Fic: The Shattered One (3/?)
See the masterpost for disclaimer, summary, and previous parts.
A/N: Okay, all you peeps who are regular readers of mine… you will be glad (horrified?) to know that this fic is now officially the longest SPN fic I have ever written. Longer than Wild By Skye. Longer than Saving Grace. Longer than The Leap That Makes the Fall. And I’m still not done writing it. How this turned into such an EPIC is beyond me!
***********************
It was alarming how much of Castiel’s strength the shattered one took into itself. At first it had been a nominal drain on his grace. He could tell it was there, a parasitic splinter inside him, but it didn’t cripple him in any capacity. He could still do all the things he once did (even if they took a little more effort on his part). He accepted its presence - and even its eventual role in his death - but he didn’t have to contend with it in any meaningful sense. The Winchesters had taught him avoidance and denial enough that he mimicked them well.
But the longer the nascent angel coexisted with Castiel, the more it stole from him. It placed limits on how far and fast he could fly, and it schooled him in exhaustion when he pushed those limits. Proximity to demons - an event that used to fill him with righteous heavenly wrath - now evoked revulsion that swam through his essence like a black slime, making Castiel acutely uncomfortable and long to escape himself. His vessel now demanded food at regular intervals. He’d never had to tend to the human needs of his vessel before. They were beneath him, unworthy of his indulgence as a superior being.
If his brothers and sisters could see him, sitting in diners eating charred animals and processed vegetation… the shame was almost a physical thing, pushing him down toward the earth, pinning him there with its weight.
Or maybe that was just the shattered one’s doing.
The Winchesters assumed his failing angelic powers were symptoms of falling. Castiel never corrected them. He had decided not to tell the brothers the truth about what was happening to him. They wouldn’t be able to understand it in angelic terms anyway, and to try and fit this distinctly angel experience into a human frame of reference would make a freak of him. It wasn’t… it was an all-too-angel phenomenon, a perfectly natural event. The Winchesters wouldn’t see that… they’d see the wrong of a male (he wasn’t one) with child (it wasn’t a child). He envisioned all the work he’d put into earning that look of camaraderie from Dean Winchester vanishing behind the veil of ‘alien’ he’d somehow shed along the way.
Castiel would prefer to live his last days without ridicule from the only two souls left in existence that would actually mourn him when he died.
***********************
Dean was kind of surprised how quickly it became second-nature for him to look after Castiel. He made a point to check in with him every night, and once every couple of days he had Castiel join them for a meal.
Granted, it wasn’t much - it was nothing like how he’d taken care of Sam his whole life - but considering the recipient this time was an angel, just reminding him to eat was pretty significant. He had a feeling Cas didn’t eat unless Dean was making him do it. It wasn’t like Castiel had money, and he wasn’t the type to dabble in petty larceny to satisfy the munchies.
As Dean was pulling out his cell phone to text Castiel to join them for dinner one day, Sam snickered. “You can’t be a big brother to someone thousands of years older than you,” he teased. They were making their way across a parking lot toward a restaurant.
“Bite me, bitch,” Dean countered as he typed. “Not like his actual big brothers are going to look after him.”
Sam went quiet, because that wasn’t funny for being so miserably true.
Dean had barely closed up his phone when Castiel appeared beside him. Dean was in mid-stride, and Castiel tried to fall in step next to him and land at the same time. Apparently for a falling angel, that was the epitome of walking and chewing gum at the same time. He staggered into Dean. Dean stumbled under the sudden weight, and for a second Castiel was throwing out his arms looking for purchase, and Dean was grabbing on to him to make sure he didn’t take a header. From the look in Castiel’s eyes, Dean wasn’t sure which of them was more surprised by his graceless fumble.
“Whoa, hey,” Dean pushed Castiel back on his feet and eyed him. “Easy there, tiger.”
Sam had stopped, turned to watch them both with that furrow of wounded puppy on his brow.
“Dean, I… I apologize.” Either he didn’t realize he was still holding on to Dean, or he wasn’t sure he could stand on his own without swaying.
