Holiday prezzie fic! Vessel, SPN, S4
Title: Vessel
Fandom: Supernatural
Character: Castiel. Sort of.
Spoilers: 4.1 "Lazarus Rising" (character identity spoiler only)
Rating: R, violence, language
Synopsis: What makes a man so devout he prays to be possessed by an angel of the Lord? A story told in 19 drabbles.
Disclaimers: Castiel's not my property, and this world is not my creation.
Thanks to herself_nyc and bastardsnow for the early reads and encouragement.
Icon by malicat
CASTIEL: This? This is... a vessel.
DEAN: You're possessing some poor bastard?
CASTIEL: He's a devout man, he actually prayed for this.
--Lazarus Rising
"Mark?" Claire frowns at him from the bedroom doorway. "Honey?"
Mark rouses himself, lifting a hand to his brow. "I don't know why I'm here."
Features relaxing, she approaches him, slipping his trench coat off his shoulders. She folds it over her arm to take downstairs. "You know how it is. You'll think of it five minutes after you leave the room." She kisses his cheek, ruffles his hair.
Despite the familiarity of her caresses, Mark feels strangely distant from her, from himself. That's not what I was talking about, he thinks, but he lets her believe that it is.
***
He can't fool Claire for long. It becomes clear his problem is more than forgetting what he wanted when he walked into a room, but she wants an easy explanation.
"What is it, Mark?" she keeps asking. She finds him at his computer late into the night, trying to make sense of things.
"I don't understand why I'm here."
"Who knows? It was chance, honey. Random chance that you survived." She touches his face. "Be grateful for it. God, you know that I am."
It upsets her that he can't be grateful without questions, that he has to know why.
***
There are things you see that you cannot believe.
There was nothing remarkable about the man who changed Mark's life.
It was mere chance that Mark glanced up as he boarded the 5:43. A man in a suit, wearing the same tan coat Mark wore, carrying a navy canvas briefcase. Lands' End.
Mark barely noticed him, thinking ahead to his arrival, things he needed to do. Stop at the florist's across from the station. The wine shop next door. He already had Claire's anniversary gift, chosen by his assistant.
All his plans shattered the second the man opened fire.
***
There are things you see that you cannot believe.
He saw the man reach into the briefcase, pulling out a semi-automatic pistol, but his mind refused to interpret its meaning until the first two commuters lay dead on the floor. Others screamed around him, but Mark found himself frozen. The shooter picked off the woman on his left, who'd been complaining on her cellphone about her husband.
His eyes, flat as dull pennies, locked on Mark's. God--
Unaccountably, the man moved on, putting a bullet in the brain of the man beside Mark.
Calmly, he walked through the car, shooting.
***
He saw himself on the news, thinking, "That man is remarkably articulate." Because he was calm and well-spoken (in shock), his image was everywhere for the next several days, getting as much exposure as the shooter himself.
A man in a trench coat, splattered with dark stains. A survivor.
Another man in an immaculate coat of the same cut and color, handcuffed. A suspect.
Claire, because she was not calm, also made the news that first night, as she waited at the station for word. A woman in a cocktail dress on her anniversary, praying not to be a widow.
***
Sometimes when he stares in the mirror, he sees his face as it looked that night, freckled with the blood of others. He can't stop asking why he was spared, what purpose there is to his life.
Why him and not the woman on his left, who trained dogs for search and rescue work? Why him and not the preacher, the father of five, the firefighter, the man and his seventeen-year-old son?
Fifteen dead and six wounded before two men tackled the shooter as he changed the clip a second time.
Why is he here and not them?
***
Clare tires of the question, but she keeps a facade of patience. "You're here to raise our son. To be my rock." Mark hasn't been her rock for a while, but she's taking the massacre and his survival as a sign things are changing.
"Yossip had five children. Darius had a whole congregation." He knows each by name, after studying the profiles that ran in the newspapers. He's been to some of the funerals.
