Fic: The Shattered One (7/?)
See the masterpost for disclaimer, summary, and previous parts.
“Stupid fucking grasshoppers,” Dean groused as he peeled off his jacket, riddled with holes from locusts on steroids trying to chew through to his skin. He held it up to the window, and it looked like a Lite Brite board, what with all the light pouring through the holes. “God damn fucking grasshoppers.”
“Could have been worse,” his brother offered. Sam was peeling out of his own hole-ridden clothes on the other side of the motel room. His jeans were hanging off him by threads, and Dean might have laughed if there weren’t a shitload of little blood spots on Sam’s legs from where the bugs had gotten through and had a go at a Samburger.
“Worse? Ever since that banshee tore up Dad’s old leather jacket - which I’m still not over, by the way - this one was my favorite. Now look at it. It’s indecent now. You could see my nipples through this thing.”
“Yeah, like decency has ever been a priority to you, not to mention wearing a jacket with no shirt on underneath is so 80’s,” Sam quipped as he started to try pulling down his jeans and realized it was easier just to start tearing the few stubborn patches of denim away with his hands.
Dean tossed the jacket in a corner in disgust. He frowned again at Sam’s bloodied legs and went to dig out the first aid kit from his duffle. When Sam saw him coming his way with the hydrogen peroxide, Sam just sighed in defeat and sat down on the bed.
While Dean blotted at Sam’s insect bites with the disinfectant, Sam used the age-old trick of distracting himself from the burning by talking about something else. “Hey, uh… I’ve been meaning to talk to you about Cas.”
“Yeah?” Dean touched a soaked cotton pad to a sizeable bite, making Sam flinch. “What about him?”
“Well… you know how we’ve just been operating under the assumption that the reason he’s been losing all his power is because he’s falling? Ssss!”
Dean blew on the bubbling bite to ease the sting. “Sounds like you’re going to say he isn’t.”
“I was talking to Bobby about it. He doesn’t think that’s really ‘angel falling’ M.O.”
“Because Bobby’s the world’s leading authority on angels,” Dean said gently, switching to Sam’s other leg. “No offense, but I’m going to believe Cas on this one over Bobby.”
“Yeah, but has Castiel ever actually said that he’s falling?”
Dean stopped and looked up at his brother then. “Sure he has.”
“No, he said he was cut off from Heaven. But you heard what he was saying about fallen angels the other day, that a lot of the time they keep their powers, just get booted out of Heaven. So shouldn’t he still be able to leap tall buildings in a single bound just as well as he used to, even if he was fallen?”
Dean scowled and resumed tending to Sam’s injuries. “So if he’s not running out of juice because he’s falling, then what’s wrong with him?”
“I don’t know… I’ve been reading up on it in my spare time…”
“Is that the old book you’ve had your nose buried in for days?”
Sam nodded. “But there’s not exactly an Audubon Guidebook to Fallen Angels. The literature I’ve managed to find on the topic is sketchy at best. Think maybe we should ask Castiel? And by ‘we’, I mean you.”
“Why me?”
Sam made a ‘duh’ face. “Because he likes you better.”
Dean pursed his lips. “Don’t you think he’d tell us if something was going on with him?”
“Something is going on with him, and he hasn’t told us.” Sam jerked when one of the bites Dean touched was uncomfortably high on his thigh. “Look, I don’t want to get all up in his personal business. I mean, after all he’s done for us, he’s earned the right to a little privacy, but… but if he’s compromised, then that’s something we do need to know about.”
Dean put the cap back on the peroxide and sat back on his heels. “I’ll think about it.”
“Okay, good… here,” Sam held out his hands for the bottle and cotton pad.
“What?”
“Dude, your back looks like someone walked over you in soccer cleats.”
“Terrific,” Dean grumbled as he shucked out of the pathetic remnants of his shirt, then laid face down on his bed so Sam could return the favor of making Dean flinch and hiss.
****************
Castiel was coming to the conclusion that he did not like dreaming. Either they were disturbing or he couldn’t keep Lucifer out of them.
Or both.
