Fic: Furlough
Fandom: Supernatural
Title: Furlough
Author: Maychorian
Artist: extraonions
Characters: Castiel, Novaks, Winchesters
Category: Angst, Drama, Het
Rating: R/M
Warning: ( skip) Salty language.
Spoilers: Through S5. References another story of mine, Better Than One.
Summary: Once given, consent to Heaven's will cannot be revoked. It's a lesson Jimmy doesn't want to learn.
Word Count: 6200
Author’s Note: Written for spn_reversebang. Thanks to my lovely betas, vikki and just_ruth, and most especially to extraonions for the gorgeous and inspiring art. ♥
Art link: Here.
Love Me When I'm Gone - The Angsty Jimmy Novak EP
You Found Me - The Fray
Believe - The Bravery
Wings - Josh Ritter
Roll Away Your Stone - Mumford & Sons
When I'm Gone - 3 Doors Down
YouTube Playlist
Box.net folder
Furlough
1. He Said, "Ask Anything."
When he was brought back to life the second time, Jimmy screamed.
The first time had been too much of a shock; he hadn't been aware of the events leading up to it, anyway. There were the usual sensations of fire and ice, of being enfolded, held, restrained by unbearable glory-a burden he had accepted to save his daughter-but little knowledge of what his body was doing, what Castiel was doing. Brief darkness, then light again as his body was rebuilt with his soul still intact and Castiel still in charge.
The second time, though, he was all too aware. Trapped like a fly in amber, looking out but forever frozen, forever silent. As Castiel's powers faded while the Apocalypse wore on like tires on a rough road, the angel was no longer able to tamp down Jimmy's awareness, keep him asleep and blissfully ignorant. Jimmy didn't think Castiel knew, didn't think he'd understood that as awful as the sensation of fading Grace had been for him, it was ten times worse for Jimmy. He'd felt all of Castiel's trials and tribulations, the new pains and heartaches he was forced to endure, wind on his skin, unfathomable hunger, bruised knuckles and bleeding cuts, even the horrific emptiness of grief and loss and dying faith. Jimmy had been immobile, helpless, and it had been the worst experience he'd ever felt or imagined.
So when Jimmy's body exploded in that Kansas graveyard, then sometime moments later was reconstituted in a thousand points of agonizing light, he'd let Castiel know. He screamed, releasing terror and anguish and frustration and rage in the fraction of second he was given in charge of his own body while Castiel was perplexed and still. The sound ripped out of him, rebounding to an unhearing sky somewhere in a silent field of winter wheat, scouring his throat and wrenching tears from his eyes, and he collapsed in the dry Kansas dirt. Then Castiel commanded his body again, and Jimmy was silenced and chained, unforgiving and unforgiven.
"Jimmy," Castiel rasped, throat traumatized and raw from Jimmy's bellow. "You're still here?"
Let me go! Let me go, you bastard! Let me go back to Amelia! Let me see my daughter! I revoke my consent, do you hear? I revoke it! You haven't kept your vow to me, and I won't keep mine to you!
"Once given, consent to Heaven's will cannot be revoked. That is the law. I did not make it."
Let me go! You've defied all of Heaven's other laws, why not this one?
"Believe me, nothing would give me more pleasure." Jimmy's throat-Castiel's throat-had healed already. Castiel was an angel again, more brilliant and powerful than ever before. He could silence Jimmy now, if he wished, could force him into darkness.
He didn't, though. He raised Jimmy's hands, his hands, before his face, watching them tremble. "I would very much like to leave this body behind, Jimmy. It has caused me nothing but pain and turmoil in the last few months. But there are a few things I must do, first."
And they were gone, vanished from that field and sailing once again through the ether, back to the graveyard where they died.
X
With what almost might be characterized as reckless abandon, Castiel used his newly returned powers. He raised Bobby Singer, healed Dean Winchester, did everything in his power to mitigate the suffering of those who had stood against Lucifer. Not once did he ask for Heaven's permission or the orders of his superiors-he simply did what he saw fit. Nor did he force Jimmy into unawareness again, knowing that Jimmy didn't want it. Castiel was a changed creature.
Jimmy could feel Castiel's inward weariness, though, his longing to return as soon as possible to the home that was now open to him again. Jimmy understood that all too well. So Castiel kept his good-byes short, and then they were gone again, stepping through the cracks in creation, slipping easily from one location to another. Back to Pontiac, Illinois.
It was not the same house Jimmy had left behind-this one was in the country outside of town, surrounded by a fence, tall trees, long flat fields on every side. Through Castiel's senses, Jimmy could smell the lines of salt, hear the faint buzzing of protective wards and sigils. With Castiel's thoughts laid open to him, Jimmy knew that this was where Amelia and Claire had come to rebuild their lives, close enough to Pontiac to keep old jobs and friends and schoolmates, far enough away to keep them safe. Or as safe as they could ever get, now that they knew what was out there in the dark.
"I may return one day to Earth," Castiel said. "Your consent is not revoked, merely set aside for a time. But perhaps it will be a long time."
You're letting me go on furlough. The thought was hard, bitter. You recruited me as a soldier, got me to enlist without any real information about the war I was stepping into. And now this isn't even a discharge. Just a leave.
"Any other angel wouldn't give you even this." Castiel's voice was stern. As if he expected...gratitude.
No. Jimmy wasn't giving him that. Go on, then. Get out of my body and let me see my family.
"Farewell, Jimmy."
A brief, painful flare of light, and Jimmy fell to his knees on worn country pavement, damp from some spring shower. Castiel was gone. His body was his own again. For now.
"Amelia." Jimmy groaned, forcing himself to his feet. He wavered on stiff, aching legs that hardly felt like they belonged to him. It was strange, being able to move again. He'd almost gotten used to every command he sent being ignored.
He stumbled to the fence that surrounded the house, leaned on the gatepost with a shaking hand, and fumbled with the latch. There was a roaring, a buzzing in his ears, thick and insistent. Amelia. Claire. Amelia. Claire. Please. Please.
"Amelia," he murmured, tears in his eyes. "Please, oh please."
As if she heard him, she appeared. Jimmy heard the screen door swing noisily open and lifted his head. Amelia stood in the doorway, mouth open in shock, leaning against the jamb for support. "Castiel?"
"No," Jimmy said, his voice low and shaky. Then louder. A yell. "It's me. It really...it really is. It's Jimmy!"
She all but flew down the path to let him in.
X
Kisses. Wet, fumbling, delicious. He held his wife's face between trembling palms and tried to wipe her tears while his own eyes blurred and brimmed.
"I love you. I love you."
They held each other like teenagers, desperate to touch, to feel, to experience each other. It was just as well that Claire was still at school.
"I missed you, I thought about you every day. I prayed...so hard."
"Yes. Yes."
"It's been...so long."
"Enough...enough talking."
"Don't ever leave again."
He said nothing.
It was a relief to strip off those clothes, to shove the trench coat under a pile in the closet and forget all about it.
X
"Daddy?"
Claire stood in the entranceway, trembling, her backpack hanging from her hand. Already there were tears. Jimmy had never wanted to make his daughter cry again.
"It's me," he choked, leaning forward where he sat on the couch next to Amelia, dressed in the soft sweats of an off-work salesman again, not the worn road-garb of a soldier. He held out his arms. "It's me, Claire, it's your dad."
She ran for him, letting the backpack fall to the floor.
God, she was beautiful. She must be fourteen now, grown up so much in the year he'd been away. He hated that he'd missed that year, missing seeing her. Two years, really, that he hadn't been home, and his daughter had grown from child to young woman. Did she wear make-up now? What did she do after school? Which classes did she like; which ones did she loathe? Did she cover her mouth with her hand to giggle about boys? How many friends did she have? It should be many, so many.