He went to Janice's service -- the woman on his left, the trainer of dogs. "She spoke of you at the very end," he told her husband.
***
Mark's words had a dramatic effect on Janice's husband. The tension that had kept him upright left him in a rush, and his brother steadied him as he swayed. "We'd had an argument while she was walking to the train," the man said. "Over something stupid."
"She knew it didn't mean anything," Mark said, and he convinced himself that his memory of her conversation, the tone of her voice, bore this out.
"You don't know what a difference this makes," her husband said.
Maybe it's as simple as this. To make a difference to one person.
But it's not enough.
***
The newspapers with the profiles grow more brittle, and so does Claire. Her patience wanes, along with the energy she's been pouring into pulling him back toward her and Stephen.
"There's something I'm meant to do," he tells her. "Why would I be here otherwise?"
"To love me," she snaps. "To love our child." Claire presses her fingertips over her lips. She softens her voice. "It's understandable. You've been through a trauma. But it's time to reclaim your life. I think you should see someone."
"See someone?"
"A therapist, Mark. Someone who can help you make sense of what happened."
***
He agrees to Claire's request (plea), but the therapist views Mark's drive to find a purpose as a symptom, something to be removed, not followed. When Mark expresses an interest in learning to train search-and-rescue dogs, Dr. Ellison gently tells him he can't assume the life of someone who didn't survive. He must come to terms with his own.
"There has to be a reason I was spared."
Dr. Ellison hands him a prescription for sleeping pills. Mark takes it without glancing at it, shoves it in the breast pocket of his new tan coat as he leaves.
***
The newspapers disappear from his desk, and in their place he finds a flyer for a PTSD support group. It meets the same fate as the prescription, consigned to the wastebasket.
He stumbles on the answer during a business trip. Lying awake in a strange room in a strange city, he switches on the light and opens the bedside drawer, searching for a guide listing the hours of the fitness room. He finds instead a maroon Bible with the mark of the Gideons stamped in gold on the cover.
It contains a menu of verses addressing every kind of suffering.
***
Comfort in Time of LONELINESS.
Comfort in Time of SORROW.
Courage in Time of FEAR.
Peace in Time of TURMOIL.
Strength in Time of TEMPTATION.
Mark reads every prescribed verse, whether they apply or not. He devours the Way of SALVATION and signs his life over to God like an insurance policy he's cashing in. There's nothing meek or submissive in his conversion; it's an act of desperation. He keeps reading, a junkie ransacking a cash register. He wants to grab God by the lapels and shout, "You made Death pass by me for a reason -- give me a purpose!"
***
Claire meets him at the airport, drives him home. After a few moments of inconsequential talk, Mark says, "Something happened to me while I was in Dallas."
She takes in the solemnity of his tone and his manner since she picked him up. "Oh god."
Mark can't suppress a laugh. "Guessed it on the first try."
"What?"
"I've given my life to God."
"What exactly does that mean?"
"I don't really know. I guess I need to find a church. Maybe I'll try Darius'."
"Mark, I hope you'll discuss this with Dr. Ellison."
God is just another symptom to her.
***
He searches for his place in God's fold. Darius' church welcomes him as a hidden blessing in their pastor's murder. They're searching for meaning too. They give him work to do in the soup kitchen, invite him to accompany the deacons on hospital visitations, but it's not enough.
He blows off his appointments with Dr. Ellison, shows up at the church instead. The interim pastor doesn't know what to make of this intense white guy demanding to be handed a higher purpose. "You can't push God," Rev. Telfer says. "Sometimes you have to wait for Him to reveal His will."
***
Mark is burning, not waiting. He contemplates selling the house, cashing in his investments, giving it all away. But he knows a transfer of numbers from one account to another will leave him empty. It's an action, not a purpose.
Looking into mission work, he considers Eastern Africa, Papua New Guinea, Southeast Asia. He regrets his lack of medical skills.
