FIC: Pulling Out The Nails, Chapter 9: Comfort [10/20]

[todisturbtheuni]

Back to 8. Vengeance, or go to the Masterpost.

Dean left Castiel alone.

He got the feeling, of course, that if he strayed too far from the cabin's boundaries, Dean would know. As the creator of the modified Mournful Orb latched tight around his neck, Dean had some idea of Castiel's general location. But Dean did not dog him day and night; in fact, after their successful hunt, the djinni didn't see his human companion for two days. He heard Dean leave the cabin early in the morning, and return late at night, but Dean didn't look in on him. Each night, Castiel heard the sound of boots being kicked off, a mattress groaning under a falling body, and then silence.


Castiel kept watch from his window. He stayed in Dean's cabin, in the room he had once been caged in. He read Dean's books, many clearly pilfered from magicians, few in good shape, all well-used. He did not, however, approach the desk where he'd seen Dean working, the night the assassination attempt had gone awry. Dean had made it very clear that nothing in that desk was for Castiel's eyes, and given humans and their need for privacy, Castiel gave workspace a wide berth. Dean's good mood was worth a little unresolved curiosity.

No one-not even Sam-came to visit him, but he couldn't blame them. They treated him well enough by giving him room to breathe, and he suspected that Dean would not have reacted well to anyone entering his cabin unasked, anyway. The only person he had seen come and go from Dean's home was Sam, though maybe that was because Castiel was housed there. Maybe they were afraid of him. The thought helped his wounded pride.

Azazel attempted to summon him twice more, with increasing desperation each time. Castiel gritted his teeth and waited for the pain to pass. He wondered if his longtime master would eventually believe him dead, and he told himself not to get his hopes up.

On the third day, Dean came back to the cabin at noon. It was raining outside; Castiel heard him stamp his boots free of mud before kicking them off just inside the door. In sock feet, he approached the room where Castiel sat, cross-legged, carefully turning the brittle pages of a rare novel he'd found in Dean's bookcase. It was a refreshing change of pace from the ceaseless drone about demons and spells. When Dean opened the door and stuck his head in, his light brown hair was wet with rain, there was a vague smile on his face, and he was distinctly bearded. He grinned at Castiel, who blinked back in confusion.

"Hey, Cas," he greeted.

"What happened to your face?" Castiel returned blandly. Dean rubbed a hand over his jaw.

"I've been busy, and we're out of razors. Supply run. Next week." Dean frowned. Castiel took a strange pleasure in teasing him. "What?" he asked self-consciously. "Does it look bad?"

"Like a small squirrel decided to attach itself," Castiel agreed, and Dean rolled his eyes.

"Hilarious. Whatcha reading?"

Castiel turned back to the cover. "Galápagos," he said. "An interesting piece of literature."

"Not his best," Dean said, letting himself into the room. He nudged Castiel's knee with his big toe. "Wanna help with something?"

"Is this whatever mystery has kept you out all day for the last several days?" Castiel asked, reluctantly marking his page and getting to his feet.

"Turns out, one of Bela's rarities is actually useful. Hopefully it'll keep out riffraff like you from now on." He grinned, and Castiel scowled. "Or at least give us a heads-up when something nasty is coming our way. We haven't had the resources to put together our own security system, they require a lot of moving parts."

"I hope you don't want me to test it," Castiel said darkly, following Dean out.

"Only sort of," Dean reassured, hopping on one foot to pull his boots back on. The area around the door was grimy with mud in various states of drying out. "Just get near it and let me know how it feels. I don't want you to step on it, or anything, you'd probably vaporize on the spot."

"Charming," Castiel muttered.

"We'll be careful," Dean promised, yanking open the door. "You're just the only spirit on hand to test it. If I had an imp lying around, I'd use it. Gotta do your part, man. You're part of the Resistance now."

He said it with such false enthusiasm; it reminded Castiel of the propaganda being shouted in the streets thirty years ago, when the Americans had been fighting to the last gasp for their independence from Britain, and as soldiers on both sides continued to drop, the recruiting tactics got increasingly cheery and simultaneously desperate. He chuckled wanly. Those had been simpler times.