He held her and kissed her face and asked all the questions he could think of. Amelia stroked his shoulder and sniffled beside him, and Claire couldn't talk for awhile. She was too busy squeezing his neck until he could hardly breathe, and his questions stopped.
And then Claire had one of her own.
"Are you staying home from now on, Daddy? Is the angel done with you? Please say yes. Please say you'll never leave again."
Amelia tensed against him, waiting for the answer. Jimmy swallowed the lump in his throat, his head spinning. He wanted to say yes. He wanted to say it so very, very much.
"Castiel...he let me off. He let me go."
Amelia gasped in delight and Claire clung to him even harder, and Jimmy's heart felt like a brick.
2. Watching Without Eyes
It was a relief to stay in one place, to know exactly what he would see when he woke in the morning, when he looked out the window. Amelia's face, the swirled, cream-colored ceiling of their bedroom, the corn and soybean fields outside. Even when Castiel had been depleted, unable to pop away anywhere around the world whenever he liked, they'd been traveling with the Winchesters and barely making a stop to sleep at night. Jimmy had never been much for traveling, and now he'd had enough of it to last him the rest of eternity.
For two weeks he barely stirred from the house. He relearned what it was to be still, to listen, to rest. What it was to be human. He slept ten hours a night and took naps during the day, made the few recipes he knew for Claire and Amelia-pancakes, grilled cheese, spaghetti. The house was warded with sigils he recognized as being in Castiel's hand, so the angel had kept at least part of his promise, had done what he could to keep Jimmy's family safe, and Jimmy laid salt lines as well. He felt as safe inside those four walls as he probably ever would. But he didn't go outside.
Claire and Amelia were very tender with him, treating him like some fragile treasure once thought lost and now returned, a bird of spun glass or a very old, very delicate clock. At first he appreciated their care with him, their gentleness. He certainly felt like something fragile, afraid of breaking, and their solicitation was welcome. He knew he wasn't himself, wasn't acting the same as before, so why should they pretend any differently?
He felt simultaneously too large and too small for his own body, alone in his skin for the first time in what felt like eons. The world was tilted on its axis for him, now-he'd seen things no human should see, experienced things so far beyond the realm of normality that the two didn't even touch anymore. And every night, there were dreams...
Jimmy did everything he could to remember what it was like to be normal, to settle into this skin and go back there again, be the man he used to be. He thought he was doing a pretty good job-it was a work in progress, but it was progressing. Eventually, he was sure, there would come a time when he looked out the window and didn't expect to see strange lights in the sky, a man with coal-black eyes and the devil's smile, a woman dead on the ground with the outline of wings burned black and beautiful around her like lace filigree. Eventually.
"Have you thought about what you want to do now?" Amelia asked one evening while they sat around the supper table, relaxing after another meal of pasta, salad and garlic bread prepared by Jimmy's increasingly expert hand. "It's been a month now. Maybe it's time to dust off that old resume, see what's out there."
Jimmy stared at her. He realized that he hadn't even thought about it, not once. What did he want to do now?
Anything but be an angelic vessel again.
"I'm pretty sure my last employers are under the impression that I went crazy and...ran off to be crazy. Not a great spot on my record. And I doubt they'll take me back."
"Well...probably not," Amelia conceded. "But you were a good advertiser, a good salesman. You still have those skills. I see want ads for salespeople in the paper all the time...it seems to be one of the few occupations in demand right now. You could get a job. They can't discriminate because of past mental illness-there are laws."
Jimmy looked away out the window, suddenly not hungry for the piece of bread he held in his hand. The landscape outside was normal, peaceful, June corn growing under the sun, wind in the leaves of the maple by the shed.
"Do you want to be a salesman, Daddy?" Claire asked. "You could do something else. You could be anything you want."
He turned back, gave his daughter the warmest smile he had in him. "Thanks, peanut. I don't really know what I want to be. Except your daddy, of course. I'll always want to be your dad."
She grinned. Amelia reached over and laid her hand on his forearm, gentle but pressing. "Just think about it, okay? Claire's right-you can be anything you want. I don't care how long it takes, as long as you're happy."
Jimmy only had one response for that-he had to lean over and kiss her cheek, warm and soft, the smell of butter and garlic rich around them, comforting, home. His girls were the best, and he would defy anyone who dared to disagree.
But that marked the end of his period of rest. Amelia never demanded. She didn't insist. She just...suggested. Did you see the want page in the paper? I thought you might be interested in this brochure from ICC-you could go back to school, finish your communications degree. Anything you want. Have you thought about it today? Did you read the book I borrowed from the library, about parachutes or something? You can be anything you want. Do you want to go into education, maybe? Medicine? Law? You can do anything you want, Jimmy.
Except that he couldn't. He still couldn't even go outside.
And the facade was starting to wear.
X
Jimmy lay awake, staring at the ceiling, bluish black in the dim moonlight trailing through the window. Amelia slept beside him, curled into herself like a child, her breaths peaceful and sweet. He pulled up the blanket, held it bunched it against his chest, and watched the ceiling. Another nightmare. At least he hadn't woken Amelia this time.
They were coming more and more frequently now, the nightmares. He hoped Amelia didn't realize just how often. Just how bad they were. She'd want him to talk about it, to explain them to her. He couldn't.
Oh, there were some that might have made sense, the usual sort of dream fare-running endlessly from enemies he couldn't see while bloody images flashed all around, falling through a black abyss to certain death, being trapped inside his own body with no voice, no movement, no hope... But how could he put words to the sensation of exploding? Worse were the other dreams, the ones that had no words in any language Jimmy knew. Dreams of seeing in more colors than humans could see, of moving through places humans could not go, knowing things humans couldn't possibly comprehend. Of watching without eyes, existing without a corporeal body, perceiving time and space in multiple dimensions. Bright and dark and terrifying, were those dreams, so utterly alien, forced into Jimmy's head by the bleed between him and Castiel in the last few months.
Sometimes Jimmy wondered if maybe he wasn't...quite...human. Not anymore. Maybe because of all he'd seen, all he'd experienced, all he'd been... Maybe he was something Other now, not Castiel but not quite Jimmy either, caught somewhere between. Forever.
Eventually he shoved the covers aside and rolled out of bed, careful not to disturb Amelia, who sighed in her sleep and curled up tighter. He looked back at her for a moment, watching the soft movements of her breath, then turned, padded barefoot out into the hall and down the steps to the kitchen. Jimmy found a chair by the big picture window looking over the backyard and sat there, looking out.
He didn't know how long he sat there, half-wishing that he was a drinker or a smoker so that he'd have something to do with his hands, something to calm him down and take the edge off. But he'd never been one to put things like that in his body. He wasn't even a fan of coffee, didn't like the way it made him feel. Not that it would help him in this situation, anyway. The last thing he wanted was to be even more alert.
A soft footstep at the door had him lifting his head, expecting Amelia. It was Claire, though, a slender, blurred figure in her long nightgown. She walked toward him, face catching the moonlight, her delicate features and beautiful eyes. "Daddy?"
"Hey, baby girl. What are you doing up?"
She shrugged, moved across the table from him. She pulled out a chair, lifting to minimize the scraping across the linoleum, and sat. "Sometimes I can't sleep. I have funny dreams."
"Oh, yeah?" Jimmy turned away from the window, tried to give her his full attention. "What about?"
She hesitated, staring down at her hand on the table, her finger tracing a pattern in the wood. "Do you... Daddy, do you remember what it felt like to have an angel in you?"
For a moment he couldn't breathe. "Yeah. Yeah, I do."
"I remember. I dream about it. They're so strange. I can't even describe them."