“Won’t be long now, Castiel,” Lucifer commented as he came up alongside Castiel on the top of a mountain. It was one Castiel had been to once or twice in the waking world, though in the dream he could not remember which it was, for it seemed to be a strange amalgamation of two. On one side was a snowy vista like the winter-clad view of Tibet, the other a barren landscape like the plains of Africa.
Castiel wanted to move away from Lucifer when he joined him on the mountaintop, but a step to the side would be freefall. Castiel had learned that sometimes, in dreams at least, he could fall like the lowliest of any creature.
So he stood firm and let Lucifer stand elbow to elbow with him… he had no choice.
Lucifer spoke of the shattered one, of course. Castiel didn’t want to look, but he seemed to have little control of his actions in dreams. He glanced down at himself. He wasn’t transparent this time. He seemed human, flesh and bone. But if he was human, he was a deformed one. His jacket and coat were pushed aside, and his white shirt unbuttoned and flung open to expose his chest and belly. Protruding from his chest was a mass of flesh, a parasitic twin yet not. It was attached to Castiel’s chest by its head, any semblance of a face lost inside Castiel’s ribcage, but the body hung from him like an engorged leech, legs and arms curled tight like a kitten tucked up while being carried by the neck by its mother. As he stared down at it in mild horror, the thing move. Arms and legs struggled, pushed against Castiel’s stomach and kicked at him in a newfound disdain for their entanglement.
No… not much longer.
“I don’t appreciate your propensity to state the obvious,” Castiel spat at Lucifer.
“You misjudge me, Castiel… I’m just showing concern.”
“Of course you are. You’re so well known for your concern for others.”
Lucifer frowned. “That’s unfair, don’t you think?”
“Hardly.”
Lucifer regarded him a long moment. “Do you know what was the first thing I did when I took Nick as a vessel?”
“I doubt it was anything pleasant.”
“Well, certainly not for Anthony Garland.” When Castiel looked at him blankly, Lucifer continued, “Anthony Garland was the murderer responsible for the death of Nick’s wife and child. That’s why he let me in, you know. He just wanted the pain to stop. And it has.
“But Nick didn’t know how much he wanted revenge until I gave it to him. The first thing I did after I took this vessel was find Anthony and make him pay for the deaths of Nick’s wife and daughter. It had nothing to do with me - that was all for Nick.”
Castiel didn’t know what to say to that.
“Now does that seem heartless to you?”
“I suppose it would depend on the manner of Anthony Garland’s death.”
At that, a sly smile tugged at Lucifer’s lips. “Well… I do take pride in my work.”
Suddenly, a body hung suspended in the gray sky over the mountain. It was a man, but anything else about him was lost to the fact he’d been completely skinned. Alive. He was still twitching and jerking, blood dripping from his dark red muscles. Lidless eyes gaped down at the two of them on the peak, his lips removed to give the figure a permanent, gruesome grin.
Castiel didn’t know if his mind supplied that or if Lucifer had. It didn’t really matter. He couldn’t look at it, and he turned his head aside. The shattered one either sensed the horror or sensed Castiel’s, because it began to fight again. Castiel hated the sensation of it moving independently of him.
“Shhh… shhh…” Lucifer cooed. Castiel had a sinking feeling that Lucifer was reaching out to the shattered one, and he jerked away. He nearly went over the edge of the mountain, but when he didn’t he thought maybe it would have been preferable if he had.
Lucifer paid the escape attempt no mind, just kept talking to the shattered one. “Now, now… don’t be afraid, little one. I would never hurt you… that’s for my enemies. And yours.”
Castiel’s arm shot out, shoving Lucifer’s away. “Stop it… don’t talk to it like that.”
“Come on, Castiel… don’t be like that. It’ll just make things awkward once we welcome that little guy into the world.”
“That will never happen.”
“I think it will,” Lucifer smiled slowly. “I don’t think you really understand how much pain you’ll be in when it tries to separate. But that’s all right. I won’t hold it against you when you don’t call for me until you’re writhing in agony. Actually, all things considered, it’ll be fitting. Until then…” Lucifer gave no warning, just shoved Castiel hard.