Dean led the way. The camp was quiet; Castiel saw a few chimneys belching smoke, as though their inhabitants were curled close around the fire, keeping warm. His human companion didn't seem to mind the light rain; his jeans were soaked, the hems an inch deep in mud, his hands buried in the pockets of his windbreaker, but he hummed tunelessly under his breath. Dean, Castiel thought, was a man of action-and doing anything, no matter how futile, put him in a more tolerable mood.

It had been strangely cathartic, talking about Jimmy with Dean. He had never shared as much information about the magician with anyone before, human or spirit. He hadn't been close to anyone, from either category, since that night. There were spirits he knew well and liked, of course, but if he had been quiet over the last few decades, well-that wasn't so much time, to things like them. He doubted he would have shared anything about Jimmy to any of them, even given the opportunity. But Dean, despite his deep distrust of spirits and magicians, had obviously empathized. Castiel could still feel the warmth of Dean's palm and fingers, reassuring and solid. He rubbed his shoulder absentmindedly. It had been some time since he'd last felt something so...comforting.

Dean, for all his instinctual revulsion toward spirits-as was his right, Castiel allowed reluctantly-had offered him comfort. Dean, who had shuddered at being touched by a housecat, had voluntarily grasped his shoulder and offered vengeance. He sensed that the man would continue to confuse him. Dean's history was not a book he had access to; with his technological expert and his many historical volumes, Dean could piece together more about Castiel than he would ever likely know about Dean.

That was unfortunate, he thought. Dean compelled him, but he was also painfully closed-mouthed when it came to personal history. With Alastair involved, though, it was hardly surprising that he should be. Castiel's three years in service to that magician had been his most painful on Earth by far.

He couldn't imagine the wide-eyed child he'd saved growing up under the watchful eye of a monster like that.

The painful tug of a proximity marker roused him from his thoughts. They were half a mile from the cabins now. Castiel stopped in his tracks.

"I feel it," he announced, deliberately backing up a step. "Who did Bela buy this from?"

"She didn't buy it," Dean hedged. "Strictly speaking."

"She's a thief, then."

"A great thief, if you take her word for it, and right now, I'm inclined to. She's a pain in the ass, but she gets the job done. Better to have her working for us than the other guys." Dean walked another dozen paces and knelt; when he brushed aside a line of wet leaves, the previously dim glow of an active security line shone through the falling rain. "Good one, then?"

"It probably won't stop a marid," Castiel said, grimacing. Even several yards away, the line tugged unhelpfully at his battered essence. "It will warn you it's coming, though. It would definitely injure a djinni, even one not as damaged as me."

"Awesome," Dean said, rubbing his hands together. "Let's walk the perimeter and make sure there's not a weak spot."

Bela's thieving proved exceptional; Castiel twitched the whole way, and by the time they headed back toward camp, Dean was practically beaming. The beard actually looked nice, Castiel thought, or maybe it was just the relieved smile that gave Dean a less hardened look.

"I won't feel safe," he said cheerfully, "but at least I'll know they're coming."

"All the same," Castiel said dryly, "I'll keep keeping watch."

"You've been keeping watch?" Dean asked, obviously amused.

"At night," Castiel replied. "I perch on the windowsill. I have a good view of the route I followed in. If anyone tries to follow my trail, I'll know."

Dean cleared his throat. The atmosphere went, very suddenly, from joking to serious. The man's discomfort was palpable, but Castiel thought it probably wasn't a bad kind of discomfort. He'd heard there were good kinds, too.

"Thanks, man," Dean said, a little awkwardly.

"I'm part of the Resistance now," Castiel parroted, straight-faced, and Dean let out a loud guffaw, clapping Castiel on the shoulder as they crossed the tree line.

"Careful," he said, grinning. "I'm starting to like you."

The crinkles around Dean's eyes were different when he smiled. The little valleys seemed like welcoming hills rather than dangerous mountains. Castiel watched them as they crossed the courtyard to Dean's cabin, and thought that he was starting to like Dean, too.