"Oh, Claire..." He reached across the table to catch her hand, stilling the restless movement. He was a fool to forget. He wasn't alone. "I'm so sorry, sweetheart."
She shrugged. "They're not bad, really. Just...different."
Jimmy sighed. "Incredibly different. Impossibly different."
Claire looked up to meet his eye. "Do you ever... Do you ever feel lonely? Without Castiel?"
He had no answer, could only stare at her, mute.
"Do you ever miss him?"
"No," he said, the answer instant. Then, "Maybe. I don't know."
She squeezed his hand, rubbed her other hand across her face. "Sometimes I think I do. I think maybe I'll always feel kind of... Empty."
Jimmy could only nod.
"It must be so much worse for you, though."
He reached across with his other hand, folded hers in his. "Maybe. Maybe I do miss him, miss it. Sometimes. But I missed you so much more."
She smiled.
"You and your mother, you mean everything to me."
"I know, Daddy. You tell us every day."
"And I'll tell you again every day from now on, for as long as I live."
They sat there in silence, letting the moonlight wash over them.
3. Last Night I Dreamt That I Grew Wings
Toward the end of June, Jimmy went outside for the first time. Amelia had figured out that he was scared, told him that the day after she bought the house, Castiel came and surrounded the entire place with protective wards. Jimmy didn't ask what that had been like for her, seeing the angel who had taken her husband away, seeing Jimmy's body but not seeing him. He was a little grateful to Castiel for at least attempting to be true to his word to keep Jimmy's family safe. At the very least, it gave Jimmy the final shove he needed to set his foot outdoors. He spent that afternoon under the maple tree he had been watching for so long. After that, it was a little easier.
Amelia told him that he had PTSD. That he had been through a traumatic event-two years of traumatic events-and what he was going through was normal. That it would be okay, that she loved him, that everything would work out in time. He wanted to believe her.
Eventually, he managed to go to Pontiac with her to shop for groceries. He spent the entire torturous experience shaking and sweating, holding the handle of the cart in a white-knuckled grip while Amelia fetched the items and put them in the basket, giving him encouraging smiles whenever she caught his eye. No one seemed to think there was anything unusual about him, and the cashier didn't look at them with ink-black eyes, and the sky didn't rain fire, and nothing bad happened. It was a good first step.
He got several cookbooks at the library and tried new recipes. The job information Amelia kept bringing home started to look more interesting, less insurmountable. He cut the grass and didn't feel completely naked under the blue sky and bright sun.
Overall, things slowly but steadily improved. Claire was home from school for the summer, and she and Jimmy worked through her summer reading list together, talking about each book as they went. He said grace at dinner, just generic words of blessing empty of faith, but all he could offer. Going to church with his family like Amelia wanted, being surrounded by that many people for hours on end, still felt impossible, but Jimmy thought he might be able to someday. He felt increasingly guilty about Amelia being the breadwinner in their family, like he was failing them all somehow. She didn't complain, used to it after years of his absence, and that just made it worse.
Then came a night of long, strange dreams. It was July, and Jimmy felt the heat throughout, beating down on his back, his head, heavy and exhausting. It made everything blurred and indistinct, every sensation like trying to feel and see and hear through a layer of thick syrup. And it made him feel strangely paralyzed, though every movement his body made was as smooth and graceful as it had ever been. More so, even.
It wasn't one of the bad dreams, of fire and blood and despair. Well, except for one brief incident toward the end, but it hardly seemed to count, it was over so quickly. And it wasn't one of the horrifyingly incomprehensible dreams that seemed to have melted into his head directly from Castiel's alien memories. It was more like Jimmy's brain had decided to create a pastiche of every memory he had of the last few years, every moment he had been aware and helpless while Castiel wore his flesh like a suit. But this was no flashback. It was all new.
He saw Dean Winchester, worn with grief and living in a small town in corn country not unlike Pontiac. He saw road passing under tires, a series of tiny hamlets viewed from the passenger seat of Dean's big black car. He saw strange motels with off-beat themes, tourist traps in too-polished downtown districts, diners with menus that barely varied from one establishment to the other. Dean and Castiel-in-Jimmy interviewed witnesses, defused cursed objects, dispatched ghosts, fought monsters. And in the end, they sat on the hood of the car under the stars in easy silence, just two weird friends who somehow seemed made for each other's company.
Jimmy almost felt at home.
He woke in mid-morning, entangled in the covers with sweat plastering his hair to his forehead. No Amelia, just hot July sun slanting in the window, so bright it made the tangled sheets seem to glow. Jimmy smacked his lips and dragged himself out of bed, heading downstairs to seek out some breakfast.
He found Amelia in the kitchen leaning on the counter with both hands, shoulders slumped, head down. Claire sat at the table, white-faced and wide-eyed, but when she saw him she started out of her seat with a startled cry. "Daddy!"
Amelia whirled, blue eyes wide and terrible in her pale face, and Jimmy started back in shock. She'd been crying. Crying hard.
She flew to him and he caught her in his arms, instinctively protective. "Amelia...what's going on? Why aren't you at work?"
She balled her fists in his shirt, pulling on it as if she wanted to tear it off. Only then did he realize that he was wearing his dress shirt, a tie, business clothes. He didn't remember going to sleep in them, but it had been a strange night. "Jimmy," Amelia choked, "Jimmy. Where did you go?"
"Go?" Jimmy tightened his grip on his wife, looking over her shoulder to see Claire cautiously approaching, shaking from head to toe. "I...nowhere, honey. I was sleeping. I had a weird dream, but that's not exactly new."
"Jimmy." She pulled on his shirt again, and he heard it rip, some worn-out seam finally giving way under the relentless pressure. "You've been gone for two weeks."
X
"Castiel!" Jimmy screamed in the middle of an empty field. It seemed like this was all the conversation he had with God anymore, just screaming in fields. "Castiel! Bastard angel, son of a dick! Come and talk to me, asshole! Are you afraid of what I have to say? Come down and explain yourself right the fuck now!"
He screamed till his throat was raw and his legs were shaking, and still Castiel didn't come. Finally, Jimmy fell to his knees in the dirt, hands clenched in trembling fists, hard and useless. And he kept talking to the obdurate sky because it was all he could do.
"You're gonna take my body whenever you damn well please, aren't you? Just take me in the night, like a thief. Dress me up in my old clothes, put on that old coat I don't want anymore. Terrify Amelia, traumatize Claire, just make me leave them, make me go. Because you want to take a road trip, because you need me and you don't care what I need. Fuck it. Fuck you all!"
Jimmy had always believed that words had meaning, power. He didn't swear, didn't use the vulgar expressions so popular in the culture, because he didn't want to pollute his tongue and his mind. They did mean something, he found. They were useless as weapons, but they were all he had here, and there was a modicum of comfort in throwing everything he had at the heavens. And maybe he still believed in the power of words, even if he couldn't believe in much of anything else anymore, including a good and loving God.
"Damn you, Castiel," he said, and he meant it, and he hoped it meant something. "Damn you to hell with all your bastard brothers and your dick-awful dad. I hope you rot."
He knelt there, trembling, until the rage had faded to a manageable level. Then he dragged himself up, started stumbling out, bruising the soybean plants with every heavy, exhausted step.
"At least next time give me some warning, bastard angel. Let me say good-bye."
It was a weary, heart-broken plea, and he didn't expect it to be honored.
4. With My Stake Stuck in This Ground
Cicero, Indiana was nice little town, just three and a half hours from Pontiac by way of I-65. Jimmy found Dean's new home without much difficulty, all things considered. Castiel knew the way well, apparently, and Castiel had been in his head.
