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starflowers: Immortality Meant Never Dying (Dean/Casti
Dec. 31st, 2008 10:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tracy_loo_whoMy dear friend and absolute favourite author in H/D fandom, starflowers, has just gotten caught up with the episodes and decided to dabble in Dean/Castiel for me! She wanted me to post it because her LJ is flocked, so here it is, and it's gorgeous:
Title: Immortality Meant Never Dying
Author:starflowers
Pairing: Dean/Castiel
Rating: I'd say PG-13
Summary: Summary, she didn't have a summary, this is a story about Castiel journeying through Hell to find Dean and bring him back.
It was not a place that Castiel had ever been to before, nor ever wished to see again, though he walked with unfaltering, trusting steps as his shoes, his pants, and the tips of his wings grew dusty and stained with sulfur, soot, and blood. He did not see the dark brushes that dirtied him, did not lower his eyes to the floor he walked on, the curl of his hands into fists at his sides, his chin tipped up enough to show defiance and certainly not a hint of fear. An angel, after all, cannot feel hunger, cold, exhaustion, pain, nor love; they certainly could not feel fear, even here, in the bottom depths of Hell.
He had come alone and knew not what he had come for, a vague mission from a far vaguer father, seek in the shadows and the pits for something, someone, who holds the fates of angels and men in his bloodstained, broken, bleeding hands. See if there is anything left to salvage, and if there is, bring him forth to serve the Lord and his Armies against the Darkness.
Castiel snorted faintly, blinked away the stinging ash that clung in flakes to his eyelashes, and restlessly scanned the pockmarked surface of rough gray stone that scarred the landscape in this part of Hell. Demons on all sides, those who were not twisted into unnatural shapes in punishment, or lying in pieces on the floor, or screaming for mercy from a torturer who had none, hissed at him, like frightened cats, yet they dared not touch him. Even dusty and dirty, they knew he stood as far more a risk than they were willing to take.
He had seen much of Hell since stepping into the shadows, passing through the Gates which led deeper and deeper, wondering why the man he sought warranted such a deep, dark prison, on one of the lowest levels of Hell. The further he wandered, the more Castiel wished he'd thought to tie a ribbon to his wrist and the first gate of Hell, if only to find his way out again.
Knowing his luck, a demon would take it and tie it in circles, and he'd spend forever down here, walking in endless loops without ever finding the broken saviour he'd been sent for.
He stopped when the shadows grew thick and inky, where darkness lay heavily like a blanket, or a plague. He could hear breathing, hitched and desperate, and endlessly repeated, at least a thousand souls, begging for mercy with every exhale. The air smelled of blood and the faithless, and Castiel hesitated, eyes searching the dark.
He thought, for a moment, that he found the man he sought, when he saw a broken and bleeding form of a man on a rack, twisted features a mask of pain and horror, though maybe they had once been beautiful. Dark hair hung in ratty tangles around a pale, emaciated face, eyes glazed over, seeking in the shadows for something, anything to end this; Castiel was drawn to the man, unable to look away from the patterns carved into the soft flesh of his stomach, portraits painted in blood.
This must be the saviour, Castiel decided, reaching out for the man, who trembled with animalistic terror.
There did not seem to be much left to save, an empty husk, torn up and bleeding, only an animal left inside.
There was a soft sound behind him, and Castiel turned.
He forgot the man, his ruined beauty, and his blood markings in an instant, because there, standing before him was not the demon he had expected, who had tortured these souls around him. Instead, there was a man, not the empty shell of one who was nothing more than animalistic instinct, but something deeper and darker, more desperate. He was not broken, or if he had been, he had forged all the broken pieces back together again, into a shape that was at once human, and at the same time, breathlessly, painfully shattered.
There was a look in this man's eyes that was somehow darker and deeper than any shadow that Castiel had seen in his walk through Hell to find him.
There was no hesitation this time. Castiel knew now who he had come for, and could see, through the cracks and bruises that made up whatever was left of his father's saviour that it was worth every step.
But the man flinched back, eyes narrowed and cold. "I'll fucking tear you apart," he said, and at Castiel's disbelieving smile, he glanced at the bloody man on the rack, and all the other souls who hung alongside him.
The blood on his hands made more sense now, and Castiel hesitated, studying him as anyone might study a skittish animal preparing to bite or flee. He certainly did not want to spend any more time in Hell than he had to.