Now that Dean had more than a second to look, he didn’t like what he saw. Castiel was panting slightly and his face was ashen. Castiel hadn’t been looking so great lately, but right now he looked like certifiable shit.
“What’s going on, Cas?” he asked lowly, squeezing the upper arms still in his grasp to emphasis his question.
“I… I was in Israel.”
Dean’s eyebrows rose.
“I think…” Castiel took a steadying breath, “perhaps the distance between there and here was too ambitious to undertake all at once.”
Dean shot a look toward Sam, worried and not afraid to show it. Castiel used to flit around the world twice in a millisecond without batting an eye. Now he looked like refried shit for one jaunt between Israel and America.
“You got roaming issues now?”
Castiel looked at Dean, puzzled.
Dean shook his head and let Castiel’s shoulders go. “Just… if international’s gotten hard for you…” when Castiel glowered at him, Dean amended quickly, “just… keep to the continental US from now on, okay?”
“Why?”
Dean rolled his eyes. “Geez… so at least if you get stuck down here, you’ll be somewhere that we can get in the car and come get you.”
Castiel’s indignation vanished and he stared at Dean a second, openly amazed that Dean would limit the angel’s flying only in order to be certain they could be reunited if his wings failed him. Dean scowled at what that suggested… that none of his brothers or sisters ever gave two shits enough about Cas, one solitary angel, to make him a priority. Like this was the first time he mattered to anyone. As if all he’d ever been was a toy soldier in God’s big game of Risk.
“You hungry?” Dean asked, because it was that or maybe say something touchy-feely because fuck if everyone, even angels, should hear that they were worth the worry.
Castiel let go of Dean and stood back, considering the state of his vessel. He slowly nodded. “Yes, I’m hungry.”
At least he was getting to know the signs now.
“Come on, then… dinner’s on us.”
Sam snorted. “It’s always on us.”
Dean flicked Sam on the back of the head from a pace behind him, Castiel at his side. “Yeah, and when you start smiting shit left and right like a boss, you’ll eat free, too.” That was what he wanted Castiel to hear, anyway. The last thing he needed was a guilt-trip about mooching off the hunters; Dean wouldn’t put it past Castiel to just stop eating all together as a solution.
When they were seated and the waitress handed them their menus, Castiel set to studying the choices with razor-sharp attention. He was familiar enough with several foods to have some preferences now, and Dean had been paying attention. Cas was a carbs and starch fiend, like some athlete carbo-loading before a big game. Breads, pasta, potatoes… high energy foods with a lot of bang for the buck. Dean was happy to see several options that fit the bill on the menu.
The waitress was back with their drinks a few minutes later and asked, “So, what can I get you boys?”
“Chicken salad with soup for me,” Sam answered.
“Wussy!” Dean coughed into his hand, earning him a kick in the shin. Dean cleared his throat. “I’ll have the bacon cheeseburger with fries.”
“All right, and you, sugar?”
Dean shook his head… why did Castiel always get pegged for ‘sugar’ by waitstaff now that he interacted with them regularly? ‘Awkward’ maybe, ‘sugar’ hardly. They ought to see him wield that angel sword of his… they wouldn’t be nicknaming him ‘sugar’ after that.
Castiel hesitated. “I will have the pasta bread bowl.” When he stopped talking, it was noticeably abrupt. Dean knew what that meant. Cas was actually hungier than just one order would handle, but he felt uncomfortable asking for more than a typical human would take (it took Dean losing two orders of fries to Castiel’s wandering hands to work out that pattern).
As Castiel was passing over his menu, Dean chimed in, “Make that two cheeseburgers with fries.” He flashed her a smile. “We’re a hungry bunch.”
“Sure thing,” she scribbled the order down and left.
“So,” Sam began once she was out of ear-shot, “you take care of that hellhound pack we told you about yesterday?”
Castiel nodded. “They have been eradicated.”
“Good,” Dean shivered. “Man, I hate those things.”
“It was an unusual sight to see so many at once,” Castiel noted. “Packs tend to be no larger than three or four animals. They are too savage and prone to turning on each other in any greater concentration.”
