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spn fic: he is a feather in the wind
Title: he is a feather in the wind
Paring: Castiel/Dean
Rating: PG
Words: ~3,300
Summary: Darkness. Stillness. Castiel has been here before — briefly, but more than once. As Dean would say, this isn't his first rodeo.
Notes: Vague spoilers for the $44 Season 13 promo.
[AO3]
he is a feather in the wind
Darkness. Stillness. Castiel has been here before — briefly, but more than once. As Dean would say, this isn't his first rodeo.
The Empty isn't a place so much as an idea. Castiel isn't really in it; his grace — the light and intent that was his being — has already returned to the stardust and firmament his father used to shape all his creations. But Castiel spent too long walking on earth and among humans and wearing a human form. The tranquility he experienced here before has been shattered by a restlessness that seems to prickle at the skin he no longer has. He feels as if he's trapped in a lightless room. As if he's been buried alive.
For dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return. Castiel has been ground down to atoms, but he still can't rest. And that had been his father's intent when he set the Empty aside — a place where angels could find peace after an eternity of war and obedience and celestial service.
+
"We need him," Sam says stubbornly.
This isn't the first time they've had this argument — it probably isn't even the tenth. But Dean doesn't want to have it again at a Pump N Munch in Pine City at six-thirty-seven in the morning.
A driving rain is beating at the rusty sheet of corrugated iron above his head. He frowns at the oil-slick puddle spreading under the Impala's front tires and grunts, "Whatever."
"Look, I get that you're —" Sam darts a glance at the kid and makes half a hand gesture. "Mom —"
"Damn it, Sam. You — don't." The gas nozzle clunks; Dean yanks it out of the Impala and slams it back on the pump. "Just don't."
"Dean —"
"Mom's gone," Dean snaps. A deep ache digs into his chest. "She's gone, and she ain't coming back."
Sam's mouth pinches. "He can do it."
Dean looks at the kid. He's standing under the mini-mart's red and blue canvas awning, watching the sky as more gunmetal stormclouds gather over I-35. He's got some serious juice, but he's got no clue what he's doing with it. He couldn't grab ahold of it long enough to bust them out of jail until he was furious, and then he nearly brought the whole fucking building down on their heads.
"Yeah, maybe," Dean says, clenching his hand around his keys. "Maybe he'll end up ripping a hole in the matrix and screwing us all up."
Sam says, "Dean," but Dean shrugs him off and looks at the Jack again.
"C'mon, kid." He raps his knuckles on the Impala's roof. "Get in the car."
+
"You're a disappointment," Michael says coldly.
He isn't actually here. Nothing is, except for Castiel. But he seems real enough. Castiel doesn't see him as Adam Milligan or John Winchester, but rather as their father created him — a seething nebula of fire so bright it blazes blue-white, righteous and terrifying.
"You should be ashamed of yourself."
Castiel isn't. He regrets that Dean and Sam had to watch him die, and he regrets that he left so many things unsaid. But the rest of it — the angels he killed, the people, the things his human body did while Lucifer used him as a vessel — they've been crushed into atoms and scattered across the universe. He can't touch them, and they can't touch him.
"Look at you." Formless, Michael's voice sparks and snaps like a live current. "You're a disgrace. All you've done — all you've failed to do — and your only thoughts are for those humans you wallowed with."
Something ripples in the Empty's fabric, skittering along what would be the horizon if the Empty truly had a shape.
"You betrayed your brethren, Castiel. Heaven had a plan. You shouldn't have interfered."
If the plan had been better, Castiel might not have.
+
The radio buzzes like a neon sign, and a guy with a two-pack-a-day voice rumbles, "As of Saturday, five percent of soybeans are harvested."
Dean drums his fingers on the steering wheel. They're pushing down US 65, through a dead, boring stretch of farmland north of Des Moines. They ditched the rain outside of Hubbard, but the sky is still heavy and gray. The Impala's windshield is streaked with water and dust.
"Topsoil moisture levels are twenty-two percent."
Dean turns the volume down, but it only takes a minute for the silence to start eating at him. Sam is dozing in the passenger seat, and the kid — the kid is in the back, staring straight ahead and sitting like he's got a stick up his ass. Dean shoves at Sam's knee until Sam grunts and shifts. Then he reaches over and fumbles the glove compartment open.