*

Sam visited Dean's cabin the next evening, not long after Dean stomped through the door, muttering under his breath. He'd spent most of the morning in the room with the desk, occasionally cursing, before leaving for what Castiel assumed was a routine group meeting. It was after dark when he returned, boots thunking sullenly to the floor, and unlike earlier, he didn't stick his head through Castiel's door to say hello. Judging by the direction of the footsteps, he'd gone right back to the desk room, which was where Sam found him.

Castiel tried not to eavesdrop, but the brothers had short tempers, and an unfortunate habit of raising their voices when they were angry with each other.

"I'm just saying, Dean, now is not the time to mount an assault," Sam said, his voice desperate. Castiel drifted closer to the window and tried very hard to focus on the bird huddling on the windowsill, feathers puffed out to shake off the rain and the cold. "Jess is due soon. Give it a week, maybe, or-"

Something-presumably Dean's fist-slammed into a nearby surface with a hollow thump. "I've told you a hundred times to just get out of here, Sam. We can handle this. I don't need you."

"That's bullshit. I've got the strongest resilience of anyone here, by a long shot-"

"You're compromised." Dean's voice was bitter. "She has to be your priority. Especially now."

"Is that what this is about? You're fucking jealous because you're alone and I'm not?"

"Dammit, Sam, I just want you to be safe. What's gonna happen to her if you die, huh? She'd fucking kill me, for starters."

"That's no reason to take me out of the fight!" Sam shouted.

"It's every reason," Dean replied, more quietly than before. "You've gotta protect your family, man."

"You're my family," Sam said, and his voice was small, too.

"I'm a dead man," Dean said. Castiel could see the set of his jaw in the sound of his words; he had shut down, closed off, and Sam had no chance of reaching him now. "My number's been up for three years. Let it go and get out alive."

Quick, heavy footsteps tracked through the cabin, and then the front door banged shut. Dean's sigh was heavy enough to reach Castiel.

The door creaked open. Castiel turned from the window in time to see Dean drag a second chair into the room and fall into it, beer in hand. He looked as haggard as he had after altering the Mournful Orb.

"We'll need to run a check on all our vehicles tomorrow," he said with a grimace, holding out a second can with a questioning eyebrow. Castiel wondered how long he'd been drinking; the scent of alcohol hovered around him in a thick cloud.

"Again, I must strongly advise that you not orchestrate such a thing at all," Castiel said. He settled into the other chair, opposite Dean, and waved off the beer. Alcohol, like most food and drink, disagreed with his essence, and he was weak enough as it was.

Dean hacked out a laugh. "Are you my advisor now?"

"No one else seems to be capable of doing the job," Castiel said carefully.

Dean scrubbed a hand over his eyes. "Eavesdropper."

"An unfortunate habit," Castiel replied, unapologetic.

"Sam doesn't get it," Dean muttered. "Never has. He doesn't remember that night. He never got sent off to magic camp. Even dad's death didn't really shake him. He's always had that strong-as-fuck resilience, always managed to protect the people he loves. When they came for him and Jess and they were on their own, they got out fine. He doesn't understand that these...people..." His lip curled in distaste, as though the word didn't suit magicians. Castiel quietly agreed. "They're dangerous, and they've got most of the deck stacked against us. I'm trying to make sure he makes it. If...if something happened to him, Jess would kill me. Worse, if something happened to Jess..." Dean's mouth twisted down.

"His wife?"

"Would have been, if we didn't end up in hiding right before they were supposed to make it official. Sudden deaths in the family make weddings kind of tacky." Dean took another deep swig of his beer and made a face. "Christ, I would kill for a decent drink these days."

"And she's..."

"Yeah. Awesome timing, I know. It's a thing for them." The attempt at humor fell flat.

"And you want him to flee. I see."

"What?" Dean said defensively. "You think it's a bad plan?"

"No," Castiel said, shaking his head. "But Sam seems to be a man of action, not unlike yourself. Running and hiding is as much his operating principle as it is yours."