Sam slurped some coke through his straw. “So, how many were there? I mean, we figured a lot, given all the attacks in town, but hard to do a head-count on invisible animals.”
“Thirty.”
Dean jerked. “Fuck… man, I’m glad we didn’t stick around for that one.”
Castiel considered Dean with far too gentle an eye, then asked, “Do you two have the next task for me?”
“Nothing so far,” Sam answered. “We’ve run into a dry spell on the Lucifer’s greatest hits front.”
“Which, all things considered, isn’t a bad thing,” Dean said.
Castiel frowned. “Lucifer is still out there. We must find a way to destroy him swiftly.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Dean drawled, “I don’t see why we couldn’t make it last, make him suffer a little.” Dean’s hands twitched, suddenly eager for the feel of a scalpel between his fingers, and he dropped his hands under the table before Sam could see the Hell-conditioned response.
Sam missed the instinctive reach for the tools of torture, but Castiel didn’t. He looked quickly over at Dean, doing that ‘look into your soul and rearrange the furniture while I’m there’ stare, then he said carefully, “I would prefer that his death be quick.”
“Really?” Dean snapped back. “After everything he’s done, you’d be that kind to him?”
“He is still my brother,” Castiel said softly, averting his eyes.
Dean went stock-still. Castiel and the Devil were so different, it was easy to forget that they were family.
Sam interjected diplomatically, “I think we could all settle for just finding a way to kill him, period. So, any luck on the God front?”
Dean scoffed and took a drink from his glass. Sam was the only one who ever genuinely asked about Castiel’s search for God… because he was the only one between them who seriously thought it had a snowball’s chance in Hell of panning out. Dean thought it was a cosmic waste of time. Castiel seemed to appreciate Sam’s honest interest.
“No… I have been meticulous in my efforts to locate Him… but I’ve failed so far.”
Conversation stopped when the waitress came back with their food. Dean placed the extra burger and fries on the table in front of Cas’s pasta bowl. The angel regarded the additional food hungrily while he set to devouring the pasta dish in front of him. And Dean used to think Sam was a bottomless pit when he was a teenager… Castiel put the kid to shame.
“Since we’re kind of at a loss, Dean and I were going to head up to Bobby’s,” Sam reported.
“Want to tag along?” Dean asked on impulse.
Castiel hesitated. “I don’t know that Bobby Singer would appreciate my presence. I am not his favorite person at the moment.”
“He’s pissed about being in a wheelchair, but that isn’t your fault,” Dean said firmly. “You can’t do what you can’t do.”
Sam gave him a ‘that made no sense’ look… one soon mirrored by Castiel.
“He’ll get over it.”
“Paraplegia?” Castiel asked with a tilt of his head.
“No, doofus. Putting it all on you. He just needs to see that you’re still a huge asset in this war… and that he’s just as useful as he was before the wheels.”
Castiel looked reluctantly touched.
Sam smiled. “Aw, Dean, that was so… heartwarming.”
“Oh, screw you,” Dean threw a fry at him. Sam threw it back, and Dean’s hands came up in a defensive shield. The fry bounced off Dean’s arm and landed with a plop in Castiel’s pasta.
“Oh, shit… sorry, Cas,” Sam said.
Castiel considered the foreign fry in his noodles a moment, reached in and picked it up carefully between thumb and forefinger… then he flicked it back across the table at Sam. It hit him square on the forehead, leaving a smear of sauce between his eyebrows.
For a second, Sam just blinked in shock.
Dean burst out laughing. That got Sam cracking up, too… though not nearly as much as Dean was busting a gut.
“That was awesome, Cas!” Dean threw an arm over the angel’s shoulders, “Holy shit, did you see the look on his face?”
Sam wiped off the sauce with a napkin. “I think this is incontrovertible proof that you’ve totally corrupted an angel of the lord.”
“That’s right, Sammy… I’m that good,” Dean let go of Castiel’s shoulders and gave him a playful nudge. “Stick around, we’ll make a Winchester of you yet, Cas.”
Castiel’s lips curled in a faint smile. He needed to work on it, though, because it looked kind of bittersweet.