Before he can grab a tape, the kid says, "You don't like me."
He doesn't sound like he cares either way, so Dean doesn't bother bullshitting him. "Nope."
"You think I'm evil, like my father."
"Yep."
The kid pulls a face in the rearview mirror that's probably supposed to be a frown. After a pause, he says, "You aren't what I expected. Sam either, but mostly you. Castiel —"
Dean jerks the wheel. "Don't."
The kid pauses again. His hair is curling down over one eye. "I tried to bring him back."
"Yeah, well. You didn't."
"He was —"
Dean turns the volume back up and leans on the gas.
"...Fifty-two percent of corn has reached maturity, five days behind average."
+
"Hello, little brother."
Lucifer shines brightly for a moment — as magnificent and luminous as he'd been before the Fall. Then the Empty ripples again and he has Jimmy Novak's face. He's wearing Castiel's clothes with an ease Castiel never truly managed despite eight long years on earth — his sleeves rolled up, his collar unbuttoned, his tie askew.
"Surprised to see me?"
Castiel isn't.
"You know, I have to admit… I had fun riding around in your skin." Lucifer twists a smile onto Castiel's face and slowly flexes Castiel's hands. "We had some good times."
Castiel's restlessness returns. He is intangible here, now, but he still feels it, an echo of an echo of an echo.
"Do you remember Rowena? She really was a looker." With a wistful sigh, Lucifer continues, "It's a shame she had such delicate bones."
Castiel spent most of his submission hiding from the gravity of yet another stupid decision. From a wretched course he couldn't alter once he'd set it in motion. But they killed Rowena before Lucifer had truly settled beneath Castiel's skin, so Castiel had felt the snap of her bones. Lucifer had been inexorable, and Castiel had been unable to stop him.
"Hey, we killed a few angels too. And —" Lucifer smiles again and wags his finger accusingly "— we almost killed your old pal Sam. If you hadn't scratched your way to the surface…."
The Empty doesn't have walls, but Castiel feels them closing in.
"And now," Lucifer drawls, "now, you're dead. You're dead, and my son's running around with Laurel and Hardy." After a pause, he clucks his tongue. "Castiel, Castiel, Castiel. You were supposed to look out for him. You promised Kelly you wouldn't leave him alone."
Castiel remembers that. At least, he thinks he remembers it. It's been a long time since he could trust his own memories.
+
Dean can't sleep. He doesn't know if it's because of the Red Label he had for dinner, or because the devil's kid is in his fucking house. Maybe both. A sick, uneasy feeling keeps slithering around in his gut. When he closes his eyes, he sees the angel blade spearing out through Cas' chest and the light flaring from Cas' eyes and mouth. He sees Lucifer yanking his mom into the hole Jack ripped in the air.
He should've done something. He — fuck. He plays both scenarios over and over in his mind, looking for the windows he missed, the opportunities he didn't take.
Sometime after midnight, he gives up tossing and turning and heads out into the library to float some beer on top of the bourbon. He drinks the first two standing in front of the mini fridge. Then he grabs two more and shuffles back down the hallway.
Cas' door opens with a slow, tired creak. Dean hits the switch on the wall; the lights hum before flickering on. A lore book is sitting on Cas' nightstand and his spare tie is looped over the back of his chair. Dean sucks in a few breaths with his forehead pressed against the jamb. His chest hurts. His hands shake as he pops the cap on one of the beers.
The air in the room smells musty and stale. Cas never used it much; he usually hung out in the kitchen or the library. Sometimes, he sat on the wobbly stool in the garage while Dean worked on the Impala. Sometimes, he used the TV in the den to watch whatever new show Sam had hooked him on that week.
"Damn it, Cas."
Dean sinks down onto the ugly green couch beside Cas' bed. He sets his empty beer bottle on the floor, then opens the other one and kills the neck in one long swallow. His gut doesn't want it; he grits his teeth and breathes through his nose just to keep it down.
"You — God. Fuck."
He isn't praying. Not really. As far as he's concerned, he did his last bit of praying the night Cas died. He doesn't know how long he knelt there, breathing in ozone and wet sand and begging someone — anyone, anything — to bring Cas back.
He was out there long enough for Cas' hand to get stiff and cold between his. Long enough to figure out that no one was fucking listening.
+
Uriel rages at him, his grace churning and howling like a maelstrom in the choppiest reaches of the sea.