Castiel went tumbling over the edge and falling into nothingness.
He was still fighting falling when his eyes flew open and he found himself staring up into Dean Winchester’s face. They were not on a mountain, they were in a motel, and Castiel was not falling… he was firmly grounded on a bed.
That proved small comfort as the terror of the dream clung to him. He tried to scramble up out of bed.
“Whoa! Hey, hey, hey,” Dean, sitting next to him, reached out to him and tried to quiet him with a hand on his chest. So like the way Lucifer had reached to touch him. Without thinking, Castiel swatted the hand away.
Dean held his hand out to the side, still hovering close, and Castiel recognized the ‘placate an agitated animal’ posture. That more than anything finally calmed him down. He was an angel, not a frightful beast of the earth.
When he seemed less apt to fight, Dean edged closer. “Hey… it’s okay, it was just a nightmare.”
No, it wasn’t.
“Pretty bad one, huh?” Dean was speaking softly, and Castiel glanced to the side and realized why. The second bed was full of Sam, sleeping soundly, dead to the world. Castiel resented him for making it look so easy and peaceful. The light in the room came from the nightstand lamp, and a digital clock burned into the darkness the glaring green numbers ‘3:12’.
“Don’t worry,” Dean said lowly, “Sam’s asleep. All those bug bites were making it hard for him to fall asleep, so he took a couple of pills.”
Castiel blinked up at Dean, confused. “I don’t remember coming here.”
Dean looked troubled by that. “You showed up a little before midnight… scared the shit out of me, as usual. I forgot you’d know where we were without having to call. You looked pretty wiped out. You said something about kicking it in Nepal, then looked like you were about to fall asleep on your feet. I put you to bed and you were asleep pretty much the second your head hit the pillow.” Dean glowered. “What did I tell you about flitting off to the far ends of the earth?”
“You told me not to,” Castiel returned evenly. He left it at that.
“That’s all you have to say for yourself? That you weren’t supposed to, but you did anyway?”
“You don’t command me, Dean. My search for God is far too important, and it will take me to distant places beyond the reach of your car.”
“Damnit, Cas, you know what that takes out of you.”
“God is not likely to be found in Kansas.”
Dean rubbed his face with a hand. “Fine, do whatever you want. See if I care if you get yourself stuck on Mount Everest.”
The dream of the mountaintop came back to Castiel, sharp and distressing, and his ire left him. He imagined being trapped there, no hope of getting back to Dean, and the human’s distraught reaction made more sense suddenly. Just like that, he had a frame of reference for that brand of hopelessness, for being so desperately landlocked, earthbound. “I have no desire to cause you to worry,” he said gently. “I’m only trying to save you.”
Dean sagged. “Yeah, I know… but maybe I’m not willing to sacrifice you along the way.”
That he cared that much made Castiel feel much less alone. If only Dean knew that Castiel probably would not live to see the end of this war, either way. “I apologize for worrying you.”
Dean snorted. “Right. Look, it’s not a command, but I would appreciate it if you didn’t wear yourself out to the point that you show up on our doorstep looking like someone out of Night of the Living Dead.”
“I don’t understand that reference.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet you don’t.” Dean considered Castiel a moment, eyes growing suspicious. Castiel could not fathom why. Then, before Castiel could really process his intent, Dean leaned forward and rested a hand on Castiel’s forehead. It was shockingly cool and dry against the moisture on Castiel’s brow.
Dean didn’t look happy. “You’re burning up, Cas. Since when do you get fevers?”
“I don’t know,” Castiel answered, his chest achingly tight. He didn’t even know that he had one, but Dean seemed convinced. He was drawing away the covers draped over the angel. Castiel looked down at himself, a scared part of him expecting to see that horrible creature merged with him.
Instead, he saw…
“You removed my clothes.”
“Quit fretting about your precious virtue. It’s not like you’re naked,” Dean said defensively, though Castiel felt he very nearly was. Jimmy Novak’s boxers seemed little enough to qualify as clothing. “Call me a silly human, but going to bed in a full suit and tie seemed a little too formal. For the record, you didn’t seem to care when I was doing it.” Dean left Castiel’s mostly-naked body exposed as he went to the bathroom. He came back with a wet washcloth, which he laid on Castiel’s bare chest. The chill of it made him gasp and look up at Dean.
