Fic: The Ask and the Answer (Dean/Castiel)
Fic the second!
I'm calling this quartet of stories for dc_fireplace Your Face Tomorrow, because I'm feeling a wee bit pretentious today. The title is from an epic three-volume novel by Javier Marías, which I haven't actually read yet, although I did just read his Bad Nature, and it was awesome! Sorry, I'm at work; it's hard to get out of bookseller mode. Um, anyway, yes. Fic.
Title: The Ask and the Answer
Rating: PG
Pairing: pre-Dean/Castiel
Spoilers: General S5
Length: ~3,000 words
Summary: Castiel prays. Someone answers.
Notes: Many thanks, again, to the divine aesc and ebrooklynw!
The Ask and the Answer
“Look,” Dean says, his voice sounding tinny and faraway, imperfectly conveyed via this tiny piece of human technology that Castiel has come to consider invaluable. “We’ll be there in an hour, maybe less. Just wait there, okay?”
Castiel almost offers to come get Dean and his brother, but his vessel’s lips do little more than lightly part before he dismisses the idea. Dean wouldn’t like it, and furthermore Castiel isn’t sure...he has no desire to test it. “All right,” he says, and then he closes the phone and slips it back into his pocket, the connection severed.
For several minutes he stands by the side of the road. Trucks pass, assaulting him with sounds and smells. They seem especially pungent today, or lately. Castiel does not wish to think too intently about that. He does not wish to stand and wait; he feels the vessel’s fingers twitch and knows he desires action. Patience is a virtue, and it has long been one of Castiel’s. But he feels in short supply of it today.
A small grey car skids a little as it takes the turn into the parking lot behind Castiel, forcing him to take a step back. He turns and watches as a family piles out of the vehicle, the driver pausing to convey to him apology in the form of a little half wave and puzzlement in the guise of a quiet frown. Castiel has become more adept at recognizing these displays of emotion, these pieces of silent human communication. He himself must still stand out, however-must still be poor at replicating them-as he and his vigil continue to draw stares. He watches the family retreat inside the confines of the restaurant, their selection of colorful snow boots trudging a path through the brown slush. He looks down at the thin leather shoes his vessel is wearing, at his bare, slightly pink-skinned hands. His breath forms a cloud in the air, fleeting and white. He shuffles his feet, contemplates tucking his hands into his pockets. He suspects that the sharp, tight feeling he is experiencing may be a symptom of the cold.
He casts his gaze toward the restaurant again, and then he is turning fully, and he is walking, crossing the parking lot, then pushing open the door and stepping inside, warmth enveloping his vessel, enveloping him, as above the doorframe a little bell jingles merrily.
A sign instructs Castiel to please seat himself, so he does, choosing a booth by the window so that he can watch for Dean and Sam. After a few minutes during which Castiel inspects his surroundings-the seats are coated in an odd material, both spongy and strangely tacky, almost sticky, to the touch; there are a number of condiments and other small items arrayed at the table’s end, along with several plastic-covered menus which Castiel ignores-a waitress approaches. “What can I get for you, honey?” she asks him.
Castiel glances at her, then back, quickly, to the window; there is an odd blankness to her that disturbs him. “Just a cup of coffee, please,” he says, because he knows that in order to continue to wait here, he must order something, and he has observed that humans, while waiting, often like to sit with their hands curled around a cup of coffee.
The waitress offers him a smile more generous than he perhaps deserves; he can see it reflected in the darkening glass. “Waiting for someone?” she asks.
He turns back to regard her again. She is a tall, broad-shouldered woman of approximately middle-age; her smile is easy, full of teeth that are slightly crooked but very white. She is not blank, Castiel realizes, watching her eye him: he simply cannot see her, into her; when he looks at her her soul is hidden, leaving only the thin shell of her outer self for him to know her by.
Castiel uses his vessel’s hands to grip the edge of the table. “Yes,” he mumbles. “Hopefully he’ll be here soon.”
“Well, I’ll get that coffee to get you started,” the waitress tells him, and then once again, Castiel is alone.