Next
A/N: Okay, all you peeps who are regular readers of mine… you will be glad (horrified?) to know that this fic is now officially the longest SPN fic I have ever written. Longer than Wild By Skye. Longer than Saving Grace. Longer than The Leap That Makes the Fall. And I’m still not done writing it. How this turned into such an EPIC is beyond me!
***********************
It was alarming how much of Castiel’s strength the shattered one took into itself. At first it had been a nominal drain on his grace. He could tell it was there, a parasitic splinter inside him, but it didn’t cripple him in any capacity. He could still do all the things he once did (even if they took a little more effort on his part). He accepted its presence - and even its eventual role in his death - but he didn’t have to contend with it in any meaningful sense. The Winchesters had taught him avoidance and denial enough that he mimicked them well.
But the longer the nascent angel coexisted with Castiel, the more it stole from him. It placed limits on how far and fast he could fly, and it schooled him in exhaustion when he pushed those limits. Proximity to demons - an event that used to fill him with righteous heavenly wrath - now evoked revulsion that swam through his essence like a black slime, making Castiel acutely uncomfortable and long to escape himself. His vessel now demanded food at regular intervals. He’d never had to tend to the human needs of his vessel before. They were beneath him, unworthy of his indulgence as a superior being.
If his brothers and sisters could see him, sitting in diners eating charred animals and processed vegetation… the shame was almost a physical thing, pushing him down toward the earth, pinning him there with its weight.
Or maybe that was just the shattered one’s doing.
The Winchesters assumed his failing angelic powers were symptoms of falling. Castiel never corrected them. He had decided not to tell the brothers the truth about what was happening to him. They wouldn’t be able to understand it in angelic terms anyway, and to try and fit this distinctly angel experience into a human frame of reference would make a freak of him. It wasn’t… it was an all-too-angel phenomenon, a perfectly natural event. The Winchesters wouldn’t see that… they’d see the wrong of a male (he wasn’t one) with child (it wasn’t a child). He envisioned all the work he’d put into earning that look of camaraderie from Dean Winchester vanishing behind the veil of ‘alien’ he’d somehow shed along the way.
Castiel would prefer to live his last days without ridicule from the only two souls left in existence that would actually mourn him when he died.
***********************
Dean was kind of surprised how quickly it became second-nature for him to look after Castiel. He made a point to check in with him every night, and once every couple of days he had Castiel join them for a meal.
Granted, it wasn’t much - it was nothing like how he’d taken care of Sam his whole life - but considering the recipient this time was an angel, just reminding him to eat was pretty significant. He had a feeling Cas didn’t eat unless Dean was making him do it. It wasn’t like Castiel had money, and he wasn’t the type to dabble in petty larceny to satisfy the munchies.
As Dean was pulling out his cell phone to text Castiel to join them for dinner one day, Sam snickered. “You can’t be a big brother to someone thousands of years older than you,” he teased. They were making their way across a parking lot toward a restaurant.
“Bite me, bitch,” Dean countered as he typed. “Not like his actual big brothers are going to look after him.”
Sam went quiet, because that wasn’t funny for being so miserably true.
Dean had barely closed up his phone when Castiel appeared beside him. Dean was in mid-stride, and Castiel tried to fall in step next to him and land at the same time. Apparently for a falling angel, that was the epitome of walking and chewing gum at the same time. He staggered into Dean. Dean stumbled under the sudden weight, and for a second Castiel was throwing out his arms looking for purchase, and Dean was grabbing on to him to make sure he didn’t take a header. From the look in Castiel’s eyes, Dean wasn’t sure which of them was more surprised by his graceless fumble.
“Whoa, hey,” Dean pushed Castiel back on his feet and eyed him. “Easy there, tiger.”
Sam had stopped, turned to watch them both with that furrow of wounded puppy on his brow.
“Dean, I… I apologize.” Either he didn’t realize he was still holding on to Dean, or he wasn’t sure he could stand on his own without swaying.