"You have a point." Dean slouched deeper into his chair. His eyes were very bloodshot. Secretly, Castiel agreed with his earlier assessment-he was, indeed, a dead man, if he didn't attempt to take care of himself sometime in the near future. He was surprised to find that that bothered him, a little more than he had expected it to. Human lifetimes were fleeting, and whatever small friendship he had with Dean would not last long, anyway. Better to get it out of the way sooner rather than later, before he became too attached. The thought, strangely, did not soothe him much.

"But he has something to lose," Dean went on, brandishing his beer. "More than me, anyway. If I go down, Sam loses his brother, but that's it. I'm not leaving a kid behind."

"You think you mean so little to your Resistance? That they wouldn't all lose a brother-a son-if you died?"

"Maybe," Dean acquiesced. "But it's not the same."

"Maybe not," Castiel said. "Few things are."

Dean rolled his eyes, but stayed quiet.

"Do you have a plan?" Castiel asked finally.

Dean made another face. "Not one that the others approve of. They shot me down. Said it was too risky. But I think we're running out of time. If there's going to be risk, might as well take it to them."

"Why don't you all run?" Castiel asked. "Aside from your aversion to living a long, healthy life, anyway."

Dean smiled. The crow's feet at the corners of his eyes deepened. He looked younger, somehow, when he was enjoying a good joke. As soon as the expression faded, though, his age crept upon him again, and then some; the years stacked up in every fold and crinkle of his skin. They were thin lines, but Castiel saw time passing too quickly through them.

"There's nowhere to run, Cas," he replied. "They'll always find us. Hell, if you, a djinni on your last leg, could get to us up here, then we really don't stand a chance. And I couldn't live with myself if I didn't go out trying to ruin their lives."

"You wouldn't live at all," Castiel snapped. The desire to grab Dean and shake him was sudden and consuming.

"There are worse things than being dead," Dean returned, just as quickly. His gaze shuffled from Castiel to the window, as though the rainy night was suddenly an object of incredible fascination. Castiel knew better. Perhaps humans were still a little mysterious at times, but one thing they had in common with spirits was their tendency to look away and gather themselves, as though they had something to hide.

Dean took a deep breath-it gasped through his throat, uneven-and gulped down the rest of his beer. Castiel braced himself for being heartily shouted at and asked the obvious question.

"How long were you Alastair's apprentice?"

Dean's fist clenched around the aluminum can, crushing it. "Long enough," he said. His face twisted, as though speaking of it at all caused him unbearable pain, or perhaps blinding rage. Castiel's lighthearted companion of the day before was long gone. "I don't need your pity. I know it fucked me up. I'm over it."

"I didn't need yours, either," Castiel said, treading carefully. "Surprisingly, though, it made me feel better. Not the usual indigestion at all."

For a second, he thought Dean might try to hit him-or maybe re-activate the damaging properties of the modified Mournful Orb still humming around his neck-but instead, the man chuckled reluctantly.

"Wish you wouldn't do that," he said, and before Castiel could ask what, he went on. "Eight years. I was nine when Dad handed me over. I was seventeen when I escaped. I didn't see Sam or dad in all that time. Got letters. Didn't have a lot of opportunity to write back. Not the truth, anyway." His free hand reached up and kneaded his left shoulder. His throat worked, stifling whatever words had been about to emerge.

"I'm surprised you got letters at all," Castiel commented, skirting the more dangerous issues Dean had presented. Going cautiously was the only way to make the taciturn man talk at all. "That's not standard procedure with magicians."

"They're supposed to get you young enough to purge your name, make you forget your parents, but Dad didn't give me up until we were really desperate. It bought the Resistance time. The magicians had a hostage; they were satisfied that Dad wouldn't try anything while his son was there to be punished for his transgressions." He huffed out a hollow laugh. "They didn't know him too well.