It has become very quiet in his head, without the voices of his brothers. Castiel thinks he understands, now, why Dean likes to leave Dr. Sexy, MD on in the background of his motel rooms, why when he operates his car he likes to turn the music up so very loud. In the silence humans swim through, one’s own thoughts can become deafening. Castiel has always known himself to be careful, pensive, but lately he has found it better to simply act, react-to do before the doubt and worry and fear band together within his brain and halt his movements as surely as a circle of holy fire.
But now he must wait.
Once Castiel used to revel in quiet reflection: it was time to seek revelation, to devote to prayer, to silently glory in the power of God. He still prays. But it is not the same. There is, Castiel knows, a desperation to his prayers now: they have become pleas. Sitting in this restaurant, where he has retreated to warm a body that should not require heating, curling his hands around the cup of coffee the waitress has brought him, Castiel thinks: Please. His head bowed, he stares into the dark liquid. Please guide me. Show me the right path, Father. Help me find the way.
He does not expect a response. He never has, but lately-lately the silence he hears in return has started to matter. The silence invites doubt. What can it be besides proof that he is cast out, abandoned, alone?
There is a sudden slap of a palm against the tabletop, and the sound of a body sliding across the booth’s slick covering. Castiel looks up, startled-a feeling that is quickly replaced by alarm when he sees the face that is staring back at him.
The face is wearing a smile. “Hi,” it says. “So we’re doing this now, I guess.”
Castiel carries a silver knife now; Bobby had given it to him, which had made Castiel experience a sort of swelling sensation in his vessel’s chest-surprise; perhaps pleasure. It shall certainly prove useful in a moment such as this: Castiel smoothly reaching for it beneath the table. “What are you?” he asks, simply.
The thing on the other side of the table remains calm, confident, unafraid. “I think you know,” it says. “Even without my telling you that Bobby Singer gave you that knife.” It watches him, and its eyes blink as it studies him, shoulders relaxed as it slouches in the seat across from Castiel. “You couldn’t get a read on that waitress, but me? You’d know me anywhere, Castiel.”
The word emerges before he can stop it, dropping from between his vessel’s lips. A plea. “No.”
The face across from him displays sympathy, even empathy-the man leaning forward with a quiet nod. His blue eyes are kind. “Yes.”
Castiel feels emotion welling up inside him, the reaction itself a painful reminder of the problem. The body he wears seems suddenly very busy-chest contracting, muscles tightening, moisture squeezing its way to the outer corners of his eyes. “I had hoped,” he says carefully, “that there would be some other way...”
The man nods. “I know. But after everything, could you really see yourself going back? Being what you were?”
Castiel looks down at the human hands that have moved back up to the tabletop to feel the comforting warmth of the coffee; he can feel the heat seeping into him. “But what I...what I was is all I know.”
He catches a quick flash of a smile. “There’s so much else to know, though. You’ll see. It’s not going to be easy-there’s no point in my lying to you. But parts are going to be good. Parts are going to be so good.”
Over the past year, Castiel has come to realize for the first time that he is capable of self-delusion. He is capable of believing in something so fully, so trustingly, that it can blind him to the truth. He wants to believe this.
But, “Of course you feel that way,” he tells the man across from him, and as he does he unmasks himself a little, lets the inherent power of his being waft around them both like a cloud of gas, a charged electric field. “You’ve lost the capacity to even fully understand what you’re missing. What you were.”
A flicker of emotion is there, suddenly, nakedly, on the other man’s face. Castiel watches the muscles in his jaw twitch, and he knows what the man is feeling; lately he’s begun to feel his own body react that way. They are too close, Castiel thinks, but he doesn’t lean back in the booth; he doesn’t get up and walk-or fly-away.
“You may be right,” the man says. “I can only tell you what I know, only talk to you from the perspective I have now.” He glances around the diner. “This is the early part of 2010. January, right?”
He is wrong, and part of Castiel is maliciously pleased. “By the Gregorian calendar, it is February 2nd,” he informs him, and Castiel feels his vessel’s lips curve when he thinks about what else the man may still be wrong about.
But the man just laughs. “Of course! How perfect. I can’t believe I forgot.” He apparently notices the puzzlement Castiel doesn’t mind showing, and his grin grows. “There’s another gap in your education. But Dean’ll take care of it, you’ll see.”