Now that Dean had more than a second to look, he didn’t like what he saw. Castiel was panting slightly and his face was ashen. Castiel hadn’t been looking so great lately, but right now he looked like certifiable shit.
“What’s going on, Cas?” he asked lowly, squeezing the upper arms still in his grasp to emphasis his question.
“I… I was in Israel.”
Dean’s eyebrows rose.
“I think…” Castiel took a steadying breath, “perhaps the distance between there and here was too ambitious to undertake all at once.”
Dean shot a look toward Sam, worried and not afraid to show it. Castiel used to flit around the world twice in a millisecond without batting an eye. Now he looked like refried shit for one jaunt between Israel and America.
“You got roaming issues now?”
Castiel looked at Dean, puzzled.
Dean shook his head and let Castiel’s shoulders go. “Just… if international’s gotten hard for you…” when Castiel glowered at him, Dean amended quickly, “just… keep to the continental US from now on, okay?”
“Why?”
Dean rolled his eyes. “Geez… so at least if you get stuck down here, you’ll be somewhere that we can get in the car and come get you.”
Castiel’s indignation vanished and he stared at Dean a second, openly amazed that Dean would limit the angel’s flying only in order to be certain they could be reunited if his wings failed him. Dean scowled at what that suggested… that none of his brothers or sisters ever gave two shits enough about Cas, one solitary angel, to make him a priority. Like this was the first time he mattered to anyone. As if all he’d ever been was a toy soldier in God’s big game of Risk.
“You hungry?” Dean asked, because it was that or maybe say something touchy-feely because fuck if everyone, even angels, should hear that they were worth the worry.
Castiel let go of Dean and stood back, considering the state of his vessel. He slowly nodded. “Yes, I’m hungry.”
At least he was getting to know the signs now.
“Come on, then… dinner’s on us.”
Sam snorted. “It’s always on us.”
Dean flicked Sam on the back of the head from a pace behind him, Castiel at his side. “Yeah, and when you start smiting shit left and right like a boss, you’ll eat free, too.” That was what he wanted Castiel to hear, anyway. The last thing he needed was a guilt-trip about mooching off the hunters; Dean wouldn’t put it past Castiel to just stop eating all together as a solution.
When they were seated and the waitress handed them their menus, Castiel set to studying the choices with razor-sharp attention. He was familiar enough with several foods to have some preferences now, and Dean had been paying attention. Cas was a carbs and starch fiend, like some athlete carbo-loading before a big game. Breads, pasta, potatoes… high energy foods with a lot of bang for the buck. Dean was happy to see several options that fit the bill on the menu.
The waitress was back with their drinks a few minutes later and asked, “So, what can I get you boys?”
“Chicken salad with soup for me,” Sam answered.
“Wussy!” Dean coughed into his hand, earning him a kick in the shin. Dean cleared his throat. “I’ll have the bacon cheeseburger with fries.”
“All right, and you, sugar?”
Dean shook his head… why did Castiel always get pegged for ‘sugar’ by waitstaff now that he interacted with them regularly? ‘Awkward’ maybe, ‘sugar’ hardly. They ought to see him wield that angel sword of his… they wouldn’t be nicknaming him ‘sugar’ after that.
Castiel hesitated. “I will have the pasta bread bowl.” When he stopped talking, it was noticeably abrupt. Dean knew what that meant. Cas was actually hungier than just one order would handle, but he felt uncomfortable asking for more than a typical human would take (it took Dean losing two orders of fries to Castiel’s wandering hands to work out that pattern).
As Castiel was passing over his menu, Dean chimed in, “Make that two cheeseburgers with fries.” He flashed her a smile. “We’re a hungry bunch.”
“Sure thing,” she scribbled the order down and left.
“So,” Sam began once she was out of ear-shot, “you take care of that hellhound pack we told you about yesterday?”
Castiel nodded. “They have been eradicated.”
“Good,” Dean shivered. “Man, I hate those things.”
“It was an unusual sight to see so many at once,” Castiel noted. “Packs tend to be no larger than three or four animals. They are too savage and prone to turning on each other in any greater concentration.”