"I gave you a chance, Castiel. All you had to do was be unafraid."
+
Sam comes back with two large coffees from the Gas & Sip across the street. He frowns at Dean for a couple of seconds before asking, "You alright?"
The sun is a furious, yellow smear behind his shoulder. Squinting, Dean snatches one of the coffees. "I'm at a dog park at ass o'clock on a Sunday. What do you think?"
"Did you have other plans?"
"Well, the Chiefs are playing later."
Sam snorts and turns back toward the park. It's a lopsided square of grass dotted with low benches made from composite decking and the kind of trees that shed bark and drop burrs everywhere. A tube and tire exercise course is set up along the back fence. Near the parking lot, a teenager with bubblegum-pink hair is walking a tan poodle. Across from her, a woman and her three kids are watching a pair of huskies fight over a tennis ball. It doesn't look like the kind of place someone goes to get their throat torn out.
Two someones, actually, but Dean rubs his face and gripes, "Man, there's nothing here. You sure the coroner said dog mauling?"
Sam nods. "Yep."
"She — dog, not wolf?"
"She said dog. A big one. But she —" Sam shrugs and sips his coffee. "There aren't any wolves in this area. Maybe she just didn't want to sound nuts."
Dean sighs. "Whatever. I'm —" He cuts off as the chick with poodle walks by. She has to tug the dog along a couple of times. Once she's gone, he shakes his head and says, "We're wasting our time."
"Probably, yeah."
Dean rubs his face again and glances at the kid. He's about a hundred feet away, sitting as still as a statue on one of the only benches in the sun. The collar of his shirt is turned up under his ear. He's watching two college-aged guys play fetch with an elderly sheltie.
One of the huskies starts barking. Dean stands and says, "C'mon. Let's go. Get Rosemary's Baby in the car."
Sam huffs out a noise. "Dude, will you ease up already?"
"No."
"Dean, you —"
"No, Sam. He's a fucking timebomb." Dean chucks his coffee in the trash, even though the cup's almost full. "If he hasn't gone big bad yet, he will."
"You don't know that."
"Yeah, I do."
+
"Hey, bro. Long time no anything."
Castiel sees Gabriel as he best remembers him — not as a vast, brilliant sweep of grace, but as a short man with brown hair and a joke hidden in the corner of his mouth.
Gabriel takes a slow look around and whistles through his teeth. "This place sucks. And you're not even doing it right. You should be dust in the wind, dude."
Something rustles at the farthest edges of Castiel's awareness. He shouldn't be aware of anything. Everything he was should've been shattered into motes too small to comprehend and scattered throughout the burning swirls of gas that make up the stars.
"Looks like something's holding you back," Gabriel says thoughtfully. "Something on earth. It's keeping you from — you know. Communing with the galaxy like Dad intended."
Another rustle. Castiel recalls the threads of grace he used to soothe and repair Dean's Hell-ravaged soul. He'd only spared a speck, but it had been enough to leave behind a mark. He removed the brand on Dean's shoulder when he healed him at Stull, but the grace itself had been buried too deeply. More importantly, Castiel had wanted Dean to keep it, although at the time he hadn't understood why.
"You've got to decide, kid. You can stay here like this and never really rest, or you can head back down to earth and finish your business."
Castiel reaches.
+
The sheltie lunges at Dean, growling and snapping its teeth. Dean fires off a shot as he reels back, but it arcs wide — wide enough that he hears the bullet chip one of the concrete pillars. He stumbles back another step. The sheltie lunges again and barrels straight into his chest.
"Dean," Sam shouts.
Teeth graze Dean's wrist. Dean plants his feet and bucks up, and he and the sheltie roll across the floor. The sheltie shifts; by the time they finally skid to a stop, Dean's got his hand around the throat of an older dude with a grizzled face and ginger patches in his gray beard.
Dean shoves the guy off and gropes around for his gun. Grunting, the guy heaves himself to his knees. Then he yelps and flies through the air and slams against the wall.
Jack's eyes are bright and gold.
Slowly, Dean gets to his feet. He shivers as something prickles at the back of his neck.
+
Raphael doesn't speak. She just stares at Castiel with dark, furious eyes and an angel blade clenched in her fist.
Castiel reaches, and reaches, and reaches.