Dean, Castiel thinks, and as usual, a rush of information assaults him: everything he was told in his initial briefing about the Righteous Man, called instantly to the forefront of his mind. But with it now, clouding and confusing, comes everything he has since observed about Dean Winchester: the buried beauty of his troubled soul, a thousand expressions Castiel has seen cross his face, the words they’ve exchanged, silent moments Castiel’s witnessed, and the feelings all of these moments have evoked-the triumph and disappointment and awe and fear and worry and love and hope- It’s getting to be too much for Castiel to handle; angels were simply not built to have relationships as complicated as the one between Castiel and Dean has become.
He does now as he always does, and carefully closes it all away. The essential question needs to be focused on, needs to be posed. “Dean-” he manages, and he knows he doesn’t have to say any more for them to both know what he’s really asking.
“You have to realize that one of the constraints of my being here is that I’m not supposed to give away the ending,” the man says. But when Castiel looks at him, there’s a sly, sideways tilt to his eyes. Castiel is surprised to realize that he recognizes the expression, knows just how it feels to make it. “All I can tell you is that I’m happy. I have no regrets. And of course, I still know how to follow orders.” He tilts his chin up and affects a seriousness that makes Castiel shiver, it’s such a perfect parody. “As always, I play by the rules.”
Castiel feels some of the tightness in chest ease. He shouldn’t, he knows: not with all that’s staring him in the face. And yet he feels, for a second, something very like happiness, like surety, like peace.
“Have faith, Cas,” the man says. “Have faith in yourself. Try not to give yourself an ego, but-”
“Well, look at the two of you.”
Castiel’s gaze snaps back up, more startled than he ought to be. The waitress is back, standing at the foot of their table and looking back and forth between them with a grin on her face. “You know, I have a couple of cousins who are twins. Known ’em all my life and still can’t tell ’em apart. Makes the holidays awkward. What can I get you, sugar?”
“I’ll have a milkshake, please,” Castiel’s companion says. “Strawberry.”
“Sure thing. Anything else for you?” she asks Castiel.
“No, thank you.” He manages something like a smile until she walks away. It slides off his face as soon as he looks back across the table.
“Dean will be here soon,” Castiel says. The sense of peace he felt before has dissolved-even the shadow memory of it seems questionable.
“Don’t worry, I’ll be long gone,” the man says. “You interrupted my dinner, though, so I thought I’d have a snack.”
Castiel watches him shift himself in his seat, so many motions-not nervous, but instinctive, unconscious. Every action Castiel puts his borrowed body through is deliberate.
Such as now: lowering his chin, looking slightly down his nose. “It does not bother you? To be ruled by such constant, petty needs?”
The man snorts and shakes his head. “Now you sound like Zachariah. You don’t really think of humans as such inferior creatures.”
Castiel stays silent, stays still.
Suddenly, the man laughs. “Oh, I remember this part!” he says. “You’re trying to think of a way to draw a comparison to dogs or cats or chickens or chimpanzees without sounding offensive.”
Castiel does not flush-he’s fairly sure he’s not physically capable. He stares down at his coffee cup, and his eyes are still downcast when the waitress returns with a tall glass, filled past its brim with a thick pink substance and a hefty crest of whipped cream. “Enjoy,” he hears her say.
“Thank you,” says the man. “I will.”
“You have me at quite the disadvantage,” Castiel says, once she’s walked away again.
“I know.” His words are slurred somewhat, and when Castiel glances up, there’s a long silver spoon sliding out of his mouth. “I’ve been where you are. I prayed as you prayed. And I got my answer.”
“And you just accepted it?” Castiel demands.
“No.” Licking whipped cream off his long fingers. “Of course not. I fought it every second. I fought and I held onto my grace long enough to see them through. I held on just long enough,” he says, a seriousness to his expression that wasn’t there before, “and then I simply...let go.”
“Your surrendered,” Castiel says, and he’s sure he intends to make his lip curl.
“If you like,” the man says. There’s a whole strawberry cushioned in the cloud of whipped cream, and he plucks it between thumb and forefinger, places it between his lips, then sucks the fruit, almost obscenely, into his mouth. “I know you want me to be sorry. I wanted me to be sorry. But I’m not.”