On a shady, narrow residential street in a sleepy neighborhood, Jimmy pulled Amelia's car to a park across the street from Dean's house. He sat there for awhile, watching. He didn't see any movement, no one going in or out. But it was evening, two cars in the driveway, lights on upstairs and down. Maybe they were eating.
He probably should have called or something. Jimmy snorted silently at the thought. Social niceties seemed so...quaint, right now.
Another few moments of just sitting there, clutching the steering wheel and staring at the house like a stalker, and Jimmy finally pulled the keys and stepped out of the car. He stuffed the keys in the pockets of his jeans, rubbed a hand over the stubble on his chin. He still didn't really know what he was doing here, but here he was.
The doorbell sounded just like the one at Amelia's house. Jimmy heard running footsteps inside, a young boy's voice yelling, "I'll get it!"
A dark-haired kid, younger than Claire but not by much, flung open the door and stared up at him. "What do you want?"
"Ben!" Dean's rough baritone scolded, rapidly approaching. "That's not how you answer the door!"
Dean pushed the door open, pulling it from Ben's hands, and froze there, staring. "Cas? What are you doing back here?"
Jimmy cleared his throat. "Uh, nope. Not Castiel."
"Jimmy?" Dean relaxed, leaning loose-limbed on the door. He gave Jimmy an assessing look, up and down. "Yeah, I should have figured. Cas has never been one for the scruffy goat rancher look."
"Not a rancher," Jimmy said.
Dean smirked. "Yeah, but scruffy."
"That one I'll give you."
Dean chuckled. He opened the door wider, nudging Ben out of the way. "Come on in, man. I think Lisa made cookies."
X
Patio chairs, fireflies, lemonade, cookies, a woman and a child in the house... Jimmy might as well never have left home. The company was different, though.
Dean lifted the longneck to his mouth and took a long swallow. "Sure you don't want a beer, dude? Day's over. It's good to relax."
Jimmy just shook his head, holding his sweating glass of lemonade. He had hoped that maybe something would come to him when he actually got here, actually sat face to face with Dean Winchester. So far, nothing doing. "I have to drive home after this."
Dean shrugged. "You could stay the night, if you want. Big comfy couch."
He shook his head again, throat jamming up. Still nothing.
"How are Amelia and Claire?"
"Good." Jimmy cleared his throat. "They're good. As well as can be expected."
Dean gave him a jaded stare. "Yeah. And just what do you mean by that?"
Jimmy bit his lip.
"Look, man, I'm trying to keep up the social nicety thing, but it ain't really my gig. You gotta give me something."
He leaned back in his chair, forcing his shoulders to loosen, and drank his lemonade. "Yeah. Um. Shit is kind of fucked up, Dean."
A startled laugh burst out of Dean's mouth. He watched Jimmy out of the corner of his eye, twinkling now with mirth. "Never pegged you for a potty-mouth, Novak. You always seemed pretty damn square."
"Yeah. Well. Things change."
"Tell me about it."
Jimmy paused, then took it as an invitation. "I'm not...I'm not doing so good."
Dean said nothing.
"I... I have these dreams. Crazy, fucked up... I can't seem to settle, yet I'm afraid to go outside the house. Can hardly even imagine getting a job, but I need to, want to. Hate Amelia having to bring in the money, the hours she has to work..."
Jimmy leaned forward, rested his elbows on his knees. "My girls don't know how to talk to me anymore. I don't know how to talk to them. They try. I try. Nothing works. We're strangers living in the same house. I can't explain it to them, and they can't understand. Oh, some of it-Claire was possessed by Castiel, too. They both saw demons, know a little about what kind of war it was. But they got out. They got away and I didn't."
"Yeah," Dean said softly. He drank his beer.
"And I'm still not really away." Jimmy laughed, thick and bitter. "Not really free. Furlough, Dean. I'm on furlough. Castiel can come and take me anytime he wants to. Already did a few weeks ago. You saw him. Me. I thought it was a dream until I woke up and two weeks were gone and my wife was sobbing in my arms and my daughter couldn't stand to take her eyes off me for fear I would vanish right then and there."
He could hear Dean swallow, thick and choked.
"Do you ever think about me, Winchester? When you're with that bastard angel, looking into his eyes, do you ever remember that those eyes don't belong to him? That he just took them, the way aristocracy in the bad old days would just take whatever they wanted from the peasants? Do you ever remember the poor dumb fuck who said 'yes' when he should have said 'no, no, no, a thousand times no'?"
"Yeah," Dean whispered. "Yeah, I remember you."
Jimmy clenched a fist with his free hand, jammed it into his thigh, welcomed the slight pain of it, the pressure. "I used to believe in God. A good, loving God who watched over His creation and loved us all like His own children. I used to believe that it all meant something, that no matter how bad things got here on Earth, up ahead was something good and pure and free of pain. And now... Well, I still believe God exists, I guess. But that's all I've got."
Silence. Then, "I wish I could give you more, man."
Jimmy took a deep breath. Another. He drank his lemonade. "So what do I do now, Dean? You seem to have a handle on things here, though I know perfectly well that you're even more fucked up inside than I am. What am I supposed to do?"
Jimmy waited. He expected an, "I don't know," or maybe, "Your guess is as good as mine." He knew that coming here had been a fool's errand, but it was the only thing he could think to do. He wanted something to work for, something to believe. But he wasn't expecting it.
He jumped slightly when Dean's hand landed heavily on his shoulder, squeezed.
"What do you do?" Dean's voice was rough, harsh. "You live. You take the time you got and you do what you can with it. You give your wife and your kid everything you got, and then you give some more. God's not going to fix things, and the Devil's not going away any time soon, and you gotta stand between your family and the storm and live. Doesn't matter if you have a year or a century or five fucking days. You pick up your broken pieces because people need you, and you live as well or as bad as you have to, but you live."
Jimmy sat there, still as stone. Dean's hand was heavy on his shoulder, all but crushing. He didn't know if he could bear that weight. "I'm not gonna be great at that," he said after a long moment.
"Great, schmate. Ninety percent is just showing up. You'll figure out the rest as you go. That's all any of us do."
The fireflies flickered over the lawn. Dean drank his beer. Jimmy drank his lemonade.
"Yeah. All right."
Jimmy leaned back, and Dean's hand fell off his shoulder. "Thanks."
"Whatever, dude." Dean shrugged, completely unaware of the magnitude of what he'd just done. "Stake your claim. Stand your ground. I am Spartacus. All that inspiring shit. Just do what you can to come out the other side of this, okay? I think you're an okay guy and I want Amelia and Claire to have you for as long as possible."
"I want that too."
It was reason enough.
5. I'm Alive But I'm Alone
It turned out to be more than five fucking days, but quite a bit less than a century. Jimmy did everything he could with his furlough. It wasn't always great, but he lived.
In the next May, Castiel told him that he'd be coming soon. It was time to say good-bye. Jimmy had it in him to be grateful for the warning, grateful that Castiel had listened to that one plea.
He got a haircut, had his trench coat dry-cleaned. Finished the book he was reading to Claire. Filled the freezer with his favorite casserole recipes. Made love to his wife.
He kissed them good-bye, felt their tears mingle.
When Castiel came, he was ready. He stood there, looking into Amelia's eyes as the light began to engulf him, until she had to wince and turn away. He had time enough to give Claire one last smile. And then he was gone.
So hold me when I'm here
Right me when I'm wrong
Hold me when I'm scared
And love me when I'm gone
Everything I am
And everything in me
Wants to be the one
You wanted me to be
I'll never let you down
Even if I could
I'd give up everything
If only for your good
So hold me when I'm here
Right me when I'm wrong
You can hold me when I'm scared
You won't always be there
So love me when I'm gone
End
Title: Furlough
Author: Maychorian
Artist: extraonions
Characters: Castiel, Novaks, Winchesters
Category: Angst, Drama, Het
Rating: R/M
Warning: ( skip) Salty language.
