angels ambush him as he appears in Heaven. He grabs one by the throat, sliding his sword through its chest. Its grace flares violently. Ashes fall from the remnants of its wings to settle on Cas' shoulders. He doesn't notice; just throws the remains to one side and turns to face the other angels.
Wrath emanates from him. His fingers tighten their grip on his sword, promising nothing but oblivion. The angels show no fear as they meet their fate.
He feels nothing. Or wishes he did. He is a soldier in a war with no end; there's no time for the things he wants.
He wonders if there ever will be.
...................
comments are love<3
Author: fate_incomplete
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Spoilers: Set somewhere mid to late Season 6 though no specific spoilers
Characters: Pre Dean/Castiel or Friendship, however you want to see it
Word Count: ~2,500
Summary: Castiel is exhausted, pulled in a thousand directions. There is never enough time, and the small moments with Dean are all he has, in a war that threatens to consume him...
A/N: Thanks to my wonderful beta pyjamagurl
...................
It is an insignificant moment in time, a bare few seconds that mean nothing but everything at the same time. One of those moments that is overlooked at the time, filed away to analyse at some later occasion that will probably never come. In the vastness of his memories, he files it between the memory of sunlight glinting of grains of dust in a yet to be named desert, and the first time he understood what it was to smile.
His eyes connect with Dean's across the room. It's a murky pre-dawn light, yet he can still trace the fines lines of Dean's face that show the worry and guilt he carries with him eternally. Cas can't quite bring himself to count the lines that pertain to him, that he has caused. He never intended to cause them, or to even care that they were there. Yet he did anyway.
It's just a fleeting glance. They are separated by a mere 3 metres, yet so much more lies between them. Everything that holds them together but at the same time keeps them apart. The distance worries him, for the first time he stops to wonder why and how it got there in the first place.
Before he can ponder on the complexities of his connection with this frustratingly contrary human, the moment passes and he has to leave. He hesitates for a split second, long enough to take count of the particles of dust that float in the space between them, and then he is gone.
...................
Dean turns his back to him, tension held in every fibre of the muscles in his shoulders. Cas wonders if Dean is using those muscles to resist the urge to turn back to him, or if it's the effort of holding in his anger. He's not sure he understands either impulse. He studies the lines of Dean's neck, as if the answer exists in the flesh there. It doesn't.
Cas can feel words tingling on the end of his tongue, struggling to be released into the tense air between them, but he doesn't know which ones they are, so he says nothing. He waits for Dean to yell some more. He doesn't.
The silence hangs. He can feel it fill the void between them.
It has been two weeks since they have been in the same room. It feels longer, and for a being that sees time as fluid, he doesn't know how that can be. He has existed for thousands of years, hundreds of thousands of weeks. Time was never something he had felt constrained by until he had met Dean, yet now there never seemed to be enough.
He wonders when he had started to count the seconds.
"Dean," he whispers.
The name almost catches in his throat. There is so much more that should go with it, yet the single word feels like a whispered conversation that hangs in the air, as if the angel lent it his wings, before the silence swallows it.
He can't see, but he knows that Dean closes his eyes against the whispered plea. He wants more than a declaration of how little time there is, yet time is the one thing Cas doesn't have, not even for an explanation. Already the clamour of voices calling him back to Heaven is becoming overwhelming, compelling him back.
Cas thinks that in better times, Dean would have called it ironic. He decides he isn't a fan of irony as he flies away.
...................
Dean takes a step back in the face of Cas' anger. It has been so long since he unleashed this depth of emotion towards Dean. Dean's own anger takes a step back, leaving room for a hint of satisfaction, of longing to show through.
Cas wonders at how wide the gap between them is, that Dean would clutch to even his anger in an effort to bridge the divide. Dean's grim satisfaction that at last he has reached the angel, causing a crack to appear in the edifice Cas has erected against the things he can't change, nearly causes the whole structure to fall. But he can't afford to let his guard down, to peer beyond the wall between him and Dean and wonder what might be.
He had come to tell Dean of trouble brewing in Utah. He knows Dean doesn't really want to hear about it, but he had told him anyway. He watches as the moment of longing in Dean's eyes fades as he stares at Cas' carefully constructed granite expression.