Claire confronts him about the websites he's been visiting, as if he's been downloading pornography. "This obsession has to stop," she demands. "You have a purpose. You were given a second chance at our marriage, at being a real father."
***
Claire says, "I never thought I'd say this, but I wish you were the man you were before the massacre. We only had half your attention then, but that's more than we have now. You've just traded being a workaholic for being a fucking religious nut."
"I wish you could share this with me."
"You don't get it! I don't want what you have. It's sucking the life out of you. I can't watch this anymore. Either give this God stuff up, or I leave."
"I was chosen. I can't walk away from that."
"You chose. Now live with it."
***
Telling Claire he's going for a walk, he makes his way to the one wild place that hasn't yet been devoured by their suburban town.
He has it out with God, shouting into the sky.
"I'm willing to give them up for you, God. But you have to use me. I can't do this anymore. Tell me what you want!"
There's no response but a strange sound -- the beating of wings, but amplified a thousandfold. Mark's heart races as he covers his ears.
But after a moment it's gone. His ears ring. The med-evac helicopter, that's probably what it was.
***
There are things you believe that you cannot see.
Beside Claire in their bed, he dreams that sound again, feeling the stirring of air. He's not in the clearing at the edge of town, but in a place he doesn't recognize. It seems distinct, yet he can pick out no particular characteristics. A light appears -- "brighter than a thousand suns" is a cliche, but it's the only description he can muster. Dropping to his knees, Mark raises his arm to shield his face.
You demand much, says a voice. Are you prepared for me to demand more?
"Yes. I'm ready."
***
Castiel awakens, buffeted by countless new sensations. Blood moving through veins, breath causing the rise and fall of his chest. He lifts his hand and studies it in wonder.
A small sound draws his attention, and he glances up to see a woman folding clothes into a case.
"You don't have to do that. I'll be leaving."
Something about his voice makes her gaze sharpen, but she doesn't speak.
Castiel rises and dresses himself in another room.
He returns to Claire, touches her face. "I am sorry for your sacrifice."
Then he leaves to find his way to Dean Winchester.
Fandom: Supernatural
Character: Castiel. Sort of.
Spoilers: 4.1 "Lazarus Rising" (character identity spoiler only)
Rating: R, violence, language
Synopsis: What makes a man so devout he prays to be possessed by an angel of the Lord? A story told in 19 drabbles.
Disclaimers: Castiel's not my property, and this world is not my creation.
Thanks to herself_nyc and bastardsnow for the early reads and encouragement.
Icon by malicat
CASTIEL: This? This is... a vessel.
DEAN: You're possessing some poor bastard?
CASTIEL: He's a devout man, he actually prayed for this.
--Lazarus Rising
"Mark?" Claire frowns at him from the bedroom doorway. "Honey?"
Mark rouses himself, lifting a hand to his brow. "I don't know why I'm here."
Features relaxing, she approaches him, slipping his trench coat off his shoulders. She folds it over her arm to take downstairs. "You know how it is. You'll think of it five minutes after you leave the room." She kisses his cheek, ruffles his hair.
Despite the familiarity of her caresses, Mark feels strangely distant from her, from himself. That's not what I was talking about, he thinks, but he lets her believe that it is.
***
He can't fool Claire for long. It becomes clear his problem is more than forgetting what he wanted when he walked into a room, but she wants an easy explanation.
"What is it, Mark?" she keeps asking. She finds him at his computer late into the night, trying to make sense of things.
"I don't understand why I'm here."
"Who knows? It was chance, honey. Random chance that you survived." She touches his face. "Be grateful for it. God, you know that I am."
It upsets her that he can't be grateful without questions, that he has to know why.
***
There are things you see that you cannot believe.
There was nothing remarkable about the man who changed Mark's life.
It was mere chance that Mark glanced up as he boarded the 5:43. A man in a suit, wearing the same tan coat Mark wore, carrying a navy canvas briefcase. Lands' End.