Spoilers: Through S5. References another story of mine, Better Than One.
Summary: Once given, consent to Heaven's will cannot be revoked. It's a lesson Jimmy doesn't want to learn.
Word Count: 6200
Author’s Note: Written for spn_reversebang. Thanks to my lovely betas, vikki and just_ruth, and most especially to extraonions for the gorgeous and inspiring art. ♥
Art link: Here.
Love Me When I'm Gone - The Angsty Jimmy Novak EP
You Found Me - The Fray
Believe - The Bravery
Wings - Josh Ritter
Roll Away Your Stone - Mumford & Sons
When I'm Gone - 3 Doors Down
YouTube Playlist
Box.net folder
Furlough
1. He Said, "Ask Anything."
When he was brought back to life the second time, Jimmy screamed.
The first time had been too much of a shock; he hadn't been aware of the events leading up to it, anyway. There were the usual sensations of fire and ice, of being enfolded, held, restrained by unbearable glory-a burden he had accepted to save his daughter-but little knowledge of what his body was doing, what Castiel was doing. Brief darkness, then light again as his body was rebuilt with his soul still intact and Castiel still in charge.
The second time, though, he was all too aware. Trapped like a fly in amber, looking out but forever frozen, forever silent. As Castiel's powers faded while the Apocalypse wore on like tires on a rough road, the angel was no longer able to tamp down Jimmy's awareness, keep him asleep and blissfully ignorant. Jimmy didn't think Castiel knew, didn't think he'd understood that as awful as the sensation of fading Grace had been for him, it was ten times worse for Jimmy. He'd felt all of Castiel's trials and tribulations, the new pains and heartaches he was forced to endure, wind on his skin, unfathomable hunger, bruised knuckles and bleeding cuts, even the horrific emptiness of grief and loss and dying faith. Jimmy had been immobile, helpless, and it had been the worst experience he'd ever felt or imagined.
So when Jimmy's body exploded in that Kansas graveyard, then sometime moments later was reconstituted in a thousand points of agonizing light, he'd let Castiel know. He screamed, releasing terror and anguish and frustration and rage in the fraction of second he was given in charge of his own body while Castiel was perplexed and still. The sound ripped out of him, rebounding to an unhearing sky somewhere in a silent field of winter wheat, scouring his throat and wrenching tears from his eyes, and he collapsed in the dry Kansas dirt. Then Castiel commanded his body again, and Jimmy was silenced and chained, unforgiving and unforgiven.
"Jimmy," Castiel rasped, throat traumatized and raw from Jimmy's bellow. "You're still here?"
Let me go! Let me go, you bastard! Let me go back to Amelia! Let me see my daughter! I revoke my consent, do you hear? I revoke it! You haven't kept your vow to me, and I won't keep mine to you!
"Once given, consent to Heaven's will cannot be revoked. That is the law. I did not make it."
Let me go! You've defied all of Heaven's other laws, why not this one?
"Believe me, nothing would give me more pleasure." Jimmy's throat-Castiel's throat-had healed already. Castiel was an angel again, more brilliant and powerful than ever before. He could silence Jimmy now, if he wished, could force him into darkness.
He didn't, though. He raised Jimmy's hands, his hands, before his face, watching them tremble. "I would very much like to leave this body behind, Jimmy. It has caused me nothing but pain and turmoil in the last few months. But there are a few things I must do, first."
And they were gone, vanished from that field and sailing once again through the ether, back to the graveyard where they died.
X
With what almost might be characterized as reckless abandon, Castiel used his newly returned powers. He raised Bobby Singer, healed Dean Winchester, did everything in his power to mitigate the suffering of those who had stood against Lucifer. Not once did he ask for Heaven's permission or the orders of his superiors-he simply did what he saw fit. Nor did he force Jimmy into unawareness again, knowing that Jimmy didn't want it. Castiel was a changed creature.
Jimmy could feel Castiel's inward weariness, though, his longing to return as soon as possible to the home that was now open to him again. Jimmy understood that all too well. So Castiel kept his good-byes short, and then they were gone again, stepping through the cracks in creation, slipping easily from one location to another. Back to Pontiac, Illinois.
It was not the same house Jimmy had left behind-this one was in the country outside of town, surrounded by a fence, tall trees, long flat fields on every side. Through Castiel's senses, Jimmy could smell the lines of salt, hear the faint buzzing of protective wards and sigils. With Castiel's thoughts laid open to him, Jimmy knew that this was where Amelia and Claire had come to rebuild their lives, close enough to Pontiac to keep old jobs and friends and schoolmates, far enough away to keep them safe. Or as safe as they could ever get, now that they knew what was out there in the dark.
"I may return one day to Earth," Castiel said. "Your consent is not revoked, merely set aside for a time. But perhaps it will be a long time."
You're letting me go on furlough. The thought was hard, bitter. You recruited me as a soldier, got me to enlist without any real information about the war I was stepping into. And now this isn't even a discharge. Just a leave.
"Any other angel wouldn't give you even this." Castiel's voice was stern. As if he expected...gratitude.
No. Jimmy wasn't giving him that. Go on, then. Get out of my body and let me see my family.
"Farewell, Jimmy."
A brief, painful flare of light, and Jimmy fell to his knees on worn country pavement, damp from some spring shower. Castiel was gone. His body was his own again. For now.
"Amelia." Jimmy groaned, forcing himself to his feet. He wavered on stiff, aching legs that hardly felt like they belonged to him. It was strange, being able to move again. He'd almost gotten used to every command he sent being ignored.
He stumbled to the fence that surrounded the house, leaned on the gatepost with a shaking hand, and fumbled with the latch. There was a roaring, a buzzing in his ears, thick and insistent. Amelia. Claire. Amelia. Claire. Please. Please.
"Amelia," he murmured, tears in his eyes. "Please, oh please."
As if she heard him, she appeared. Jimmy heard the screen door swing noisily open and lifted his head. Amelia stood in the doorway, mouth open in shock, leaning against the jamb for support. "Castiel?"
"No," Jimmy said, his voice low and shaky. Then louder. A yell. "It's me. It really...it really is. It's Jimmy!"
She all but flew down the path to let him in.
X
Kisses. Wet, fumbling, delicious. He held his wife's face between trembling palms and tried to wipe her tears while his own eyes blurred and brimmed.
"I love you. I love you."
They held each other like teenagers, desperate to touch, to feel, to experience each other. It was just as well that Claire was still at school.
"I missed you, I thought about you every day. I prayed...so hard."
"Yes. Yes."
"It's been...so long."
"Enough...enough talking."
"Don't ever leave again."
He said nothing.
It was a relief to strip off those clothes, to shove the trench coat under a pile in the closet and forget all about it.
X
"Daddy?"
Claire stood in the entranceway, trembling, her backpack hanging from her hand. Already there were tears. Jimmy had never wanted to make his daughter cry again.
"It's me," he choked, leaning forward where he sat on the couch next to Amelia, dressed in the soft sweats of an off-work salesman again, not the worn road-garb of a soldier. He held out his arms. "It's me, Claire, it's your dad."
She ran for him, letting the backpack fall to the floor.
God, she was beautiful. She must be fourteen now, grown up so much in the year he'd been away. He hated that he'd missed that year, missing seeing her. Two years, really, that he hadn't been home, and his daughter had grown from child to young woman. Did she wear make-up now? What did she do after school? Which classes did she like; which ones did she loathe? Did she cover her mouth with her hand to giggle about boys? How many friends did she have? It should be many, so many.