+
The last song on the tape is "All My Love." Dean almost didn't include it because it felt too pathetic and obvious.
The synthesizer starts after a soft, magnetic hiss. Dean closes his eyes. He tips his head back against the wall and tries to breathe through the knot burning in his throat.
Should I fall out of love, my fire in the light / To chase a feather in the wind / Within the glow that weaves a cloak of delight / There moves a thread that has no end.
Sam found it when he cleaned out Cas' truck in North Cove. Dean had expected a wisecrack, or a wink or a grin — something. But Sam had handed it to him without a word.
All of my love, all of my love / All of my love to you / All of my love, all of my love / All of my love to you.
"Fuck."
Dean clenches his hands into fists so he doesn't throw the Walkman against the wall. His chest aches. He can't — he fucking can't.
Yours is the cloth, mine is the hand that sews time / His is a force that lies within / Our is the fire, all the warmth we can find / He is a feather in the wind.
Something glints in the corner of Dean's eye — something bright and silver-white.
+
They come to Castiel in a long, endless wave — Anna, Hester, Inias, Benjamin, Mirabel. Ion has a bullet gleaming in his eye; Theo has a ragged, gaping hole in his throat. Naomi smiles and asks him to kill Dean one more time.
And Hannah — he sees Hannah as an incalescent swirl of intent that glitters against the fathoms of the Empty.
"Those are human things, Castiel. You shouldn't want human things."
A light Castiel no longer has begins to pulse. He reaches out again.
+
"I'm telling you, I just saw him," Dean insists.
"Sure, yeah," Sam says, holding up his hands. "Where?"
"I was — he —" Dean points at the table behind Sam. "There. He was right there."
Slowly, Sam turns and looks. There's nothing to see now except two empty beer bottles and the lore books they dug up for the skinwalker gig. A handful of dust motes are dancing around the lamp. Dean's green jacket is hanging over the back of a chair.
"Look, I know it sounds crazy." Dean's voice is shaking; he pauses to suck in a deep breath. "But I — he was there, Sammy. I fucking saw him."
"Dean, you —"
"Don't — don't tell me he's dead. I know that. I'm just —" Dean grits out a noise and rubs his hand over his face. Hoarsely, he continues, "I saw him."
"Okay, Dean. Okay."
+
Castiel sees himself as he was when he first returned to earth. He has Jimmy Novak's face, and he's wearing Jimmy's cheap, blue suit. His tie is crooked. The belt of his tan coat his hanging loose. His shoulders are straight and proud, his grace still snapping and humming from the battles he'd fought and won in Perdition.
"You're presuming you would even be welcome."
What was once Castiel's being tries to coalesce. A soft light gleams along what isn't a horizon.
"You failed in your duty to your brethren, again and again and again. You also failed at being a friend."
The fabric of the Empty tears. Dark shadows gather in darker, formless corners.
"They're better off without you."
The light brightens. Strengthens.
"Dean doesn't need you to return."
Castiel reaches out and finds the last shred of his grace. Pulling at it, he tells himself, "No. But I think he wants me to."
+
"Cas, please."
Dean pours himself another shot. It burns all the way down.
"C'mon, Cas. If you're out there, you — c'mon."
+
Pressure builds and builds and builds. Castiel searches for the remnants of his grace, shifting through stardust and firmament until he finds the slivers and specks his death scattered across the universe. They return to him slowly, in curls and pulses and throbs. Light unfurls and flares inside him, around him. The black depths surrounding him rustle with a sound like wings.
He spends what could be an eternity balanced on a precipice, too corporeal for a place his father intended as a void but not strong enough to fully defy his death.
A voice hums in his ears: Cas, please.
When the Empty finally shatters, Castiel screams back to earth in a seething streak of heat and flame. He lands in the woods, beside a narrow stream and on a deep pile of fallen autumn leaves. Slowly, he gets to his feet.
His grace is alight and roaring. He looks up at the sky and breathes in moss and sluggish water and dark, damp soil.
+
"Cas —?"
"Hello, Dean."
Dean can't breathe. His heart hammers in his throat as he reaches out and touches Cas' cheek. "You — are you —?"
"Yes. I'm real."
"You sonofabitch," Dean says, pulling Cas into a hug. He shouldn't push a hand into Cas' hair, but he — fuck. Fuck. "You — don't ever do that again."