"Was that all you came for?" Dean asks. "To tell me some dick angel is causing havoc and you want me to do something about it?"
"He has to be stopped."
"No shit. Then why don't you do it?"
Cas doesn't know how to answer. If he had still been powerless he thinks he would sigh, but he isn't, so settles for staring at Dean instead.
He could of course deal with the troublesome angel, but there is so much else for him to be doing. He can feel at least two battles currently occurring in Heaven between angels loyal to Raphael and those who just want the fighting to be over. He can't deal with them all at once.
He stares at Dean without answering, somehow wishing that Dean would just understand. Yet all he can see in Dean is anger. He lets the tug of the fighting pull him away, but before he can leave, Dean reaches out and grabs him by the arm.
"Don't you go disappearing on me you son of a bitch."
Cas looks down at Dean's hand. He could easily leave if he wanted to, but he lets the hold keep him in place, strangely fascinated by the feel of Dean's hand on his arm. He can feel the warmth of Dean's hand through his trench coat, can feel the individual fingers digging into the flesh of his vessel. He can’t remember the last time Dean touched him.
"I'm sorry Dean," he says without looking up.
He feels Dean’s grip loosen slightly, though his hand doesn't leave Cas' arm. He looks up into Dean's eyes. The anger has dissipated, replaced by empty resignation.
"I'll deal with Utah, you go do whatever it is you have to do," Dean says.
Cas hesitates before leaving, the warmth of Dean's hand creeping along his arm, burning a trail to his very core, and reverberating against his grace. He wonders how many touches it would take to bring down the wall.
"If I can, I will come to Utah," he says quietly, though he knows there won't be time.
He leaves before he can hear Dean sigh.
...................
Cas appears on an outcrop of rock amongst the dunes of an African desert. His fingers are numb, blood trickling down his arm to drip lazily off his fingertips. His sword slips from his slick fingers to clatter nosily on the rocks.
He is exhausted. Three of his brothers were dead by his hand; the other two had teleported away. Too weary to follow them he had come here instead. His grace flares strong within him, but for the moment he is too emotionally troubled to bother healing. Killing his brothers never gets any easier.
The battle had been long, fought across the plains of Heaven, in flashes of light and energy colliding and tearing, where no mortal eyes could witness the destruction.
He felt the pull of Dean's consciousness across the vastness of the oceans. All he wants is to give in to that pull. He looks down at his fingers. The blood is cooling, even in the warm desert air. He watches idly as it dries.
He kneels down to retrieve his sword, the trench coat trailing in the sand leaving random patterns. He secrets the sword away in his coat. Reaching his hand out he trails his fingers through the sand, feeling the individual grains against his skin. Nothing in Heaven feels quite like sand. There is nothing there like wind or rain, or the touch of a hand either.
He feels its lack, all of it, while he is there.
He stands and looks to the east, the warm desert wind causing his eyes to narrow. He is in no mood to return to Heaven, to the fighting, just yet. He allows the pull of Dean to take hold of him. Wraps himself in it, for a moment of comfort against the void of Heaven.
He teleports, leaving drops of angel blood in the sand to dry and drift on the wind.
...................
Dean is asleep in the Impala. His head leant against the window, an old jacket pulled haphazardly over him against the cold. The car shifts slightly at the added weight. Dean shifts with it, aware of the change, or maybe of Cas' presence even in his sleep.
He opens his eyes and looks out the window at the foggy surrounds, before turning slightly to look at Cas.
"What now?" he asks, still not awake enough to put any real emotion into the words.
"I killed three of my brothers tonight," Cas states.
"Hmm," Dean grunts, blinking back sleep. Perhaps noticing the slight slouch of Cas's shoulders, or the worn look in his eyes, he adds quietly, "I'm sorry."
Cas thinks he probably isn't, but appreciates the sentiment anyway.
"So it's not going well I take it?"
"Depends on your definition of well."
"Yeah guess it does," Dean murmurs as he shifts, trying to find a more comfortable position.
Cas can feel Dean's eyes on him, but he continues to stare out the windshield. It's quiet here in the field Dean has chosen to spend the night in. Different to the quiet of the empty plains of Heaven, this quiet doesn't seep away the warmth. He likes it.