He grins, then. There are lines-new lines-at the corners of his eyes; proof that he has aged, he has lived, he has grown. They are not in fact identical. “There’s so much else to do.”
“Dean,” he adds. “Dean will be here soon.” He half stands, then bends over to take a final slurp of his drink. “Thanks for the milkshake.” He moves fluidly, easily, out from between the table and the seat, and as he does, Castiel sees the corner of his mouth twitch again. “You’ll be seeing me,” he says.
“We shall see,” Castiel says, his back straight, his hands flat on his knees.
“Yes, we shall,” the man says, then turns slightly like he’s caught sight of something over his shoulder, something too distant for Castiel to see. The look that crosses his face is- Castiel can’t quite name it. Beatific, maybe. But rawer-less saintly, more human-than that.
Before Castiel can study it further, he’s gone.
For several seconds, he sits alone, in silence-but not in prayer, not in anything like prayer. Then he hears the tinkling of a bell, and his senses fill with Dean, the warm tumbling pulse that courses through Castiel, indicating that he is near. He doesn’t turn his head, but takes a moment to breathe quietly, listening to the tromp of their boots as they walk toward him, smelling of leather and damp canvas and always, faintly, of gun oil.
“Sorry, this weather’s a bitch,” Dean says. He slides gracelessly into the booth across from Castiel. Sam follows, awkwardly folding his long legs. “Are you eating a milkshake?”
“I am finished,” Castiel tells him.
“Your loss,” Dean says. Castiel watches as he pulls the glass eagerly toward his body. As an afterthought, Castiel pushes his coffee cup toward Sam-it has stayed warm in his hands, so there’s that. There’s still that.
“Thanks,” Sam says. He reaches for the artificial sweetener.
Castiel gazes past him, to Dean, who’s shoveling whipped cream in his face, his mouth kissing the lip of that long silver spoon. “Mmm,” he says. “This is good. You sure you don’t want more of this?”
Castiel looks away, turning to stare out at the snowy parking lot, and is met with his reflection in the darkened glass.
“Not right now,” he says.
NOTE: The Ask and the Answer is the title of a Patrick Ness novel that I actually don’t care for. Pretty good title, though!
I'm calling this quartet of stories for dc_fireplace Your Face Tomorrow, because I'm feeling a wee bit pretentious today. The title is from an epic three-volume novel by Javier Marías, which I haven't actually read yet, although I did just read his Bad Nature, and it was awesome! Sorry, I'm at work; it's hard to get out of bookseller mode. Um, anyway, yes. Fic.
Title: The Ask and the Answer
Rating: PG
Pairing: pre-Dean/Castiel
Spoilers: General S5
Length: ~3,000 words
Summary: Castiel prays. Someone answers.
Notes: Many thanks, again, to the divine aesc and ebrooklynw!
The Ask and the Answer
“Look,” Dean says, his voice sounding tinny and faraway, imperfectly conveyed via this tiny piece of human technology that Castiel has come to consider invaluable. “We’ll be there in an hour, maybe less. Just wait there, okay?”
Castiel almost offers to come get Dean and his brother, but his vessel’s lips do little more than lightly part before he dismisses the idea. Dean wouldn’t like it, and furthermore Castiel isn’t sure...he has no desire to test it. “All right,” he says, and then he closes the phone and slips it back into his pocket, the connection severed.
For several minutes he stands by the side of the road. Trucks pass, assaulting him with sounds and smells. They seem especially pungent today, or lately. Castiel does not wish to think too intently about that. He does not wish to stand and wait; he feels the vessel’s fingers twitch and knows he desires action. Patience is a virtue, and it has long been one of Castiel’s. But he feels in short supply of it today.
A small grey car skids a little as it takes the turn into the parking lot behind Castiel, forcing him to take a step back. He turns and watches as a family piles out of the vehicle, the driver pausing to convey to him apology in the form of a little half wave and puzzlement in the guise of a quiet frown. Castiel has become more adept at recognizing these displays of emotion, these pieces of silent human communication. He himself must still stand out, however-must still be poor at replicating them-as he and his vigil continue to draw stares. He watches the family retreat inside the confines of the restaurant, their selection of colorful snow boots trudging a path through the brown slush. He looks down at the thin leather shoes his vessel is wearing, at his bare, slightly pink-skinned hands. His breath forms a cloud in the air, fleeting and white. He shuffles his feet, contemplates tucking his hands into his pockets. He suspects that the sharp, tight feeling he is experiencing may be a symptom of the cold.