He held her and kissed her face and asked all the questions he could think of. Amelia stroked his shoulder and sniffled beside him, and Claire couldn't talk for awhile. She was too busy squeezing his neck until he could hardly breathe, and his questions stopped.
And then Claire had one of her own.
"Are you staying home from now on, Daddy? Is the angel done with you? Please say yes. Please say you'll never leave again."
Amelia tensed against him, waiting for the answer. Jimmy swallowed the lump in his throat, his head spinning. He wanted to say yes. He wanted to say it so very, very much.
"Castiel...he let me off. He let me go."
Amelia gasped in delight and Claire clung to him even harder, and Jimmy's heart felt like a brick.
2. Watching Without Eyes
It was a relief to stay in one place, to know exactly what he would see when he woke in the morning, when he looked out the window. Amelia's face, the swirled, cream-colored ceiling of their bedroom, the corn and soybean fields outside. Even when Castiel had been depleted, unable to pop away anywhere around the world whenever he liked, they'd been traveling with the Winchesters and barely making a stop to sleep at night. Jimmy had never been much for traveling, and now he'd had enough of it to last him the rest of eternity.
For two weeks he barely stirred from the house. He relearned what it was to be still, to listen, to rest. What it was to be human. He slept ten hours a night and took naps during the day, made the few recipes he knew for Claire and Amelia-pancakes, grilled cheese, spaghetti. The house was warded with sigils he recognized as being in Castiel's hand, so the angel had kept at least part of his promise, had done what he could to keep Jimmy's family safe, and Jimmy laid salt lines as well. He felt as safe inside those four walls as he probably ever would. But he didn't go outside.
Claire and Amelia were very tender with him, treating him like some fragile treasure once thought lost and now returned, a bird of spun glass or a very old, very delicate clock. At first he appreciated their care with him, their gentleness. He certainly felt like something fragile, afraid of breaking, and their solicitation was welcome. He knew he wasn't himself, wasn't acting the same as before, so why should they pretend any differently?
He felt simultaneously too large and too small for his own body, alone in his skin for the first time in what felt like eons. The world was tilted on its axis for him, now-he'd seen things no human should see, experienced things so far beyond the realm of normality that the two didn't even touch anymore. And every night, there were dreams...
Jimmy did everything he could to remember what it was like to be normal, to settle into this skin and go back there again, be the man he used to be. He thought he was doing a pretty good job-it was a work in progress, but it was progressing. Eventually, he was sure, there would come a time when he looked out the window and didn't expect to see strange lights in the sky, a man with coal-black eyes and the devil's smile, a woman dead on the ground with the outline of wings burned black and beautiful around her like lace filigree. Eventually.
"Have you thought about what you want to do now?" Amelia asked one evening while they sat around the supper table, relaxing after another meal of pasta, salad and garlic bread prepared by Jimmy's increasingly expert hand. "It's been a month now. Maybe it's time to dust off that old resume, see what's out there."
Jimmy stared at her. He realized that he hadn't even thought about it, not once. What did he want to do now?
Anything but be an angelic vessel again.
"I'm pretty sure my last employers are under the impression that I went crazy and...ran off to be crazy. Not a great spot on my record. And I doubt they'll take me back."
"Well...probably not," Amelia conceded. "But you were a good advertiser, a good salesman. You still have those skills. I see want ads for salespeople in the paper all the time...it seems to be one of the few occupations in demand right now. You could get a job. They can't discriminate because of past mental illness-there are laws."
Jimmy looked away out the window, suddenly not hungry for the piece of bread he held in his hand. The landscape outside was normal, peaceful, June corn growing under the sun, wind in the leaves of the maple by the shed.
"Do you want to be a salesman, Daddy?" Claire asked. "You could do something else. You could be anything you want."
He turned back, gave his daughter the warmest smile he had in him. "Thanks, peanut. I don't really know what I want to be. Except your daddy, of course. I'll always want to be your dad."
She grinned. Amelia reached over and laid her hand on his forearm, gentle but pressing. "Just think about it, okay? Claire's right-you can be anything you want. I don't care how long it takes, as long as you're happy."
Jimmy only had one response for that-he had to lean over and kiss her cheek, warm and soft, the smell of butter and garlic rich around them, comforting, home. His girls were the best, and he would defy anyone who dared to disagree.
But that marked the end of his period of rest. Amelia never demanded. She didn't insist. She just...suggested. Did you see the want page in the paper? I thought you might be interested in this brochure from ICC-you could go back to school, finish your communications degree. Anything you want. Have you thought about it today? Did you read the book I borrowed from the library, about parachutes or something? You can be anything you want. Do you want to go into education, maybe? Medicine? Law? You can do anything you want, Jimmy.
Except that he couldn't. He still couldn't even go outside.
And the facade was starting to wear.
X
Jimmy lay awake, staring at the ceiling, bluish black in the dim moonlight trailing through the window. Amelia slept beside him, curled into herself like a child, her breaths peaceful and sweet. He pulled up the blanket, held it bunched it against his chest, and watched the ceiling. Another nightmare. At least he hadn't woken Amelia this time.
They were coming more and more frequently now, the nightmares. He hoped Amelia didn't realize just how often. Just how bad they were. She'd want him to talk about it, to explain them to her. He couldn't.
Oh, there were some that might have made sense, the usual sort of dream fare-running endlessly from enemies he couldn't see while bloody images flashed all around, falling through a black abyss to certain death, being trapped inside his own body with no voice, no movement, no hope... But how could he put words to the sensation of exploding? Worse were the other dreams, the ones that had no words in any language Jimmy knew. Dreams of seeing in more colors than humans could see, of moving through places humans could not go, knowing things humans couldn't possibly comprehend. Of watching without eyes, existing without a corporeal body, perceiving time and space in multiple dimensions. Bright and dark and terrifying, were those dreams, so utterly alien, forced into Jimmy's head by the bleed between him and Castiel in the last few months.
Sometimes Jimmy wondered if maybe he wasn't...quite...human. Not anymore. Maybe because of all he'd seen, all he'd experienced, all he'd been... Maybe he was something Other now, not Castiel but not quite Jimmy either, caught somewhere between. Forever.
Eventually he shoved the covers aside and rolled out of bed, careful not to disturb Amelia, who sighed in her sleep and curled up tighter. He looked back at her for a moment, watching the soft movements of her breath, then turned, padded barefoot out into the hall and down the steps to the kitchen. Jimmy found a chair by the big picture window looking over the backyard and sat there, looking out.
He didn't know how long he sat there, half-wishing that he was a drinker or a smoker so that he'd have something to do with his hands, something to calm him down and take the edge off. But he'd never been one to put things like that in his body. He wasn't even a fan of coffee, didn't like the way it made him feel. Not that it would help him in this situation, anyway. The last thing he wanted was to be even more alert.
A soft footstep at the door had him lifting his head, expecting Amelia. It was Claire, though, a slender, blurred figure in her long nightgown. She walked toward him, face catching the moonlight, her delicate features and beautiful eyes. "Daddy?"
"Hey, baby girl. What are you doing up?"
She shrugged, moved across the table from him. She pulled out a chair, lifting to minimize the scraping across the linoleum, and sat. "Sometimes I can't sleep. I have funny dreams."
"Oh, yeah?" Jimmy turned away from the window, tried to give her his full attention. "What about?"
She hesitated, staring down at her hand on the table, her finger tracing a pattern in the wood. "Do you... Daddy, do you remember what it felt like to have an angel in you?"
For a moment he couldn't breathe. "Yeah. Yeah, I do."
"I remember. I dream about it. They're so strange. I can't even describe them."
