Angelic Big Bang, SPN, "Taking Ten Steps Home" Part 1/10
Title: Taking Ten Steps Home
Fandom: SPN
Genre: Romance/Angst/Character-centric
Characters/Pairings: Castiel, Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester, Crowley, Bobby Singer, Leviathans; Dean/Castiel
Word Count: 10,279
Rating: R for frottage in the back of the Impala
Spoilers: 7x01, 7x02
Notes: Breaks from canon after the first few minutes of 7x02.
Beta: skylar_matthews
Summary: Castiel swore he'd find a way to redeem himself to Dean. This is how the story goes.
One:
They don’t kill him, even as he hears them tell Dean that they have. He is trapped, bolted down in the depths of the vessel,
close to where Jimmy Novak sleeps and dreams of Heaven.
He hears them lie to Dean, and everything in him is screaming to tell him they’re lying.
They are laughing when all that comes out into their midst - it doesn’t even make it out of the vessel - is a whimper. They laugh at him and tear at his Grace, shredding it seemingly for no other reason than that they are capable of it. It is more painful than being burned to ash by Raphael, more painful than what these Leviathans had done while he had still been in control of his vessel.
He does not scream, does not thrash his spirit about. This is part of penance, he is sure, and if anyone must pay penance it is he.
Instead of screaming, he envisions the screams of the people he killed in his hubris, the fear in bystanders displayed when he revealed himself to them. He is not God, he never was, but that is what they saw him as. He has become a false God, he has done what even Lucifer never could.
That makes him ill as he floats in the sea of Leviathans who mock him.
Little angel, how soft you are, without the other souls to separate us, how soft and fragile and corrupt you are. He refuses to respond; he does not need to, for they continue: It was the boy, wasn’t it, with his pretty green eyes and his incorruptible pure pureness. We know, little angel, we saw him through your eyes when he helped you, when you said you were sorry. We know how you felt.
They twist intangible fingers into his Grace, yanking and pulling, and it takes everything Castiel has remaining to him not to shatter apart like so much glass.
Instead, he reaches for the vessel’s senses, and finds that they are lurching toward a municipal water supply.
The Leviathans are still laughing. We are going to have the world. We will all get pretty vessels like this, and we will have the world and eat and eat and eat. The humans taste so good, so much better than angel-spirit-flesh. We will have everything, and we will have it because you gave it to us, little angel.
If Castiel had eyes, he would be crying, but they have his vessel, carrying it ever closer to the water.
Angel, one of the Leviathans whispers, leaning into him, threading tendrils through the tears and holes in his Grace, The boy with the green eyes is following us. We think we will kill him last. Long after others. We like the way you looked at him. We think he will taste so very good, won’t he?
The others agree: Yes he will be good to tear apart, with sweet little human flesh, so sweet, so very very sweet. We will enjoy him best, we know it.
Castiel wrenches himself away from the spirit-slime of their touch as they crowd him, digging into his Grace as they reach water. They wade out into it, deeper and deeper. They have no concept of death, not beyond causing it, and they cannot understand what they are doing to this vessel.
When they are all the way submerged, Castiel feels them let go of him with parting slashes, and they rush from his vessel, leaving him alone with Jimmy inside it.
It takes him too long to tear his way back up to the front of the vessel’s brain, to take back control. He slams back into place, only to find himself drowning. He feels Jimmy stir, but begs him to stay asleep as he thrashes, reaches for the surface. He is tangled in his trench coat, and cannot rend himself free of the garment.
The wounds to his Grace tax him as his vessel’s lungs fill with water. He becomes desperate, twisting harder and faster. He does not know where the bottom of the water is, nor where the surface is.
Finally, one of his legs hits air, but he cannot right himself. He is stuck, trapped, weighted down, and he cannot breathe and is rapidly losing the energy to move. He has completely forgotten he does not know how to swim, that he has never had to swim, that this hardly even counts as swimming.
All there is is thrashing and pain and gasping. Water has filled his lungs; he chokes on it, his vessel taking over - it knows better than he ever will what it needs.
But the energy for that is honestly gone. He feels his body begin to slow, his limbs beginning to turn to lead, and he is still choking. The vessel is shutting down; it cannot get what it needs to continue.
Castiel can hear the laughter of the Leviathans echoing as they disperse into the water.
He almost gives himself up to death, but he remembers, as his lungs are fit to burst, that Dean is on the shore of this lake. Dean is there, and he has sworn that he will redeem himself to him, sworn that he would make it right, even when he knows how close to impossible that will be.
He realizes that he cannot die, now. He has given of himself for Dean before, given his life so many times so willingly, that now he has the duty to live for him as he has died for him.
He feels one last jolt of energy, culled from his Grace in its tatters, and he tears for the surface, feeling the air hit his face like sunlight, or the light of God. It is beautiful and searing and painful. He pushes up, tries to float. He finds the sleeves of his trench coat and manages to shuck it off.
Finally he can breathe.
But his limbs are still leaden with weariness, and he feels darkness on the edges of his consciousness. So he opens his eyes, blinks the water from them, and searches the shores for Dean.
When he finds him, he begins to swim, thrashing against the water with hardly any more dignity than when he was drowning. But he is swimming, after a fashion, and he is reaching for Dean with every stroke.
He loses consciousness when he can see the wrinkles in Dean’s t-shirt and the look of fear in his eyes.