He casts his gaze toward the restaurant again, and then he is turning fully, and he is walking, crossing the parking lot, then pushing open the door and stepping inside, warmth enveloping his vessel, enveloping him, as above the doorframe a little bell jingles merrily.
A sign instructs Castiel to please seat himself, so he does, choosing a booth by the window so that he can watch for Dean and Sam. After a few minutes during which Castiel inspects his surroundings-the seats are coated in an odd material, both spongy and strangely tacky, almost sticky, to the touch; there are a number of condiments and other small items arrayed at the table’s end, along with several plastic-covered menus which Castiel ignores-a waitress approaches. “What can I get for you, honey?” she asks him.
Castiel glances at her, then back, quickly, to the window; there is an odd blankness to her that disturbs him. “Just a cup of coffee, please,” he says, because he knows that in order to continue to wait here, he must order something, and he has observed that humans, while waiting, often like to sit with their hands curled around a cup of coffee.
The waitress offers him a smile more generous than he perhaps deserves; he can see it reflected in the darkening glass. “Waiting for someone?” she asks.
He turns back to regard her again. She is a tall, broad-shouldered woman of approximately middle-age; her smile is easy, full of teeth that are slightly crooked but very white. She is not blank, Castiel realizes, watching her eye him: he simply cannot see her, into her; when he looks at her her soul is hidden, leaving only the thin shell of her outer self for him to know her by.
Castiel uses his vessel’s hands to grip the edge of the table. “Yes,” he mumbles. “Hopefully he’ll be here soon.”
“Well, I’ll get that coffee to get you started,” the waitress tells him, and then once again, Castiel is alone.
It has become very quiet in his head, without the voices of his brothers. Castiel thinks he understands, now, why Dean likes to leave Dr. Sexy, MD on in the background of his motel rooms, why when he operates his car he likes to turn the music up so very loud. In the silence humans swim through, one’s own thoughts can become deafening. Castiel has always known himself to be careful, pensive, but lately he has found it better to simply act, react-to do before the doubt and worry and fear band together within his brain and halt his movements as surely as a circle of holy fire.
But now he must wait.
Once Castiel used to revel in quiet reflection: it was time to seek revelation, to devote to prayer, to silently glory in the power of God. He still prays. But it is not the same. There is, Castiel knows, a desperation to his prayers now: they have become pleas. Sitting in this restaurant, where he has retreated to warm a body that should not require heating, curling his hands around the cup of coffee the waitress has brought him, Castiel thinks: Please. His head bowed, he stares into the dark liquid. Please guide me. Show me the right path, Father. Help me find the way.
He does not expect a response. He never has, but lately-lately the silence he hears in return has started to matter. The silence invites doubt. What can it be besides proof that he is cast out, abandoned, alone?
There is a sudden slap of a palm against the tabletop, and the sound of a body sliding across the booth’s slick covering. Castiel looks up, startled-a feeling that is quickly replaced by alarm when he sees the face that is staring back at him.
The face is wearing a smile. “Hi,” it says. “So we’re doing this now, I guess.”
Castiel carries a silver knife now; Bobby had given it to him, which had made Castiel experience a sort of swelling sensation in his vessel’s chest-surprise; perhaps pleasure. It shall certainly prove useful in a moment such as this: Castiel smoothly reaching for it beneath the table. “What are you?” he asks, simply.
The thing on the other side of the table remains calm, confident, unafraid. “I think you know,” it says. “Even without my telling you that Bobby Singer gave you that knife.” It watches him, and its eyes blink as it studies him, shoulders relaxed as it slouches in the seat across from Castiel. “You couldn’t get a read on that waitress, but me? You’d know me anywhere, Castiel.”
The word emerges before he can stop it, dropping from between his vessel’s lips. A plea. “No.”
The face across from him displays sympathy, even empathy-the man leaning forward with a quiet nod. His blue eyes are kind. “Yes.”