Mark barely noticed him, thinking ahead to his arrival, things he needed to do. Stop at the florist's across from the station. The wine shop next door. He already had Claire's anniversary gift, chosen by his assistant.
All his plans shattered the second the man opened fire.
***
There are things you see that you cannot believe.
He saw the man reach into the briefcase, pulling out a semi-automatic pistol, but his mind refused to interpret its meaning until the first two commuters lay dead on the floor. Others screamed around him, but Mark found himself frozen. The shooter picked off the woman on his left, who'd been complaining on her cellphone about her husband.
His eyes, flat as dull pennies, locked on Mark's. God--
Unaccountably, the man moved on, putting a bullet in the brain of the man beside Mark.
Calmly, he walked through the car, shooting.
***
He saw himself on the news, thinking, "That man is remarkably articulate." Because he was calm and well-spoken (in shock), his image was everywhere for the next several days, getting as much exposure as the shooter himself.
A man in a trench coat, splattered with dark stains. A survivor.
Another man in an immaculate coat of the same cut and color, handcuffed. A suspect.
Claire, because she was not calm, also made the news that first night, as she waited at the station for word. A woman in a cocktail dress on her anniversary, praying not to be a widow.
***
Sometimes when he stares in the mirror, he sees his face as it looked that night, freckled with the blood of others. He can't stop asking why he was spared, what purpose there is to his life.
Why him and not the woman on his left, who trained dogs for search and rescue work? Why him and not the preacher, the father of five, the firefighter, the man and his seventeen-year-old son?
Fifteen dead and six wounded before two men tackled the shooter as he changed the clip a second time.
Why is he here and not them?
***
Clare tires of the question, but she keeps a facade of patience. "You're here to raise our son. To be my rock." Mark hasn't been her rock for a while, but she's taking the massacre and his survival as a sign things are changing.
"Yossip had five children. Darius had a whole congregation." He knows each by name, after studying the profiles that ran in the newspapers. He's been to some of the funerals.
He went to Janice's service -- the woman on his left, the trainer of dogs. "She spoke of you at the very end," he told her husband.
***
Mark's words had a dramatic effect on Janice's husband. The tension that had kept him upright left him in a rush, and his brother steadied him as he swayed. "We'd had an argument while she was walking to the train," the man said. "Over something stupid."
"She knew it didn't mean anything," Mark said, and he convinced himself that his memory of her conversation, the tone of her voice, bore this out.
"You don't know what a difference this makes," her husband said.
Maybe it's as simple as this. To make a difference to one person.
But it's not enough.
***
The newspapers with the profiles grow more brittle, and so does Claire. Her patience wanes, along with the energy she's been pouring into pulling him back toward her and Stephen.
"There's something I'm meant to do," he tells her. "Why would I be here otherwise?"
"To love me," she snaps. "To love our child." Claire presses her fingertips over her lips. She softens her voice. "It's understandable. You've been through a trauma. But it's time to reclaim your life. I think you should see someone."
"See someone?"
"A therapist, Mark. Someone who can help you make sense of what happened."
***
He agrees to Claire's request (plea), but the therapist views Mark's drive to find a purpose as a symptom, something to be removed, not followed. When Mark expresses an interest in learning to train search-and-rescue dogs, Dr. Ellison gently tells him he can't assume the life of someone who didn't survive. He must come to terms with his own.
"There has to be a reason I was spared."
Dr. Ellison hands him a prescription for sleeping pills. Mark takes it without glancing at it, shoves it in the breast pocket of his new tan coat as he leaves.
***
The newspapers disappear from his desk, and in their place he finds a flyer for a PTSD support group. It meets the same fate as the prescription, consigned to the wastebasket.
He stumbles on the answer during a business trip. Lying awake in a strange room in a strange city, he switches on the light and opens the bedside drawer, searching for a guide listing the hours of the fitness room. He finds instead a maroon Bible with the mark of the Gideons stamped in gold on the cover.
It contains a menu of verses addressing every kind of suffering.