Smiling, Cas says, "Okay." Then he tips Dean's chin up and kisses him.
Paring: Castiel/Dean
Rating: PG
Words: ~3,300
Summary: Darkness. Stillness. Castiel has been here before — briefly, but more than once. As Dean would say, this isn't his first rodeo.
Notes: Vague spoilers for the $44 Season 13 promo.
[AO3]
Darkness. Stillness. Castiel has been here before — briefly, but more than once. As Dean would say, this isn't his first rodeo.
The Empty isn't a place so much as an idea. Castiel isn't really in it; his grace — the light and intent that was his being — has already returned to the stardust and firmament his father used to shape all his creations. But Castiel spent too long walking on earth and among humans and wearing a human form. The tranquility he experienced here before has been shattered by a restlessness that seems to prickle at the skin he no longer has. He feels as if he's trapped in a lightless room. As if he's been buried alive.
For dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return. Castiel has been ground down to atoms, but he still can't rest. And that had been his father's intent when he set the Empty aside — a place where angels could find peace after an eternity of war and obedience and celestial service.
+
"We need him," Sam says stubbornly.
This isn't the first time they've had this argument — it probably isn't even the tenth. But Dean doesn't want to have it again at a Pump N Munch in Pine City at six-thirty-seven in the morning.
A driving rain is beating at the rusty sheet of corrugated iron above his head. He frowns at the oil-slick puddle spreading under the Impala's front tires and grunts, "Whatever."
"Look, I get that you're —" Sam darts a glance at the kid and makes half a hand gesture. "Mom —"
"Damn it, Sam. You — don't." The gas nozzle clunks; Dean yanks it out of the Impala and slams it back on the pump. "Just don't."
"Dean —"
"Mom's gone," Dean snaps. A deep ache digs into his chest. "She's gone, and she ain't coming back."
Sam's mouth pinches. "He can do it."
Dean looks at the kid. He's standing under the mini-mart's red and blue canvas awning, watching the sky as more gunmetal stormclouds gather over I-35. He's got some serious juice, but he's got no clue what he's doing with it. He couldn't grab ahold of it long enough to bust them out of jail until he was furious, and then he nearly brought the whole fucking building down on their heads.
"Yeah, maybe," Dean says, clenching his hand around his keys. "Maybe he'll end up ripping a hole in the matrix and screwing us all up."
Sam says, "Dean," but Dean shrugs him off and looks at the Jack again.
"C'mon, kid." He raps his knuckles on the Impala's roof. "Get in the car."
+
"You're a disappointment," Michael says coldly.
He isn't actually here. Nothing is, except for Castiel. But he seems real enough. Castiel doesn't see him as Adam Milligan or John Winchester, but rather as their father created him — a seething nebula of fire so bright it blazes blue-white, righteous and terrifying.
"You should be ashamed of yourself."
Castiel isn't. He regrets that Dean and Sam had to watch him die, and he regrets that he left so many things unsaid. But the rest of it — the angels he killed, the people, the things his human body did while Lucifer used him as a vessel — they've been crushed into atoms and scattered across the universe. He can't touch them, and they can't touch him.
"Look at you." Formless, Michael's voice sparks and snaps like a live current. "You're a disgrace. All you've done — all you've failed to do — and your only thoughts are for those humans you wallowed with."
Something ripples in the Empty's fabric, skittering along what would be the horizon if the Empty truly had a shape.
"You betrayed your brethren, Castiel. Heaven had a plan. You shouldn't have interfered."
If the plan had been better, Castiel might not have.
+
The radio buzzes like a neon sign, and a guy with a two-pack-a-day voice rumbles, "As of Saturday, five percent of soybeans are harvested."
Dean drums his fingers on the steering wheel. They're pushing down US 65, through a dead, boring stretch of farmland north of Des Moines. They ditched the rain outside of Hubbard, but the sky is still heavy and gray. The Impala's windshield is streaked with water and dust.
"Topsoil moisture levels are twenty-two percent."
Dean turns the volume down, but it only takes a minute for the silence to start eating at him. Sam is dozing in the passenger seat, and the kid — the kid is in the back, staring straight ahead and sitting like he's got a stick up his ass. Dean shoves at Sam's knee until Sam grunts and shifts. Then he reaches over and fumbles the glove compartment open.
Before he can grab a tape, the kid says, "You don't like me."