Castiel feels emotion welling up inside him, the reaction itself a painful reminder of the problem. The body he wears seems suddenly very busy-chest contracting, muscles tightening, moisture squeezing its way to the outer corners of his eyes. “I had hoped,” he says carefully, “that there would be some other way...”
The man nods. “I know. But after everything, could you really see yourself going back? Being what you were?”
Castiel looks down at the human hands that have moved back up to the tabletop to feel the comforting warmth of the coffee; he can feel the heat seeping into him. “But what I...what I was is all I know.”
He catches a quick flash of a smile. “There’s so much else to know, though. You’ll see. It’s not going to be easy-there’s no point in my lying to you. But parts are going to be good. Parts are going to be so good.”
Over the past year, Castiel has come to realize for the first time that he is capable of self-delusion. He is capable of believing in something so fully, so trustingly, that it can blind him to the truth. He wants to believe this.
But, “Of course you feel that way,” he tells the man across from him, and as he does he unmasks himself a little, lets the inherent power of his being waft around them both like a cloud of gas, a charged electric field. “You’ve lost the capacity to even fully understand what you’re missing. What you were.”
A flicker of emotion is there, suddenly, nakedly, on the other man’s face. Castiel watches the muscles in his jaw twitch, and he knows what the man is feeling; lately he’s begun to feel his own body react that way. They are too close, Castiel thinks, but he doesn’t lean back in the booth; he doesn’t get up and walk-or fly-away.
“You may be right,” the man says. “I can only tell you what I know, only talk to you from the perspective I have now.” He glances around the diner. “This is the early part of 2010. January, right?”
He is wrong, and part of Castiel is maliciously pleased. “By the Gregorian calendar, it is February 2nd,” he informs him, and Castiel feels his vessel’s lips curve when he thinks about what else the man may still be wrong about.
But the man just laughs. “Of course! How perfect. I can’t believe I forgot.” He apparently notices the puzzlement Castiel doesn’t mind showing, and his grin grows. “There’s another gap in your education. But Dean’ll take care of it, you’ll see.”
Dean, Castiel thinks, and as usual, a rush of information assaults him: everything he was told in his initial briefing about the Righteous Man, called instantly to the forefront of his mind. But with it now, clouding and confusing, comes everything he has since observed about Dean Winchester: the buried beauty of his troubled soul, a thousand expressions Castiel has seen cross his face, the words they’ve exchanged, silent moments Castiel’s witnessed, and the feelings all of these moments have evoked-the triumph and disappointment and awe and fear and worry and love and hope- It’s getting to be too much for Castiel to handle; angels were simply not built to have relationships as complicated as the one between Castiel and Dean has become.
He does now as he always does, and carefully closes it all away. The essential question needs to be focused on, needs to be posed. “Dean-” he manages, and he knows he doesn’t have to say any more for them to both know what he’s really asking.
“You have to realize that one of the constraints of my being here is that I’m not supposed to give away the ending,” the man says. But when Castiel looks at him, there’s a sly, sideways tilt to his eyes. Castiel is surprised to realize that he recognizes the expression, knows just how it feels to make it. “All I can tell you is that I’m happy. I have no regrets. And of course, I still know how to follow orders.” He tilts his chin up and affects a seriousness that makes Castiel shiver, it’s such a perfect parody. “As always, I play by the rules.”
Castiel feels some of the tightness in chest ease. He shouldn’t, he knows: not with all that’s staring him in the face. And yet he feels, for a second, something very like happiness, like surety, like peace.
“Have faith, Cas,” the man says. “Have faith in yourself. Try not to give yourself an ego, but-”
“Well, look at the two of you.”
Castiel’s gaze snaps back up, more startled than he ought to be. The waitress is back, standing at the foot of their table and looking back and forth between them with a grin on her face. “You know, I have a couple of cousins who are twins. Known ’em all my life and still can’t tell ’em apart. Makes the holidays awkward. What can I get you, sugar?”
“I’ll have a milkshake, please,” Castiel’s companion says. “Strawberry.”
“Sure thing. Anything else for you?” she asks Castiel.
“No, thank you.” He manages something like a smile until she walks away. It slides off his face as soon as he looks back across the table.