"I am Castiel," he said. "An angel of the Lord."
The man laughed coldly, scornfully. "Sure you are. And I'm the bloody tooth fairy."
"You are—" he began, but the man shook his head once, hard.
"I am nothing," he said, eyes flickering away from Castiel and into the darkness on either side of him. Blood dripped from his fingertips. "I was nothing before and I'm nothing now. Get out of my way."
He moved to step closer to the man who waited on the rack behind him, but Castiel did not let him pass. "You aren't nothing," he said calmly, stepping forward, reaching a hand out for Dean. "I have reason to believe you may be everything."
He touched the man then, palm pressed to the ragged, dirty leather jacket above where his heart was meant to be beating, and the man reacted instinctively, his hand moving to push Castiel away. Instead, he left a bloody handprint on Castiel's chest, branded into the pale cotton above the spot where his heart might have been.
Castiel did not let go, and he would not be pushed away. Instead, he slid his hand beneath the jacket, up to the neckline of the man's shirt, and then back, over one shoulder and down his arm, up beneath the cuff of his shirt, until he could feel hot skin beneath his palm, skin which, when he stopped the sliding motion of his hand, began to burn and bruise.
The man's head fell back and a scream rose in his throat, but before it could come, Castiel jerked him against his chest, and crushed their mouths together. He breathed, forcing air into the man's broken lungs, and inhaled, and then breathed it back in on the exhale, taking with it all the buried bits and pieces of Dean that Dean had lost or forgotten or hidden away in the deepest parts of him. Pieces of what had made him human, made him strong enough to still be standing after forty years in this pit, everything that Dean had forgotten, had pushed away. As Castiel breathed it in, Dean remembered it as well, and he started fighting brutally against Castiel's hold.
Castiel, for his part, could not seem to loosen his grip, lost in the sudden shock of knowledge, the echo of anything and everything that Dean had ever thought or done or felt. It was a kiss for him, one that offered a glimpse of all the foolish human things that angels were not built to covet or even to understand, for risk of sinning against their God.
It took his breath away and made his knees weak the way any kiss might.
It was not a kiss to Dean, it was a breath, a remembering, that was painful and broke every defense he'd built for himself here, every nightlight and closet door he'd constructed inside himself to keep the monsters out, and Dean shattered again, broken bits falling to the floor as he screamed and screamed until his throat was raw.
Castiel knelt beside him, hand pressed to his shoulder, near the mark he'd left on Dean's arm, leather and cotton layers between them now. He said his name, again and again, unsure of any other way to reach out, to comfort him. An angel was not born nor bred to offer comfort, and instead, he could only wait, his knees stained now from the dirt and dust on the ground in Hell.
Finally, Dean sucked in a ragged breath and his eyes opened, slowly, carefully. He looked up at Castiel, at the black wings which framed him, at the solemn, quiet watchfulness in his eyes. Then Dean licked his chapped, dried lips, and breathed, "Sammy sent you for me, I knew he'd come for me. I knew he would."
"Your brother does not keep company with angels, Dean," Castiel said, at once earnest and careful, in some ways gentle. "Though I have come to take you home."
Something twisted in Dean then, Castiel could feel it in the shudder that shook Dean's body. "You're taking me to Sam," he said.
"No," Castiel told him. "Not yet. There is something—"
"No, motherfucker, you're taking me to Sam," Dean snapped, eyes wild again, searching the darkness. Blood was leaking from his nose and his mouth. "I'll hurt you," he said, echoing his animalistic threat from earlier. "I'll fucking tear you apart, motherfucker, fucking try me." His voice grew louder while Castiel struggled to retain his calm, his faith. Dean was not so broken that he couldn't be saved; he mustn't be.
He waited until Dean wore himself down, sunk into a panting, terrified, exhausted mess, and then he picked him up, one arm beneath his shoulders, the others his knees. Dean twisted and fought for a moment, desperate growls catching in his throat until he gave up with a sudden exhale, the fight draining from him suddenly, until one fist was twisted in Castiel's shirt, mangling the bloody handprint there, and his shoulder had no choice but to land reluctantly on Castiel's shoulder.
By the upper levels of Hell, Dean was gone, lost in feverish dreams and nightmares, mumbling against Castiel's throat, calling out for mercy, or death, his father, or mostly just Sam.