"But yeah, I got letters. It was part of the deal. Dad wanted to be able to stay in touch. It was the one concession he asked them for. They knew they would be able to control what I wrote back, so they didn't care. Besides, they hoped they'd convert me. That I would be the perfect thing to take out the Resistance someday. Be their inside man." He cracked open the second beer. "Dad and the magicians were so alike-sometimes I couldn't tell them apart. Sure, Dad never..." Dean swallowed and covered the sudden blind terror in his face with a deep drink. "But he didn't have to. By the time I got back, he couldn't have done anything worse than what Alastair did. And I hated them just as much as he ever had. Maybe more. I put up a fight with Alastair, but I was totally willing to fall in line with Dad. Thought he had all the answers."

"He didn't?"

Dean threw out his arms, indicating their camp. "Does it fucking look like it?" he growled. "The bastard's dead."

Castiel held up his hands, placating. Dean's gaze dropped back to his drink.

"He thought using the shit that guy taught me-the magic-was the answer, since I'd fucked up the original plan. The only way to fight fire with fire. I know I'm good at it." Dean sounded almost ashamed. "But I started young, and there was only so much I could teach him. He got impatient. All the supplies, all the languages. It's a lot of pointless work, being a magician, and he'd already been waiting more than ten years. When it was more than twenty years and we didn't have results, and he still wasn't as good as I was, he had one last spectacular fight with Bobby and took off with Bill to go out in a blaze of glory. Next thing I knew, they were captured, I shuffled everyone into the mountains before the magicians could come knocking, and then they were dead, and everyone was looking at me. Like I was supposed to know what came next."

"You've kept them together," Castiel pointed out quietly. "You kept them alive."

"Lot of good it does if we're all just going to kick it next week," Dean muttered.

It was almost instinctive, the pull that prompted Castiel to reach out. He didn't know what it would accomplish; it felt suspiciously like one of those human things, an emotion he had kept purposely dormant since Jimmy, because if he looked at it too hard he felt gut-wrenchingly devastated. He thought to touch Dean's shoulder, pass back some of the comfort that had been offered to him, but Dean flinched when his hand hovered in range and didn't meet his gaze.

"Don't," he said, quiet and strained. "Just..."

Castiel didn't push, but he couldn't linger there, either, letting the man shoulder silently through his pain. I should leave, he thought, but it seemed cruel to abandon Dean to his harsher memories, and Castiel had long since given up the practice of cruelty.

Summoning some of his reinstated energy, he returned to housecat form and stepped carefully across onto Dean's knees. His muscles stiffened beneath the light tread of paws, but he didn't speak or push Castiel away. The cat stepped delicately up onto the arm of the chair and then hauled itself up to the back. Slowly, Castiel brought a paw to stand on Dean's shoulder. He was still strung tight beneath the pressure, but he didn't fight back.

Deliberately, Castiel settled in. The cat draped itself over the back of the chair, overflowing onto Dean's shoulders, and nudged its face up against Dean's neck. Something that might have been a choked sob or a strangled chuckle died in Dean's throat.

"Cas," he said. "What the hell are you doing?"

"I've heard that small animals are comforting to humans in despair," Castiel deadpanned.

"Furry bastard," Dean muttered, but his head tipped sideways to rest against Castiel's. The djinni felt the tension slowly drain from him. Beneath his paws and through Dean's thin t-shirt, Castiel felt the raised ropes of scar tissue, and tried not to remember the stories told about the magician called Alastair. The man hadn't had an apprentice while Castiel served beneath him.

"Cas," Dean whispered, long moments later. His rough voice was low, defeated. He hadn't lifted the half-full beer to his lips since Castiel had situated himself against his shoulder. Beneath the stench of cheap alcohol, Dean smelled like rich leather and warmed skin. "Can I tell you something?"

The cat nodded. Its ears brushed, feather-light, against Dean's beard.

"I know we're going to lose," he murmured, his eyes closing. "I'm just trying to keep them going. Give them hope until it's over. Sucks to be like this. Knowing how it ends."

"You don't know anything," Castiel tried, but he knew he was far from persuasive, and that the reassurance of a broken spirit would do little to convince Dean.

"Nice try," Dean said, his words slurring, and then his breathing evened out, and he was asleep. The can dropped from his grasp and spilled across the floor, but he didn't wake at the tinny sound of contact, and Castiel watched it spread, wishing bitterly that he didn't care.

Forward to 10. Lull.