Sam slurped some coke through his straw. “So, how many were there? I mean, we figured a lot, given all the attacks in town, but hard to do a head-count on invisible animals.”
“Thirty.”
Dean jerked. “Fuck… man, I’m glad we didn’t stick around for that one.”
Castiel considered Dean with far too gentle an eye, then asked, “Do you two have the next task for me?”
“Nothing so far,” Sam answered. “We’ve run into a dry spell on the Lucifer’s greatest hits front.”
“Which, all things considered, isn’t a bad thing,” Dean said.
Castiel frowned. “Lucifer is still out there. We must find a way to destroy him swiftly.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Dean drawled, “I don’t see why we couldn’t make it last, make him suffer a little.” Dean’s hands twitched, suddenly eager for the feel of a scalpel between his fingers, and he dropped his hands under the table before Sam could see the Hell-conditioned response.
Sam missed the instinctive reach for the tools of torture, but Castiel didn’t. He looked quickly over at Dean, doing that ‘look into your soul and rearrange the furniture while I’m there’ stare, then he said carefully, “I would prefer that his death be quick.”
“Really?” Dean snapped back. “After everything he’s done, you’d be that kind to him?”
“He is still my brother,” Castiel said softly, averting his eyes.
Dean went stock-still. Castiel and the Devil were so different, it was easy to forget that they were family.
Sam interjected diplomatically, “I think we could all settle for just finding a way to kill him, period. So, any luck on the God front?”
Dean scoffed and took a drink from his glass. Sam was the only one who ever genuinely asked about Castiel’s search for God… because he was the only one between them who seriously thought it had a snowball’s chance in Hell of panning out. Dean thought it was a cosmic waste of time. Castiel seemed to appreciate Sam’s honest interest.
“No… I have been meticulous in my efforts to locate Him… but I’ve failed so far.”
Conversation stopped when the waitress came back with their food. Dean placed the extra burger and fries on the table in front of Cas’s pasta bowl. The angel regarded the additional food hungrily while he set to devouring the pasta dish in front of him. And Dean used to think Sam was a bottomless pit when he was a teenager… Castiel put the kid to shame.
“Since we’re kind of at a loss, Dean and I were going to head up to Bobby’s,” Sam reported.
“Want to tag along?” Dean asked on impulse.
Castiel hesitated. “I don’t know that Bobby Singer would appreciate my presence. I am not his favorite person at the moment.”
“He’s pissed about being in a wheelchair, but that isn’t your fault,” Dean said firmly. “You can’t do what you can’t do.”
Sam gave him a ‘that made no sense’ look… one soon mirrored by Castiel.
“He’ll get over it.”
“Paraplegia?” Castiel asked with a tilt of his head.
“No, doofus. Putting it all on you. He just needs to see that you’re still a huge asset in this war… and that he’s just as useful as he was before the wheels.”
Castiel looked reluctantly touched.
Sam smiled. “Aw, Dean, that was so… heartwarming.”
“Oh, screw you,” Dean threw a fry at him. Sam threw it back, and Dean’s hands came up in a defensive shield. The fry bounced off Dean’s arm and landed with a plop in Castiel’s pasta.
“Oh, shit… sorry, Cas,” Sam said.
Castiel considered the foreign fry in his noodles a moment, reached in and picked it up carefully between thumb and forefinger… then he flicked it back across the table at Sam. It hit him square on the forehead, leaving a smear of sauce between his eyebrows.
For a second, Sam just blinked in shock.
Dean burst out laughing. That got Sam cracking up, too… though not nearly as much as Dean was busting a gut.
“That was awesome, Cas!” Dean threw an arm over the angel’s shoulders, “Holy shit, did you see the look on his face?”
Sam wiped off the sauce with a napkin. “I think this is incontrovertible proof that you’ve totally corrupted an angel of the lord.”
“That’s right, Sammy… I’m that good,” Dean let go of Castiel’s shoulders and gave him a playful nudge. “Stick around, we’ll make a Winchester of you yet, Cas.”
Castiel’s lips curled in a faint smile. He needed to work on it, though, because it looked kind of bittersweet.
Next