They were both streaked in blood and black soot when Castiel stepped out of the dark gates of Hell and into weak sunlight and a faint, misting rain, Dean still cradled in his arms and his wings a blackened, bruised mess behind him.
He was meant to bring him to where he'd been buried, to leave him there to find his own way into the sunlight again, but Castiel couldn't seem to. Instead, he found himself still covered in dust and ash, on his knees with his wings folded behind him, beside Dean, who lay on a pile of old, softly musty blankets in the dark, secret place in an abandoned building where Castiel came sometimes to breathe. Breathing, to him, was a new and cherished thing.
Dean was feverish, which made sense. Castiel remembered his own disorientation when he'd left his true form for the one he had now, the strange feeling of ending where fingertips ended, and his own weight holding him to the earth. He imagined that remembering a body without pain, without nerves screaming for rest and for mercy might be just as shocking, as shuddering, as that. Perhaps—probably—moreso.
Castiel watched him, listening as well, because Dean spoke through his hazy nightmares. He screamed, his throat was hoarse from it, and he twisted, calling out, again, for his brother to save him. His father, his mother, and every other earthly thing seemed forgotten.
"Sam," Dean said, sometime near dawn. His eyes were still dark, still tortured. "It hurts, Sam, make it stop."
"I've made it stop," Castiel told him, still watching carefully. "There is no pain now, Dean."
For a moment, it seemed like Dean's eyes finally saw through the fever dream, and they focused on Castiel's face, locking there. He stared up through thick lashes, spiked with tears and sweat. "I'm thirsty," he said, and Castiel's eyes widened. He had not thought of that, and he rose quickly to go in search of water.
There was a corner store across the street from the abandoned building, and he made his way there. As he did, Uriel fell into step beside him.
"What is it, exactly, that you think you're doing?" he asked, sounding like it was just polite conversation. Castiel knew better.
"Following orders," he said easily. A bell rang on the door as he pushed it open, and he glanced around the shop before making his way towards the water cooler.
"Orders did not involve keeping the boy like a pet," Uriel said coldly. "Nor did they involve petty theft."
Castiel slipped the bottle of water into the pocket of his coat, and then another. "Everything in here was made by the Lord and belongs to him," he said, calm, as he turned for the door. "And I will not send Dean to crawl from his grave when he still thinks he's in hell. Do you honestly think he'll have reason to try at all if he thinks he's still down there? Give me today and tonight to let him realize that it has stopped hurting. Then he'll have something to crawl for. I was meant to see that there was something worth salvaging; what is it you think I'm doing?"
They were crossing the road again, Uriel shaking his head. "He won't remember this after, you realize."
Castiel looked at him for a moment and then away again. "Probably for the best," he said, and when he ducked back into the abandoned house, Uriel didn't follow. He glanced over his shoulder and the doorway was empty; a raven disappeared into the sky over the corner store and was gone.
Dean was where he'd left him, lying down and twisting weakly, still hot from fever.
"Here," Castiel said quietly, twisting a bottle cap off and holding it to Dean's lips. The water trickled down his chin and pooled in the hollow of his throat, and with an impatient sound, Castiel slipped one hand to the back of Dean's neck, cradling the back of his head, and lifting him so Dean could drink more easily.
With a faint sound, Dean drank thirstily, until he began to cough, and Castiel took the water from him, and moved to pull his hand away.
Dean caught it with his own. "No," he said, feverish eyes flickering up to Castiel's and then restlessly. "You're cold."
For a moment, Castiel could not understand what Dean meant, and then he reached with hesitant fingers and brushed them against Dean's forehead. His cool touch seemed to soothe him, and Dean sighed, eyelids fluttering a moment before they slid shut.
"Yes," he breathed, and Castiel, in the name of his God and to preserve whatever bits of Dean had survived hell, let his touch linger, wandering down to Dean's cheek.
He'd never touched a human being like this, and there was curiosity mingled with obedience in the way he touched him, and Castiel did not like to think of that or to feel that, because it was disobedient to the core to feel anything at all.
"Sleep, Dean," he said, his voice a bit harsher than he intended. His fingertips had brushed the burning pulse point in Dean's neck, and he jerked his hand away. "I'll wake you if nightmares threaten."
Dean slept like the dead, and Castiel paced, watching him and more agitated than he had been in quite some time. He didn't like it.