He doesn't sound like he cares either way, so Dean doesn't bother bullshitting him. "Nope."
"You think I'm evil, like my father."
"Yep."
The kid pulls a face in the rearview mirror that's probably supposed to be a frown. After a pause, he says, "You aren't what I expected. Sam either, but mostly you. Castiel —"
Dean jerks the wheel. "Don't."
The kid pauses again. His hair is curling down over one eye. "I tried to bring him back."
"Yeah, well. You didn't."
"He was —"
Dean turns the volume back up and leans on the gas.
"...Fifty-two percent of corn has reached maturity, five days behind average."
+
"Hello, little brother."
Lucifer shines brightly for a moment — as magnificent and luminous as he'd been before the Fall. Then the Empty ripples again and he has Jimmy Novak's face. He's wearing Castiel's clothes with an ease Castiel never truly managed despite eight long years on earth — his sleeves rolled up, his collar unbuttoned, his tie askew.
"Surprised to see me?"
Castiel isn't.
"You know, I have to admit… I had fun riding around in your skin." Lucifer twists a smile onto Castiel's face and slowly flexes Castiel's hands. "We had some good times."
Castiel's restlessness returns. He is intangible here, now, but he still feels it, an echo of an echo of an echo.
"Do you remember Rowena? She really was a looker." With a wistful sigh, Lucifer continues, "It's a shame she had such delicate bones."
Castiel spent most of his submission hiding from the gravity of yet another stupid decision. From a wretched course he couldn't alter once he'd set it in motion. But they killed Rowena before Lucifer had truly settled beneath Castiel's skin, so Castiel had felt the snap of her bones. Lucifer had been inexorable, and Castiel had been unable to stop him.
"Hey, we killed a few angels too. And —" Lucifer smiles again and wags his finger accusingly "— we almost killed your old pal Sam. If you hadn't scratched your way to the surface…."
The Empty doesn't have walls, but Castiel feels them closing in.
"And now," Lucifer drawls, "now, you're dead. You're dead, and my son's running around with Laurel and Hardy." After a pause, he clucks his tongue. "Castiel, Castiel, Castiel. You were supposed to look out for him. You promised Kelly you wouldn't leave him alone."
Castiel remembers that. At least, he thinks he remembers it. It's been a long time since he could trust his own memories.
+
Dean can't sleep. He doesn't know if it's because of the Red Label he had for dinner, or because the devil's kid is in his fucking house. Maybe both. A sick, uneasy feeling keeps slithering around in his gut. When he closes his eyes, he sees the angel blade spearing out through Cas' chest and the light flaring from Cas' eyes and mouth. He sees Lucifer yanking his mom into the hole Jack ripped in the air.
He should've done something. He — fuck. He plays both scenarios over and over in his mind, looking for the windows he missed, the opportunities he didn't take.
Sometime after midnight, he gives up tossing and turning and heads out into the library to float some beer on top of the bourbon. He drinks the first two standing in front of the mini fridge. Then he grabs two more and shuffles back down the hallway.
Cas' door opens with a slow, tired creak. Dean hits the switch on the wall; the lights hum before flickering on. A lore book is sitting on Cas' nightstand and his spare tie is looped over the back of his chair. Dean sucks in a few breaths with his forehead pressed against the jamb. His chest hurts. His hands shake as he pops the cap on one of the beers.
The air in the room smells musty and stale. Cas never used it much; he usually hung out in the kitchen or the library. Sometimes, he sat on the wobbly stool in the garage while Dean worked on the Impala. Sometimes, he used the TV in the den to watch whatever new show Sam had hooked him on that week.
"Damn it, Cas."
Dean sinks down onto the ugly green couch beside Cas' bed. He sets his empty beer bottle on the floor, then opens the other one and kills the neck in one long swallow. His gut doesn't want it; he grits his teeth and breathes through his nose just to keep it down.
"You — God. Fuck."
He isn't praying. Not really. As far as he's concerned, he did his last bit of praying the night Cas died. He doesn't know how long he knelt there, breathing in ozone and wet sand and begging someone — anyone, anything — to bring Cas back.
He was out there long enough for Cas' hand to get stiff and cold between his. Long enough to figure out that no one was fucking listening.
+
Uriel rages at him, his grace churning and howling like a maelstrom in the choppiest reaches of the sea.