***
Comfort in Time of LONELINESS.
Comfort in Time of SORROW.
Courage in Time of FEAR.
Peace in Time of TURMOIL.
Strength in Time of TEMPTATION.
Mark reads every prescribed verse, whether they apply or not. He devours the Way of SALVATION and signs his life over to God like an insurance policy he's cashing in. There's nothing meek or submissive in his conversion; it's an act of desperation. He keeps reading, a junkie ransacking a cash register. He wants to grab God by the lapels and shout, "You made Death pass by me for a reason -- give me a purpose!"
***
Claire meets him at the airport, drives him home. After a few moments of inconsequential talk, Mark says, "Something happened to me while I was in Dallas."
She takes in the solemnity of his tone and his manner since she picked him up. "Oh god."
Mark can't suppress a laugh. "Guessed it on the first try."
"What?"
"I've given my life to God."
"What exactly does that mean?"
"I don't really know. I guess I need to find a church. Maybe I'll try Darius'."
"Mark, I hope you'll discuss this with Dr. Ellison."
God is just another symptom to her.
***
He searches for his place in God's fold. Darius' church welcomes him as a hidden blessing in their pastor's murder. They're searching for meaning too. They give him work to do in the soup kitchen, invite him to accompany the deacons on hospital visitations, but it's not enough.
He blows off his appointments with Dr. Ellison, shows up at the church instead. The interim pastor doesn't know what to make of this intense white guy demanding to be handed a higher purpose. "You can't push God," Rev. Telfer says. "Sometimes you have to wait for Him to reveal His will."
***
Mark is burning, not waiting. He contemplates selling the house, cashing in his investments, giving it all away. But he knows a transfer of numbers from one account to another will leave him empty. It's an action, not a purpose.
Looking into mission work, he considers Eastern Africa, Papua New Guinea, Southeast Asia. He regrets his lack of medical skills.
Claire confronts him about the websites he's been visiting, as if he's been downloading pornography. "This obsession has to stop," she demands. "You have a purpose. You were given a second chance at our marriage, at being a real father."
***
Claire says, "I never thought I'd say this, but I wish you were the man you were before the massacre. We only had half your attention then, but that's more than we have now. You've just traded being a workaholic for being a fucking religious nut."
"I wish you could share this with me."
"You don't get it! I don't want what you have. It's sucking the life out of you. I can't watch this anymore. Either give this God stuff up, or I leave."
"I was chosen. I can't walk away from that."
"You chose. Now live with it."
***
Telling Claire he's going for a walk, he makes his way to the one wild place that hasn't yet been devoured by their suburban town.
He has it out with God, shouting into the sky.
"I'm willing to give them up for you, God. But you have to use me. I can't do this anymore. Tell me what you want!"
There's no response but a strange sound -- the beating of wings, but amplified a thousandfold. Mark's heart races as he covers his ears.
But after a moment it's gone. His ears ring. The med-evac helicopter, that's probably what it was.
***
There are things you believe that you cannot see.
Beside Claire in their bed, he dreams that sound again, feeling the stirring of air. He's not in the clearing at the edge of town, but in a place he doesn't recognize. It seems distinct, yet he can pick out no particular characteristics. A light appears -- "brighter than a thousand suns" is a cliche, but it's the only description he can muster. Dropping to his knees, Mark raises his arm to shield his face.
You demand much, says a voice. Are you prepared for me to demand more?
"Yes. I'm ready."
***
Castiel awakens, buffeted by countless new sensations. Blood moving through veins, breath causing the rise and fall of his chest. He lifts his hand and studies it in wonder.
A small sound draws his attention, and he glances up to see a woman folding clothes into a case.
"You don't have to do that. I'll be leaving."
Something about his voice makes her gaze sharpen, but she doesn't speak.
Castiel rises and dresses himself in another room.
He returns to Claire, touches her face. "I am sorry for your sacrifice."
Then he leaves to find his way to Dean Winchester.