It’s all right, because he’s going home.
Fandom: SPN
Genre: Romance/Angst/Character-centric
Characters/Pairings: Castiel, Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester, Crowley, Bobby Singer, Leviathans; Dean/Castiel
Word Count: 10,279
Rating: R for frottage in the back of the Impala
Spoilers: 7x01, 7x02
Notes: Breaks from canon after the first few minutes of 7x02.
Beta: skylar_matthews
Summary: Castiel swore he'd find a way to redeem himself to Dean. This is how the story goes.
One:
They don’t kill him, even as he hears them tell Dean that they have. He is trapped, bolted down in the depths of the vessel,
close to where Jimmy Novak sleeps and dreams of Heaven.
He hears them lie to Dean, and everything in him is screaming to tell him they’re lying.
They are laughing when all that comes out into their midst - it doesn’t even make it out of the vessel - is a whimper. They laugh at him and tear at his Grace, shredding it seemingly for no other reason than that they are capable of it. It is more painful than being burned to ash by Raphael, more painful than what these Leviathans had done while he had still been in control of his vessel.
He does not scream, does not thrash his spirit about. This is part of penance, he is sure, and if anyone must pay penance it is he.
Instead of screaming, he envisions the screams of the people he killed in his hubris, the fear in bystanders displayed when he revealed himself to them. He is not God, he never was, but that is what they saw him as. He has become a false God, he has done what even Lucifer never could.
That makes him ill as he floats in the sea of Leviathans who mock him.
Little angel, how soft you are, without the other souls to separate us, how soft and fragile and corrupt you are. He refuses to respond; he does not need to, for they continue: It was the boy, wasn’t it, with his pretty green eyes and his incorruptible pure pureness. We know, little angel, we saw him through your eyes when he helped you, when you said you were sorry. We know how you felt.
They twist intangible fingers into his Grace, yanking and pulling, and it takes everything Castiel has remaining to him not to shatter apart like so much glass.
Instead, he reaches for the vessel’s senses, and finds that they are lurching toward a municipal water supply.
The Leviathans are still laughing. We are going to have the world. We will all get pretty vessels like this, and we will have the world and eat and eat and eat. The humans taste so good, so much better than angel-spirit-flesh. We will have everything, and we will have it because you gave it to us, little angel.
If Castiel had eyes, he would be crying, but they have his vessel, carrying it ever closer to the water.
Angel, one of the Leviathans whispers, leaning into him, threading tendrils through the tears and holes in his Grace, The boy with the green eyes is following us. We think we will kill him last. Long after others. We like the way you looked at him. We think he will taste so very good, won’t he?
The others agree: Yes he will be good to tear apart, with sweet little human flesh, so sweet, so very very sweet. We will enjoy him best, we know it.
Castiel wrenches himself away from the spirit-slime of their touch as they crowd him, digging into his Grace as they reach water. They wade out into it, deeper and deeper. They have no concept of death, not beyond causing it, and they cannot understand what they are doing to this vessel.
When they are all the way submerged, Castiel feels them let go of him with parting slashes, and they rush from his vessel, leaving him alone with Jimmy inside it.
It takes him too long to tear his way back up to the front of the vessel’s brain, to take back control. He slams back into place, only to find himself drowning. He feels Jimmy stir, but begs him to stay asleep as he thrashes, reaches for the surface. He is tangled in his trench coat, and cannot rend himself free of the garment.
The wounds to his Grace tax him as his vessel’s lungs fill with water. He becomes desperate, twisting harder and faster. He does not know where the bottom of the water is, nor where the surface is.
Finally, one of his legs hits air, but he cannot right himself. He is stuck, trapped, weighted down, and he cannot breathe and is rapidly losing the energy to move. He has completely forgotten he does not know how to swim, that he has never had to swim, that this hardly even counts as swimming.
All there is is thrashing and pain and gasping. Water has filled his lungs; he chokes on it, his vessel taking over - it knows better than he ever will what it needs.
But the energy for that is honestly gone. He feels his body begin to slow, his limbs beginning to turn to lead, and he is still choking. The vessel is shutting down; it cannot get what it needs to continue.
Castiel can hear the laughter of the Leviathans echoing as they disperse into the water.
He almost gives himself up to death, but he remembers, as his lungs are fit to burst, that Dean is on the shore of this lake. Dean is there, and he has sworn that he will redeem himself to him, sworn that he would make it right, even when he knows how close to impossible that will be.
He realizes that he cannot die, now. He has given of himself for Dean before, given his life so many times so willingly, that now he has the duty to live for him as he has died for him.
He feels one last jolt of energy, culled from his Grace in its tatters, and he tears for the surface, feeling the air hit his face like sunlight, or the light of God. It is beautiful and searing and painful. He pushes up, tries to float. He finds the sleeves of his trench coat and manages to shuck it off.
Finally he can breathe.
But his limbs are still leaden with weariness, and he feels darkness on the edges of his consciousness. So he opens his eyes, blinks the water from them, and searches the shores for Dean.
When he finds him, he begins to swim, thrashing against the water with hardly any more dignity than when he was drowning. But he is swimming, after a fashion, and he is reaching for Dean with every stroke.
He loses consciousness when he can see the wrinkles in Dean’s t-shirt and the look of fear in his eyes.
It’s all right, because he’s going home.