“Only feels cold ‘cause you’re so hot,” Dean promised. He sat down next to Castiel again, quietly moving the cloth from the angel’s chest to his forehead, turning it over now and then to expose a freshly cold patch of material. After the shock of the temperature difference abated, the cool cloth was pleasant.
A few minutes in silence let Castiel leave his nightmare behind and really study Dean. The human looked exhausted and preoccupied by something.
“Dean…?”
Dean sighed. “I wanna ask you something, Cas.”
“Very well.”
“Are you falling?”
Castiel went still. He watched Dean closely. There was something tumultuous in his mind concerning the question, and Castiel felt uneasy about it. “I am fallen.”
Dean nodded absently. “So that’s why you’re all…” he waved a hand over Castiel’s prone body. When Castiel merely lifted an eyebrow, Dean continued, “you know, losing your mojo?”
That was not from being fallen… that was because of the shattered one. But he didn’t want to tell Dean about his affliction. The angels could see it the second they looked at him, they saw the death sentence bleeding his grace, and they pitied him and shied away, repulsed. The Winchesters had not turned away in disgust because they could not see, and Castiel wouldn’t tell them and be the one to put that look in their eyes. They were all he had left.
Besides, he knew the Winchesters. If they knew the truth, they would try to save him. They’d turn their efforts from stopping the Apocalypse to trying to save the life of a doomed fallen angel. Castiel would not let that happen… not when there was nothing the humans could do, anyway. Best their focus remain on thwarting Lucifer’s plans.
“It’s complicated,” Castiel answered flatly.
Dean frowned. “Then use small words.”
Castiel did… several small words that said it all. Only it was all in Enochian.
Dean stared at him dumbly a minute, then he scowled. “Whatever.” He was angry. Castiel hated to anger him, but it was (as humans liked to say) the lesser of two evils.
Castiel expected Dean to storm away after that, but he remained seated next to the angel. He took the cloth off his chest and reached up to curl a hand around the back of Castiel’s neck. As Gabriel had done, but there was no steel and veiled threat to Dean’s touch. It was just a gentle, warm curl of flesh against the column of his neck. Castiel wondered at the ways Dean had touched him tonight, so much like the ways Castiel’s own brothers had, but at the same time vastly different.
“That’s better,” Dean said softly. He must be speaking of Castiel’s body temperature. “You feel like going back to sleep?”
Castiel certainly didn’t want to, but he’d come to know that feeling of his consciousness sinking into quicksand that meant he would not be able to fight it. Dean was right… his last flight across the world had been dangerously taxing.
“I’m tired,” Castiel confessed. It was a cruel joke that Castiel could say that and mean it.
Dean just nodded. “I’m going to hit the sack, but you wake me if you start to feel sick, okay?”
Castiel wasn’t sure he’d know what that felt like, but he nodded. “Okay.” He marveled a moment at what this night had made him privy to… Dean was an exemplary caretaker. Surely it was something Sam could have told him, but it was different to be on the receiving end of it and see it and feel it. It was sadly more genuine, more sincere, than any consideration Castiel had ever felt from his siblings in all his existence. For all their bright heat, angels lacked warmth.
Dean set the cloth on the nightstand, then went to the other side of the bed and slipped under the covers. Castiel turned his head to watch him, wondering at the fact that such a primitive, base creature could show more mercy and grace than angels. Why was he the only angel that saw their greatness? Buried in grime it might be, mired in sin and temptations, but it was there. If more angels took the time to see it, there might not be a need for this war.
“Lights, Cas,” Dean grumbled, and Castiel reached up and turned off the lamp. Darkness swallowed them all. It was too much like the darkness he’d fallen into off the mountaintop. Castiel turned on his side to face Dean, just able to see him in the dark. The shattered one shifted inside him. Castiel frowned and pulled up the covers Dean had thrown off him earlier… the humans couldn’t see the shattered one, but Castiel still felt better taking measures to conceal it.