"I gave you a chance, Castiel. All you had to do was be unafraid."
+
Sam comes back with two large coffees from the Gas & Sip across the street. He frowns at Dean for a couple of seconds before asking, "You alright?"
The sun is a furious, yellow smear behind his shoulder. Squinting, Dean snatches one of the coffees. "I'm at a dog park at ass o'clock on a Sunday. What do you think?"
"Did you have other plans?"
"Well, the Chiefs are playing later."
Sam snorts and turns back toward the park. It's a lopsided square of grass dotted with low benches made from composite decking and the kind of trees that shed bark and drop burrs everywhere. A tube and tire exercise course is set up along the back fence. Near the parking lot, a teenager with bubblegum-pink hair is walking a tan poodle. Across from her, a woman and her three kids are watching a pair of huskies fight over a tennis ball. It doesn't look like the kind of place someone goes to get their throat torn out.
Two someones, actually, but Dean rubs his face and gripes, "Man, there's nothing here. You sure the coroner said dog mauling?"
Sam nods. "Yep."
"She — dog, not wolf?"
"She said dog. A big one. But she —" Sam shrugs and sips his coffee. "There aren't any wolves in this area. Maybe she just didn't want to sound nuts."
Dean sighs. "Whatever. I'm —" He cuts off as the chick with poodle walks by. She has to tug the dog along a couple of times. Once she's gone, he shakes his head and says, "We're wasting our time."
"Probably, yeah."
Dean rubs his face again and glances at the kid. He's about a hundred feet away, sitting as still as a statue on one of the only benches in the sun. The collar of his shirt is turned up under his ear. He's watching two college-aged guys play fetch with an elderly sheltie.
One of the huskies starts barking. Dean stands and says, "C'mon. Let's go. Get Rosemary's Baby in the car."
Sam huffs out a noise. "Dude, will you ease up already?"
"No."
"Dean, you —"
"No, Sam. He's a fucking timebomb." Dean chucks his coffee in the trash, even though the cup's almost full. "If he hasn't gone big bad yet, he will."
"You don't know that."
"Yeah, I do."
+
"Hey, bro. Long time no anything."
Castiel sees Gabriel as he best remembers him — not as a vast, brilliant sweep of grace, but as a short man with brown hair and a joke hidden in the corner of his mouth.
Gabriel takes a slow look around and whistles through his teeth. "This place sucks. And you're not even doing it right. You should be dust in the wind, dude."
Something rustles at the farthest edges of Castiel's awareness. He shouldn't be aware of anything. Everything he was should've been shattered into motes too small to comprehend and scattered throughout the burning swirls of gas that make up the stars.
"Looks like something's holding you back," Gabriel says thoughtfully. "Something on earth. It's keeping you from — you know. Communing with the galaxy like Dad intended."
Another rustle. Castiel recalls the threads of grace he used to soothe and repair Dean's Hell-ravaged soul. He'd only spared a speck, but it had been enough to leave behind a mark. He removed the brand on Dean's shoulder when he healed him at Stull, but the grace itself had been buried too deeply. More importantly, Castiel had wanted Dean to keep it, although at the time he hadn't understood why.
"You've got to decide, kid. You can stay here like this and never really rest, or you can head back down to earth and finish your business."
Castiel reaches.
+
The sheltie lunges at Dean, growling and snapping its teeth. Dean fires off a shot as he reels back, but it arcs wide — wide enough that he hears the bullet chip one of the concrete pillars. He stumbles back another step. The sheltie lunges again and barrels straight into his chest.
"Dean," Sam shouts.
Teeth graze Dean's wrist. Dean plants his feet and bucks up, and he and the sheltie roll across the floor. The sheltie shifts; by the time they finally skid to a stop, Dean's got his hand around the throat of an older dude with a grizzled face and ginger patches in his gray beard.
Dean shoves the guy off and gropes around for his gun. Grunting, the guy heaves himself to his knees. Then he yelps and flies through the air and slams against the wall.
Jack's eyes are bright and gold.
Slowly, Dean gets to his feet. He shivers as something prickles at the back of his neck.
+
Raphael doesn't speak. She just stares at Castiel with dark, furious eyes and an angel blade clenched in her fist.
Castiel reaches, and reaches, and reaches.
+
The last song on the tape is "All My Love." Dean almost didn't include it because it felt too pathetic and obvious.