"Oh, Claire..." He reached across the table to catch her hand, stilling the restless movement. He was a fool to forget. He wasn't alone. "I'm so sorry, sweetheart."
She shrugged. "They're not bad, really. Just...different."
Jimmy sighed. "Incredibly different. Impossibly different."
Claire looked up to meet his eye. "Do you ever... Do you ever feel lonely? Without Castiel?"
He had no answer, could only stare at her, mute.
"Do you ever miss him?"
"No," he said, the answer instant. Then, "Maybe. I don't know."
She squeezed his hand, rubbed her other hand across her face. "Sometimes I think I do. I think maybe I'll always feel kind of... Empty."
Jimmy could only nod.
"It must be so much worse for you, though."
He reached across with his other hand, folded hers in his. "Maybe. Maybe I do miss him, miss it. Sometimes. But I missed you so much more."
She smiled.
"You and your mother, you mean everything to me."
"I know, Daddy. You tell us every day."
"And I'll tell you again every day from now on, for as long as I live."
They sat there in silence, letting the moonlight wash over them.
3. Last Night I Dreamt That I Grew Wings
Toward the end of June, Jimmy went outside for the first time. Amelia had figured out that he was scared, told him that the day after she bought the house, Castiel came and surrounded the entire place with protective wards. Jimmy didn't ask what that had been like for her, seeing the angel who had taken her husband away, seeing Jimmy's body but not seeing him. He was a little grateful to Castiel for at least attempting to be true to his word to keep Jimmy's family safe. At the very least, it gave Jimmy the final shove he needed to set his foot outdoors. He spent that afternoon under the maple tree he had been watching for so long. After that, it was a little easier.
Amelia told him that he had PTSD. That he had been through a traumatic event-two years of traumatic events-and what he was going through was normal. That it would be okay, that she loved him, that everything would work out in time. He wanted to believe her.
Eventually, he managed to go to Pontiac with her to shop for groceries. He spent the entire torturous experience shaking and sweating, holding the handle of the cart in a white-knuckled grip while Amelia fetched the items and put them in the basket, giving him encouraging smiles whenever she caught his eye. No one seemed to think there was anything unusual about him, and the cashier didn't look at them with ink-black eyes, and the sky didn't rain fire, and nothing bad happened. It was a good first step.
He got several cookbooks at the library and tried new recipes. The job information Amelia kept bringing home started to look more interesting, less insurmountable. He cut the grass and didn't feel completely naked under the blue sky and bright sun.
Overall, things slowly but steadily improved. Claire was home from school for the summer, and she and Jimmy worked through her summer reading list together, talking about each book as they went. He said grace at dinner, just generic words of blessing empty of faith, but all he could offer. Going to church with his family like Amelia wanted, being surrounded by that many people for hours on end, still felt impossible, but Jimmy thought he might be able to someday. He felt increasingly guilty about Amelia being the breadwinner in their family, like he was failing them all somehow. She didn't complain, used to it after years of his absence, and that just made it worse.
Then came a night of long, strange dreams. It was July, and Jimmy felt the heat throughout, beating down on his back, his head, heavy and exhausting. It made everything blurred and indistinct, every sensation like trying to feel and see and hear through a layer of thick syrup. And it made him feel strangely paralyzed, though every movement his body made was as smooth and graceful as it had ever been. More so, even.
It wasn't one of the bad dreams, of fire and blood and despair. Well, except for one brief incident toward the end, but it hardly seemed to count, it was over so quickly. And it wasn't one of the horrifyingly incomprehensible dreams that seemed to have melted into his head directly from Castiel's alien memories. It was more like Jimmy's brain had decided to create a pastiche of every memory he had of the last few years, every moment he had been aware and helpless while Castiel wore his flesh like a suit. But this was no flashback. It was all new.
He saw Dean Winchester, worn with grief and living in a small town in corn country not unlike Pontiac. He saw road passing under tires, a series of tiny hamlets viewed from the passenger seat of Dean's big black car. He saw strange motels with off-beat themes, tourist traps in too-polished downtown districts, diners with menus that barely varied from one establishment to the other. Dean and Castiel-in-Jimmy interviewed witnesses, defused cursed objects, dispatched ghosts, fought monsters. And in the end, they sat on the hood of the car under the stars in easy silence, just two weird friends who somehow seemed made for each other's company.
Jimmy almost felt at home.
He woke in mid-morning, entangled in the covers with sweat plastering his hair to his forehead. No Amelia, just hot July sun slanting in the window, so bright it made the tangled sheets seem to glow. Jimmy smacked his lips and dragged himself out of bed, heading downstairs to seek out some breakfast.
He found Amelia in the kitchen leaning on the counter with both hands, shoulders slumped, head down. Claire sat at the table, white-faced and wide-eyed, but when she saw him she started out of her seat with a startled cry. "Daddy!"
Amelia whirled, blue eyes wide and terrible in her pale face, and Jimmy started back in shock. She'd been crying. Crying hard.
She flew to him and he caught her in his arms, instinctively protective. "Amelia...what's going on? Why aren't you at work?"
She balled her fists in his shirt, pulling on it as if she wanted to tear it off. Only then did he realize that he was wearing his dress shirt, a tie, business clothes. He didn't remember going to sleep in them, but it had been a strange night. "Jimmy," Amelia choked, "Jimmy. Where did you go?"
"Go?" Jimmy tightened his grip on his wife, looking over her shoulder to see Claire cautiously approaching, shaking from head to toe. "I...nowhere, honey. I was sleeping. I had a weird dream, but that's not exactly new."
"Jimmy." She pulled on his shirt again, and he heard it rip, some worn-out seam finally giving way under the relentless pressure. "You've been gone for two weeks."
X
"Castiel!" Jimmy screamed in the middle of an empty field. It seemed like this was all the conversation he had with God anymore, just screaming in fields. "Castiel! Bastard angel, son of a dick! Come and talk to me, asshole! Are you afraid of what I have to say? Come down and explain yourself right the fuck now!"
He screamed till his throat was raw and his legs were shaking, and still Castiel didn't come. Finally, Jimmy fell to his knees in the dirt, hands clenched in trembling fists, hard and useless. And he kept talking to the obdurate sky because it was all he could do.
"You're gonna take my body whenever you damn well please, aren't you? Just take me in the night, like a thief. Dress me up in my old clothes, put on that old coat I don't want anymore. Terrify Amelia, traumatize Claire, just make me leave them, make me go. Because you want to take a road trip, because you need me and you don't care what I need. Fuck it. Fuck you all!"
Jimmy had always believed that words had meaning, power. He didn't swear, didn't use the vulgar expressions so popular in the culture, because he didn't want to pollute his tongue and his mind. They did mean something, he found. They were useless as weapons, but they were all he had here, and there was a modicum of comfort in throwing everything he had at the heavens. And maybe he still believed in the power of words, even if he couldn't believe in much of anything else anymore, including a good and loving God.
"Damn you, Castiel," he said, and he meant it, and he hoped it meant something. "Damn you to hell with all your bastard brothers and your dick-awful dad. I hope you rot."
He knelt there, trembling, until the rage had faded to a manageable level. Then he dragged himself up, started stumbling out, bruising the soybean plants with every heavy, exhausted step.
"At least next time give me some warning, bastard angel. Let me say good-bye."
It was a weary, heart-broken plea, and he didn't expect it to be honored.
4. With My Stake Stuck in This Ground
Cicero, Indiana was nice little town, just three and a half hours from Pontiac by way of I-65. Jimmy found Dean's new home without much difficulty, all things considered. Castiel knew the way well, apparently, and Castiel had been in his head.