Next
“Stupid fucking grasshoppers,” Dean groused as he peeled off his jacket, riddled with holes from locusts on steroids trying to chew through to his skin. He held it up to the window, and it looked like a Lite Brite board, what with all the light pouring through the holes. “God damn fucking grasshoppers.”
“Could have been worse,” his brother offered. Sam was peeling out of his own hole-ridden clothes on the other side of the motel room. His jeans were hanging off him by threads, and Dean might have laughed if there weren’t a shitload of little blood spots on Sam’s legs from where the bugs had gotten through and had a go at a Samburger.
“Worse? Ever since that banshee tore up Dad’s old leather jacket - which I’m still not over, by the way - this one was my favorite. Now look at it. It’s indecent now. You could see my nipples through this thing.”
“Yeah, like decency has ever been a priority to you, not to mention wearing a jacket with no shirt on underneath is so 80’s,” Sam quipped as he started to try pulling down his jeans and realized it was easier just to start tearing the few stubborn patches of denim away with his hands.
Dean tossed the jacket in a corner in disgust. He frowned again at Sam’s bloodied legs and went to dig out the first aid kit from his duffle. When Sam saw him coming his way with the hydrogen peroxide, Sam just sighed in defeat and sat down on the bed.
While Dean blotted at Sam’s insect bites with the disinfectant, Sam used the age-old trick of distracting himself from the burning by talking about something else. “Hey, uh… I’ve been meaning to talk to you about Cas.”
“Yeah?” Dean touched a soaked cotton pad to a sizeable bite, making Sam flinch. “What about him?”
“Well… you know how we’ve just been operating under the assumption that the reason he’s been losing all his power is because he’s falling? Ssss!”
Dean blew on the bubbling bite to ease the sting. “Sounds like you’re going to say he isn’t.”
“I was talking to Bobby about it. He doesn’t think that’s really ‘angel falling’ M.O.”
“Because Bobby’s the world’s leading authority on angels,” Dean said gently, switching to Sam’s other leg. “No offense, but I’m going to believe Cas on this one over Bobby.”
“Yeah, but has Castiel ever actually said that he’s falling?”
Dean stopped and looked up at his brother then. “Sure he has.”
“No, he said he was cut off from Heaven. But you heard what he was saying about fallen angels the other day, that a lot of the time they keep their powers, just get booted out of Heaven. So shouldn’t he still be able to leap tall buildings in a single bound just as well as he used to, even if he was fallen?”
Dean scowled and resumed tending to Sam’s injuries. “So if he’s not running out of juice because he’s falling, then what’s wrong with him?”
“I don’t know… I’ve been reading up on it in my spare time…”
“Is that the old book you’ve had your nose buried in for days?”
Sam nodded. “But there’s not exactly an Audubon Guidebook to Fallen Angels. The literature I’ve managed to find on the topic is sketchy at best. Think maybe we should ask Castiel? And by ‘we’, I mean you.”
“Why me?”
Sam made a ‘duh’ face. “Because he likes you better.”
Dean pursed his lips. “Don’t you think he’d tell us if something was going on with him?”
“Something is going on with him, and he hasn’t told us.” Sam jerked when one of the bites Dean touched was uncomfortably high on his thigh. “Look, I don’t want to get all up in his personal business. I mean, after all he’s done for us, he’s earned the right to a little privacy, but… but if he’s compromised, then that’s something we do need to know about.”
Dean put the cap back on the peroxide and sat back on his heels. “I’ll think about it.”
“Okay, good… here,” Sam held out his hands for the bottle and cotton pad.
“What?”
“Dude, your back looks like someone walked over you in soccer cleats.”
“Terrific,” Dean grumbled as he shucked out of the pathetic remnants of his shirt, then laid face down on his bed so Sam could return the favor of making Dean flinch and hiss.
****************
Castiel was coming to the conclusion that he did not like dreaming. Either they were disturbing or he couldn’t keep Lucifer out of them.
Or both.