He can almost feel the questions in Deans' eyes, he's glad when he doesn't ask them, just pulls the coat up higher under his chin.
"Wake me up in an hour will you. I have to meet Sam in Green River at Noon."
"I will," Cas answers absently as Dean drifts back to sleep.
An hour later exactly, Cas wakes Dean.
"Thank you," Cas says. He watches Dean's brow crinkle slightly, as if he's not sure what he did that was helpful.
"Sure," Dean replies with a confused smile.
He feels that Dean isn't as angry when he leaves this time.
...................
A lightning storm seethes over southern Kansas, nothing unusual perhaps, except for the stink of Enochian magic Cas can feel clinging to the drops of rain. He reaches out with his grace through the stinging, cold rain, probing for the angels he knows are here somewhere.
He feels them below. He tumbles with the wind, plummeting towards the ground. He feels a pull on his consciousness. A whisper from Dean wanting to talk, wanting help Cas can't give just now. Distracted he pulls out of his dive a fraction too late. A blade grazes his torso before he can turn it aside.
He pushes thoughts of Dean aside as he parries another blow. The angels assail him from two fronts. He barely manages to evade a killing stroke, before countering with an attack of his own. They battle for over an hour, the storm intensifying around them, before he inflicts a grave injury to one of them and they retreat.
Cas settles on the ground as the storm abates around him. Cold water streams down his face, mixed with blood. He reaches out for Dean, but wherever he had been he is gone, and without the connection he can't find him. He hides himself with wards so he can rest, and hopes whatever Dean needed, hadn't been life threatening.
...................
He is drifting across an empty corner of Heaven, searching for signs of rebel angels amongst the whispers of the dead, when he feels an urgent tingling in the back of his mind. It has been over a week since he heard from Dean. He concentrates and hears Sam shouting his name.
He teleports to Sam's location. Is about to ask what is wrong when he sees Dean, unconscious in his arms. He ignores Sam's angry words of 'where were you', or some variation of that.
Kneeling, he places a hand on Dean's forehead. He is bleeding internally. Cas can sense the trace of werewolf that lingers on his wounds. The cloying mixture of the scent mixing with Dean's blood, clings to the oesophagus of his vessel.
He heals Dean's wounds. Knits muscle and organs back together atom by atom, grateful that the hunter is unconscious and unable to protest. He lets his grace curl around Dean for a moment as he stirs, easing him back into wakefulness.
Dean's eyes flutter open. He looks up at Cas, a smile tugging at his lips in gratitude, before his hands automatically check where he had been wounded. Apparently satisfied that he is indeed whole again, he shoves Cas' hand away.
"Let me up, I'm fine," he says, giving Sam's worried hands the same treatment.
"You sure?" Sam asks, unable to fight the mother hen instinct, even when Dean glares at him for what Cas assumes Dean would refer to as, ‘being a girl'.
"What are you doing here," Dean asks gruffly, turning the glare from Sam to Cas.
"Sam called me."
"What, and you suddenly decided to answer?"
"Yes," Cas says simply, knowing it will no doubt send Dean off on a rant.
"Yes? Just yes? Fuck you, Cas!"
Dean grabs his knife from where it had presumably fallen during the fight, and proceeds to storm off in the direction of the Impala.
Cas stares at his retreating back, understanding Dean's frustration but unable for the moment to do anything about it. He feels the urge to smite something. He disappears, leaving Sam staring at the empty space where he had been standing.
...................
Anger boils through Cas, his grace shimmering with it. He stretches his wings and thunder rolls, echoing off distant hills. He takes his frustration out on a random werewolf he finds hiding out in an abandoned warehouse, the blood of it latest victim still drying on its hands. He tears it to pieces from the inside out.
...................
Three angels ambush him as he appears in Heaven. He grabs one by the throat, sliding his sword through its chest. Its grace flares violently. Ashes fall from the remnants of its wings to settle on Cas' shoulders. He doesn't notice; just throws the remains to one side and turns to face the other angels.
Wrath emanates from him. His fingers tighten their grip on his sword, promising nothing but oblivion. The angels show no fear as they meet their fate.
He feels nothing. Or wishes he did. He is a soldier in a war with no end; there's no time for the things he wants.
He wonders if there ever will be.
...................
comments are love<3