“Dean will be here soon,” Castiel says. The sense of peace he felt before has dissolved-even the shadow memory of it seems questionable.
“Don’t worry, I’ll be long gone,” the man says. “You interrupted my dinner, though, so I thought I’d have a snack.”
Castiel watches him shift himself in his seat, so many motions-not nervous, but instinctive, unconscious. Every action Castiel puts his borrowed body through is deliberate.
Such as now: lowering his chin, looking slightly down his nose. “It does not bother you? To be ruled by such constant, petty needs?”
The man snorts and shakes his head. “Now you sound like Zachariah. You don’t really think of humans as such inferior creatures.”
Castiel stays silent, stays still.
Suddenly, the man laughs. “Oh, I remember this part!” he says. “You’re trying to think of a way to draw a comparison to dogs or cats or chickens or chimpanzees without sounding offensive.”
Castiel does not flush-he’s fairly sure he’s not physically capable. He stares down at his coffee cup, and his eyes are still downcast when the waitress returns with a tall glass, filled past its brim with a thick pink substance and a hefty crest of whipped cream. “Enjoy,” he hears her say.
“Thank you,” says the man. “I will.”
“You have me at quite the disadvantage,” Castiel says, once she’s walked away again.
“I know.” His words are slurred somewhat, and when Castiel glances up, there’s a long silver spoon sliding out of his mouth. “I’ve been where you are. I prayed as you prayed. And I got my answer.”
“And you just accepted it?” Castiel demands.
“No.” Licking whipped cream off his long fingers. “Of course not. I fought it every second. I fought and I held onto my grace long enough to see them through. I held on just long enough,” he says, a seriousness to his expression that wasn’t there before, “and then I simply...let go.”
“Your surrendered,” Castiel says, and he’s sure he intends to make his lip curl.
“If you like,” the man says. There’s a whole strawberry cushioned in the cloud of whipped cream, and he plucks it between thumb and forefinger, places it between his lips, then sucks the fruit, almost obscenely, into his mouth. “I know you want me to be sorry. I wanted me to be sorry. But I’m not.”
He grins, then. There are lines-new lines-at the corners of his eyes; proof that he has aged, he has lived, he has grown. They are not in fact identical. “There’s so much else to do.”
“Dean,” he adds. “Dean will be here soon.” He half stands, then bends over to take a final slurp of his drink. “Thanks for the milkshake.” He moves fluidly, easily, out from between the table and the seat, and as he does, Castiel sees the corner of his mouth twitch again. “You’ll be seeing me,” he says.
“We shall see,” Castiel says, his back straight, his hands flat on his knees.
“Yes, we shall,” the man says, then turns slightly like he’s caught sight of something over his shoulder, something too distant for Castiel to see. The look that crosses his face is- Castiel can’t quite name it. Beatific, maybe. But rawer-less saintly, more human-than that.
Before Castiel can study it further, he’s gone.
For several seconds, he sits alone, in silence-but not in prayer, not in anything like prayer. Then he hears the tinkling of a bell, and his senses fill with Dean, the warm tumbling pulse that courses through Castiel, indicating that he is near. He doesn’t turn his head, but takes a moment to breathe quietly, listening to the tromp of their boots as they walk toward him, smelling of leather and damp canvas and always, faintly, of gun oil.
“Sorry, this weather’s a bitch,” Dean says. He slides gracelessly into the booth across from Castiel. Sam follows, awkwardly folding his long legs. “Are you eating a milkshake?”
“I am finished,” Castiel tells him.
“Your loss,” Dean says. Castiel watches as he pulls the glass eagerly toward his body. As an afterthought, Castiel pushes his coffee cup toward Sam-it has stayed warm in his hands, so there’s that. There’s still that.
“Thanks,” Sam says. He reaches for the artificial sweetener.
Castiel gazes past him, to Dean, who’s shoveling whipped cream in his face, his mouth kissing the lip of that long silver spoon. “Mmm,” he says. “This is good. You sure you don’t want more of this?”
Castiel looks away, turning to stare out at the snowy parking lot, and is met with his reflection in the darkened glass.
“Not right now,” he says.
NOTE: The Ask and the Answer is the title of a Patrick Ness novel that I actually don’t care for. Pretty good title, though!