“Won’t be long now, Castiel,” Lucifer commented as he came up alongside Castiel on the top of a mountain. It was one Castiel had been to once or twice in the waking world, though in the dream he could not remember which it was, for it seemed to be a strange amalgamation of two. On one side was a snowy vista like the winter-clad view of Tibet, the other a barren landscape like the plains of Africa.
Castiel wanted to move away from Lucifer when he joined him on the mountaintop, but a step to the side would be freefall. Castiel had learned that sometimes, in dreams at least, he could fall like the lowliest of any creature.
So he stood firm and let Lucifer stand elbow to elbow with him… he had no choice.
Lucifer spoke of the shattered one, of course. Castiel didn’t want to look, but he seemed to have little control of his actions in dreams. He glanced down at himself. He wasn’t transparent this time. He seemed human, flesh and bone. But if he was human, he was a deformed one. His jacket and coat were pushed aside, and his white shirt unbuttoned and flung open to expose his chest and belly. Protruding from his chest was a mass of flesh, a parasitic twin yet not. It was attached to Castiel’s chest by its head, any semblance of a face lost inside Castiel’s ribcage, but the body hung from him like an engorged leech, legs and arms curled tight like a kitten tucked up while being carried by the neck by its mother. As he stared down at it in mild horror, the thing move. Arms and legs struggled, pushed against Castiel’s stomach and kicked at him in a newfound disdain for their entanglement.
No… not much longer.
“I don’t appreciate your propensity to state the obvious,” Castiel spat at Lucifer.
“You misjudge me, Castiel… I’m just showing concern.”
“Of course you are. You’re so well known for your concern for others.”
Lucifer frowned. “That’s unfair, don’t you think?”
“Hardly.”
Lucifer regarded him a long moment. “Do you know what was the first thing I did when I took Nick as a vessel?”
“I doubt it was anything pleasant.”
“Well, certainly not for Anthony Garland.” When Castiel looked at him blankly, Lucifer continued, “Anthony Garland was the murderer responsible for the death of Nick’s wife and child. That’s why he let me in, you know. He just wanted the pain to stop. And it has.
“But Nick didn’t know how much he wanted revenge until I gave it to him. The first thing I did after I took this vessel was find Anthony and make him pay for the deaths of Nick’s wife and daughter. It had nothing to do with me - that was all for Nick.”
Castiel didn’t know what to say to that.
“Now does that seem heartless to you?”
“I suppose it would depend on the manner of Anthony Garland’s death.”
At that, a sly smile tugged at Lucifer’s lips. “Well… I do take pride in my work.”
Suddenly, a body hung suspended in the gray sky over the mountain. It was a man, but anything else about him was lost to the fact he’d been completely skinned. Alive. He was still twitching and jerking, blood dripping from his dark red muscles. Lidless eyes gaped down at the two of them on the peak, his lips removed to give the figure a permanent, gruesome grin.
Castiel didn’t know if his mind supplied that or if Lucifer had. It didn’t really matter. He couldn’t look at it, and he turned his head aside. The shattered one either sensed the horror or sensed Castiel’s, because it began to fight again. Castiel hated the sensation of it moving independently of him.
“Shhh… shhh…” Lucifer cooed. Castiel had a sinking feeling that Lucifer was reaching out to the shattered one, and he jerked away. He nearly went over the edge of the mountain, but when he didn’t he thought maybe it would have been preferable if he had.
Lucifer paid the escape attempt no mind, just kept talking to the shattered one. “Now, now… don’t be afraid, little one. I would never hurt you… that’s for my enemies. And yours.”
Castiel’s arm shot out, shoving Lucifer’s away. “Stop it… don’t talk to it like that.”
“Come on, Castiel… don’t be like that. It’ll just make things awkward once we welcome that little guy into the world.”
“That will never happen.”
“I think it will,” Lucifer smiled slowly. “I don’t think you really understand how much pain you’ll be in when it tries to separate. But that’s all right. I won’t hold it against you when you don’t call for me until you’re writhing in agony. Actually, all things considered, it’ll be fitting. Until then…” Lucifer gave no warning, just shoved Castiel hard.
Castiel went tumbling over the edge and falling into nothingness.