On a shady, narrow residential street in a sleepy neighborhood, Jimmy pulled Amelia's car to a park across the street from Dean's house. He sat there for awhile, watching. He didn't see any movement, no one going in or out. But it was evening, two cars in the driveway, lights on upstairs and down. Maybe they were eating.
He probably should have called or something. Jimmy snorted silently at the thought. Social niceties seemed so...quaint, right now.
Another few moments of just sitting there, clutching the steering wheel and staring at the house like a stalker, and Jimmy finally pulled the keys and stepped out of the car. He stuffed the keys in the pockets of his jeans, rubbed a hand over the stubble on his chin. He still didn't really know what he was doing here, but here he was.
The doorbell sounded just like the one at Amelia's house. Jimmy heard running footsteps inside, a young boy's voice yelling, "I'll get it!"
A dark-haired kid, younger than Claire but not by much, flung open the door and stared up at him. "What do you want?"
"Ben!" Dean's rough baritone scolded, rapidly approaching. "That's not how you answer the door!"
Dean pushed the door open, pulling it from Ben's hands, and froze there, staring. "Cas? What are you doing back here?"
Jimmy cleared his throat. "Uh, nope. Not Castiel."
"Jimmy?" Dean relaxed, leaning loose-limbed on the door. He gave Jimmy an assessing look, up and down. "Yeah, I should have figured. Cas has never been one for the scruffy goat rancher look."
"Not a rancher," Jimmy said.
Dean smirked. "Yeah, but scruffy."
"That one I'll give you."
Dean chuckled. He opened the door wider, nudging Ben out of the way. "Come on in, man. I think Lisa made cookies."
X
Patio chairs, fireflies, lemonade, cookies, a woman and a child in the house... Jimmy might as well never have left home. The company was different, though.
Dean lifted the longneck to his mouth and took a long swallow. "Sure you don't want a beer, dude? Day's over. It's good to relax."
Jimmy just shook his head, holding his sweating glass of lemonade. He had hoped that maybe something would come to him when he actually got here, actually sat face to face with Dean Winchester. So far, nothing doing. "I have to drive home after this."
Dean shrugged. "You could stay the night, if you want. Big comfy couch."
He shook his head again, throat jamming up. Still nothing.
"How are Amelia and Claire?"
"Good." Jimmy cleared his throat. "They're good. As well as can be expected."
Dean gave him a jaded stare. "Yeah. And just what do you mean by that?"
Jimmy bit his lip.
"Look, man, I'm trying to keep up the social nicety thing, but it ain't really my gig. You gotta give me something."
He leaned back in his chair, forcing his shoulders to loosen, and drank his lemonade. "Yeah. Um. Shit is kind of fucked up, Dean."
A startled laugh burst out of Dean's mouth. He watched Jimmy out of the corner of his eye, twinkling now with mirth. "Never pegged you for a potty-mouth, Novak. You always seemed pretty damn square."
"Yeah. Well. Things change."
"Tell me about it."
Jimmy paused, then took it as an invitation. "I'm not...I'm not doing so good."
Dean said nothing.
"I... I have these dreams. Crazy, fucked up... I can't seem to settle, yet I'm afraid to go outside the house. Can hardly even imagine getting a job, but I need to, want to. Hate Amelia having to bring in the money, the hours she has to work..."
Jimmy leaned forward, rested his elbows on his knees. "My girls don't know how to talk to me anymore. I don't know how to talk to them. They try. I try. Nothing works. We're strangers living in the same house. I can't explain it to them, and they can't understand. Oh, some of it-Claire was possessed by Castiel, too. They both saw demons, know a little about what kind of war it was. But they got out. They got away and I didn't."
"Yeah," Dean said softly. He drank his beer.
"And I'm still not really away." Jimmy laughed, thick and bitter. "Not really free. Furlough, Dean. I'm on furlough. Castiel can come and take me anytime he wants to. Already did a few weeks ago. You saw him. Me. I thought it was a dream until I woke up and two weeks were gone and my wife was sobbing in my arms and my daughter couldn't stand to take her eyes off me for fear I would vanish right then and there."
He could hear Dean swallow, thick and choked.
"Do you ever think about me, Winchester? When you're with that bastard angel, looking into his eyes, do you ever remember that those eyes don't belong to him? That he just took them, the way aristocracy in the bad old days would just take whatever they wanted from the peasants? Do you ever remember the poor dumb fuck who said 'yes' when he should have said 'no, no, no, a thousand times no'?"
"Yeah," Dean whispered. "Yeah, I remember you."
Jimmy clenched a fist with his free hand, jammed it into his thigh, welcomed the slight pain of it, the pressure. "I used to believe in God. A good, loving God who watched over His creation and loved us all like His own children. I used to believe that it all meant something, that no matter how bad things got here on Earth, up ahead was something good and pure and free of pain. And now... Well, I still believe God exists, I guess. But that's all I've got."
Silence. Then, "I wish I could give you more, man."
Jimmy took a deep breath. Another. He drank his lemonade. "So what do I do now, Dean? You seem to have a handle on things here, though I know perfectly well that you're even more fucked up inside than I am. What am I supposed to do?"
Jimmy waited. He expected an, "I don't know," or maybe, "Your guess is as good as mine." He knew that coming here had been a fool's errand, but it was the only thing he could think to do. He wanted something to work for, something to believe. But he wasn't expecting it.
He jumped slightly when Dean's hand landed heavily on his shoulder, squeezed.
"What do you do?" Dean's voice was rough, harsh. "You live. You take the time you got and you do what you can with it. You give your wife and your kid everything you got, and then you give some more. God's not going to fix things, and the Devil's not going away any time soon, and you gotta stand between your family and the storm and live. Doesn't matter if you have a year or a century or five fucking days. You pick up your broken pieces because people need you, and you live as well or as bad as you have to, but you live."
Jimmy sat there, still as stone. Dean's hand was heavy on his shoulder, all but crushing. He didn't know if he could bear that weight. "I'm not gonna be great at that," he said after a long moment.
"Great, schmate. Ninety percent is just showing up. You'll figure out the rest as you go. That's all any of us do."
The fireflies flickered over the lawn. Dean drank his beer. Jimmy drank his lemonade.
"Yeah. All right."
Jimmy leaned back, and Dean's hand fell off his shoulder. "Thanks."
"Whatever, dude." Dean shrugged, completely unaware of the magnitude of what he'd just done. "Stake your claim. Stand your ground. I am Spartacus. All that inspiring shit. Just do what you can to come out the other side of this, okay? I think you're an okay guy and I want Amelia and Claire to have you for as long as possible."
"I want that too."
It was reason enough.
5. I'm Alive But I'm Alone
It turned out to be more than five fucking days, but quite a bit less than a century. Jimmy did everything he could with his furlough. It wasn't always great, but he lived.
In the next May, Castiel told him that he'd be coming soon. It was time to say good-bye. Jimmy had it in him to be grateful for the warning, grateful that Castiel had listened to that one plea.
He got a haircut, had his trench coat dry-cleaned. Finished the book he was reading to Claire. Filled the freezer with his favorite casserole recipes. Made love to his wife.
He kissed them good-bye, felt their tears mingle.
When Castiel came, he was ready. He stood there, looking into Amelia's eyes as the light began to engulf him, until she had to wince and turn away. He had time enough to give Claire one last smile. And then he was gone.
So hold me when I'm here
Right me when I'm wrong
Hold me when I'm scared
And love me when I'm gone
Everything I am
And everything in me
Wants to be the one
You wanted me to be
I'll never let you down
Even if I could
I'd give up everything
If only for your good
So hold me when I'm here
Right me when I'm wrong
You can hold me when I'm scared
You won't always be there
So love me when I'm gone
End