The synthesizer starts after a soft, magnetic hiss. Dean closes his eyes. He tips his head back against the wall and tries to breathe through the knot burning in his throat.
Should I fall out of love, my fire in the light / To chase a feather in the wind / Within the glow that weaves a cloak of delight / There moves a thread that has no end.
Sam found it when he cleaned out Cas' truck in North Cove. Dean had expected a wisecrack, or a wink or a grin — something. But Sam had handed it to him without a word.
All of my love, all of my love / All of my love to you / All of my love, all of my love / All of my love to you.
"Fuck."
Dean clenches his hands into fists so he doesn't throw the Walkman against the wall. His chest aches. He can't — he fucking can't.
Yours is the cloth, mine is the hand that sews time / His is a force that lies within / Our is the fire, all the warmth we can find / He is a feather in the wind.
Something glints in the corner of Dean's eye — something bright and silver-white.
+
They come to Castiel in a long, endless wave — Anna, Hester, Inias, Benjamin, Mirabel. Ion has a bullet gleaming in his eye; Theo has a ragged, gaping hole in his throat. Naomi smiles and asks him to kill Dean one more time.
And Hannah — he sees Hannah as an incalescent swirl of intent that glitters against the fathoms of the Empty.
"Those are human things, Castiel. You shouldn't want human things."
A light Castiel no longer has begins to pulse. He reaches out again.
+
"I'm telling you, I just saw him," Dean insists.
"Sure, yeah," Sam says, holding up his hands. "Where?"
"I was — he —" Dean points at the table behind Sam. "There. He was right there."
Slowly, Sam turns and looks. There's nothing to see now except two empty beer bottles and the lore books they dug up for the skinwalker gig. A handful of dust motes are dancing around the lamp. Dean's green jacket is hanging over the back of a chair.
"Look, I know it sounds crazy." Dean's voice is shaking; he pauses to suck in a deep breath. "But I — he was there, Sammy. I fucking saw him."
"Dean, you —"
"Don't — don't tell me he's dead. I know that. I'm just —" Dean grits out a noise and rubs his hand over his face. Hoarsely, he continues, "I saw him."
"Okay, Dean. Okay."
+
Castiel sees himself as he was when he first returned to earth. He has Jimmy Novak's face, and he's wearing Jimmy's cheap, blue suit. His tie is crooked. The belt of his tan coat his hanging loose. His shoulders are straight and proud, his grace still snapping and humming from the battles he'd fought and won in Perdition.
"You're presuming you would even be welcome."
What was once Castiel's being tries to coalesce. A soft light gleams along what isn't a horizon.
"You failed in your duty to your brethren, again and again and again. You also failed at being a friend."
The fabric of the Empty tears. Dark shadows gather in darker, formless corners.
"They're better off without you."
The light brightens. Strengthens.
"Dean doesn't need you to return."
Castiel reaches out and finds the last shred of his grace. Pulling at it, he tells himself, "No. But I think he wants me to."
+
"Cas, please."
Dean pours himself another shot. It burns all the way down.
"C'mon, Cas. If you're out there, you — c'mon."
+
Pressure builds and builds and builds. Castiel searches for the remnants of his grace, shifting through stardust and firmament until he finds the slivers and specks his death scattered across the universe. They return to him slowly, in curls and pulses and throbs. Light unfurls and flares inside him, around him. The black depths surrounding him rustle with a sound like wings.
He spends what could be an eternity balanced on a precipice, too corporeal for a place his father intended as a void but not strong enough to fully defy his death.
A voice hums in his ears: Cas, please.
When the Empty finally shatters, Castiel screams back to earth in a seething streak of heat and flame. He lands in the woods, beside a narrow stream and on a deep pile of fallen autumn leaves. Slowly, he gets to his feet.
His grace is alight and roaring. He looks up at the sky and breathes in moss and sluggish water and dark, damp soil.
+
"Cas —?"
"Hello, Dean."
Dean can't breathe. His heart hammers in his throat as he reaches out and touches Cas' cheek. "You — are you —?"
"Yes. I'm real."
"You sonofabitch," Dean says, pulling Cas into a hug. He shouldn't push a hand into Cas' hair, but he — fuck. Fuck. "You — don't ever do that again."
Smiling, Cas says, "Okay." Then he tips Dean's chin up and kisses him.