He was still fighting falling when his eyes flew open and he found himself staring up into Dean Winchester’s face. They were not on a mountain, they were in a motel, and Castiel was not falling… he was firmly grounded on a bed.
That proved small comfort as the terror of the dream clung to him. He tried to scramble up out of bed.
“Whoa! Hey, hey, hey,” Dean, sitting next to him, reached out to him and tried to quiet him with a hand on his chest. So like the way Lucifer had reached to touch him. Without thinking, Castiel swatted the hand away.
Dean held his hand out to the side, still hovering close, and Castiel recognized the ‘placate an agitated animal’ posture. That more than anything finally calmed him down. He was an angel, not a frightful beast of the earth.
When he seemed less apt to fight, Dean edged closer. “Hey… it’s okay, it was just a nightmare.”
No, it wasn’t.
“Pretty bad one, huh?” Dean was speaking softly, and Castiel glanced to the side and realized why. The second bed was full of Sam, sleeping soundly, dead to the world. Castiel resented him for making it look so easy and peaceful. The light in the room came from the nightstand lamp, and a digital clock burned into the darkness the glaring green numbers ‘3:12’.
“Don’t worry,” Dean said lowly, “Sam’s asleep. All those bug bites were making it hard for him to fall asleep, so he took a couple of pills.”
Castiel blinked up at Dean, confused. “I don’t remember coming here.”
Dean looked troubled by that. “You showed up a little before midnight… scared the shit out of me, as usual. I forgot you’d know where we were without having to call. You looked pretty wiped out. You said something about kicking it in Nepal, then looked like you were about to fall asleep on your feet. I put you to bed and you were asleep pretty much the second your head hit the pillow.” Dean glowered. “What did I tell you about flitting off to the far ends of the earth?”
“You told me not to,” Castiel returned evenly. He left it at that.
“That’s all you have to say for yourself? That you weren’t supposed to, but you did anyway?”
“You don’t command me, Dean. My search for God is far too important, and it will take me to distant places beyond the reach of your car.”
“Damnit, Cas, you know what that takes out of you.”
“God is not likely to be found in Kansas.”
Dean rubbed his face with a hand. “Fine, do whatever you want. See if I care if you get yourself stuck on Mount Everest.”
The dream of the mountaintop came back to Castiel, sharp and distressing, and his ire left him. He imagined being trapped there, no hope of getting back to Dean, and the human’s distraught reaction made more sense suddenly. Just like that, he had a frame of reference for that brand of hopelessness, for being so desperately landlocked, earthbound. “I have no desire to cause you to worry,” he said gently. “I’m only trying to save you.”
Dean sagged. “Yeah, I know… but maybe I’m not willing to sacrifice you along the way.”
That he cared that much made Castiel feel much less alone. If only Dean knew that Castiel probably would not live to see the end of this war, either way. “I apologize for worrying you.”
Dean snorted. “Right. Look, it’s not a command, but I would appreciate it if you didn’t wear yourself out to the point that you show up on our doorstep looking like someone out of Night of the Living Dead.”
“I don’t understand that reference.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet you don’t.” Dean considered Castiel a moment, eyes growing suspicious. Castiel could not fathom why. Then, before Castiel could really process his intent, Dean leaned forward and rested a hand on Castiel’s forehead. It was shockingly cool and dry against the moisture on Castiel’s brow.
Dean didn’t look happy. “You’re burning up, Cas. Since when do you get fevers?”
“I don’t know,” Castiel answered, his chest achingly tight. He didn’t even know that he had one, but Dean seemed convinced. He was drawing away the covers draped over the angel. Castiel looked down at himself, a scared part of him expecting to see that horrible creature merged with him.
Instead, he saw…
“You removed my clothes.”
“Quit fretting about your precious virtue. It’s not like you’re naked,” Dean said defensively, though Castiel felt he very nearly was. Jimmy Novak’s boxers seemed little enough to qualify as clothing. “Call me a silly human, but going to bed in a full suit and tie seemed a little too formal. For the record, you didn’t seem to care when I was doing it.” Dean left Castiel’s mostly-naked body exposed as he went to the bathroom. He came back with a wet washcloth, which he laid on Castiel’s bare chest. The chill of it made him gasp and look up at Dean.
“Only feels cold ‘cause you’re so hot,” Dean promised. He sat down next to Castiel again, quietly moving the cloth from the angel’s chest to his forehead, turning it over now and then to expose a freshly cold patch of material. After the shock of the temperature difference abated, the cool cloth was pleasant.
A few minutes in silence let Castiel leave his nightmare behind and really study Dean. The human looked exhausted and preoccupied by something.
“Dean…?”
Dean sighed. “I wanna ask you something, Cas.”
“Very well.”
“Are you falling?”
Castiel went still. He watched Dean closely. There was something tumultuous in his mind concerning the question, and Castiel felt uneasy about it. “I am fallen.”
Dean nodded absently. “So that’s why you’re all…” he waved a hand over Castiel’s prone body. When Castiel merely lifted an eyebrow, Dean continued, “you know, losing your mojo?”
That was not from being fallen… that was because of the shattered one. But he didn’t want to tell Dean about his affliction. The angels could see it the second they looked at him, they saw the death sentence bleeding his grace, and they pitied him and shied away, repulsed. The Winchesters had not turned away in disgust because they could not see, and Castiel wouldn’t tell them and be the one to put that look in their eyes. They were all he had left.
Besides, he knew the Winchesters. If they knew the truth, they would try to save him. They’d turn their efforts from stopping the Apocalypse to trying to save the life of a doomed fallen angel. Castiel would not let that happen… not when there was nothing the humans could do, anyway. Best their focus remain on thwarting Lucifer’s plans.
“It’s complicated,” Castiel answered flatly.
Dean frowned. “Then use small words.”
Castiel did… several small words that said it all. Only it was all in Enochian.
Dean stared at him dumbly a minute, then he scowled. “Whatever.” He was angry. Castiel hated to anger him, but it was (as humans liked to say) the lesser of two evils.
Castiel expected Dean to storm away after that, but he remained seated next to the angel. He took the cloth off his chest and reached up to curl a hand around the back of Castiel’s neck. As Gabriel had done, but there was no steel and veiled threat to Dean’s touch. It was just a gentle, warm curl of flesh against the column of his neck. Castiel wondered at the ways Dean had touched him tonight, so much like the ways Castiel’s own brothers had, but at the same time vastly different.
“That’s better,” Dean said softly. He must be speaking of Castiel’s body temperature. “You feel like going back to sleep?”
Castiel certainly didn’t want to, but he’d come to know that feeling of his consciousness sinking into quicksand that meant he would not be able to fight it. Dean was right… his last flight across the world had been dangerously taxing.
“I’m tired,” Castiel confessed. It was a cruel joke that Castiel could say that and mean it.
Dean just nodded. “I’m going to hit the sack, but you wake me if you start to feel sick, okay?”
Castiel wasn’t sure he’d know what that felt like, but he nodded. “Okay.” He marveled a moment at what this night had made him privy to… Dean was an exemplary caretaker. Surely it was something Sam could have told him, but it was different to be on the receiving end of it and see it and feel it. It was sadly more genuine, more sincere, than any consideration Castiel had ever felt from his siblings in all his existence. For all their bright heat, angels lacked warmth.
Dean set the cloth on the nightstand, then went to the other side of the bed and slipped under the covers. Castiel turned his head to watch him, wondering at the fact that such a primitive, base creature could show more mercy and grace than angels. Why was he the only angel that saw their greatness? Buried in grime it might be, mired in sin and temptations, but it was there. If more angels took the time to see it, there might not be a need for this war.
“Lights, Cas,” Dean grumbled, and Castiel reached up and turned off the lamp. Darkness swallowed them all. It was too much like the darkness he’d fallen into off the mountaintop. Castiel turned on his side to face Dean, just able to see him in the dark. The shattered one shifted inside him. Castiel frowned and pulled up the covers Dean had thrown off him earlier… the humans couldn’t see the shattered one, but Castiel still felt better taking measures to conceal it.
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