Dean was breathing, ragged and broken, body fighting with the fever, and the morning passed into afternoon. The silence grew unnerving, and there were so many things that he was meant to be doing, and yet Castiel could not find it in himself to leave Dean here, like this, vulnerable and defenseless. The man who stood tall in hell and threatened to tear an angel apart was not meant to be vulnerable.
Finally, when the silence grew stifling, Castiel sat beside Dean again, and matched their breathing. He pressed a hand to Dean's chest, feeling his heart still beating, off-time and broken rhythm, struggling with proper melody. He touched his other hand to the bloody handprint on his shirt, and there was no echoing sound. Castiel did not have a heart to beat.
"He's too fragile," Castiel said, in case his God was listening. "You cannot send a man of bone and blood to do a task that even the angels cannot do."
But God did not answer, and Castiel's hand followed the line of Dean's ribcage up to his throat again, where his pulse beat, and then finally stopped when his fingertips were brushing along the line of his jaw, rougher than the delicate skin on his throat had been.
"You are not the first to be taken from Hell," Castiel told him, as he wet the edge of his long coat with the water and began to carefully wash the ash from Dean's face. "Orpheus went after his Euridyce, a grand gesture of love." He considered for a moment, and Dean did not wake. "I cannot help but think that love must make more fools of men than anything else, to chase a soul all the way to hell, and look back again before she's properly in the light."
He was washing Dean's throat now, the black marks on his own face forgotten, when Dean moved beneath his touch. Startled, Castiel's eyes flew to Dean's but they were still closed, breathing laboured with heat and fever.
He realized, staring at Dean's clean face, that it would just get covered with grave dirt soon enough, and Castiel let his hand fall away. There was still curiosity in the way he watched Dean, never really having had the opportunity to see a human like this, never having had a chance to think, about the rising and falling of breath in Dean's chest, the movement of his throat when he swallowed water, the shifting of eyelids and lashes when he was caught in a dream.
There were many things that Castiel had been curious about, if he was being honest to himself, which was never something he had had to think about before. He had been curious about all of the epic things that had happened on Earth because of human mistakes, made in hate or love. He understood hate well enough, knew the story of Satan well enough to comprehend all of that, but he had never before had time to sit and study someone capable of love, like the love that Dean so clearly had for his brother. He'd sold his soul for his brother, and it seemed to Castiel then, in one heart-shattering moment of disobedience, that a heart nor a soul ought not to be damned out of love. How could it be a sin worthy of damnation to be desperate enough to give one's soul for the live of a loved one?
He remembered then, of course, that it implied that the earthly love was worth more than Godly love, that a man was meant to love God more than any earthly being — but then, what had God ever done for Dean Winchester? Sam had done it all.
But an angel was not meant to think such things, and Castiel stirred restlessly, uncertainly.
Dean slept on.
Castiel leaned closer, hesitating on the verge of some wonder, some question, desire, that he was not meant to have. He licked his bottom lip, and his eyes fell to Dean's, tracing the lines of his face, and he wondered of love, and how easy it might be to feel it for a man who had come from hell looking as this man had, so much like an angel. The dangerous kind, but an angel all the same.
He wondered what it might be like, what touch might feel like when it was not done in the shadows of an abandoned place, at the risk of disobeying the Lord, what love might smell like, sound like. Taste like.
Dean opened his eyes.
"You are not going to remember this," Castiel told him apologetically. It came out sounding breathless.
Dean blinked slowly, sleepily, and his lips twitched up in a grin, shadows of charm and flirtatiousness that once must have come so easily to him. The fever was broken, but remnants of dreams, of confusion, still lingered.
"Don't see how that's possible," Dean said huskily, and before Castiel could act on his treasonous impulse, Dean had pushed himself up with one hand on the floor, tangled the other hand in his hair, and crushed his lips against Castiel's. It was bruising, awkward, somehow angry, and Castiel lost his balance at the force of it, the taste of it, the rush of emotions that came with it. He fell, landing heavily and pushing Dean back down, flat on the floor, Castiel half on top of him. Still, their mouths did not part.
It was instinct, or something unexplained, anyway, because Castiel could not tell where he ended, where he began, lost in the breath he could feel in his mouth and his lungs that was not his breath, Dean breathing into him the way Castiel had breathed into him in Hell. His tongue was in Dean's mouth, Dean's tongue pushing against it before he pushed up to bite at his lips. Castiel whimpered (an angel brought to his knees by a kiss, it was obscene, it was wrong, it was blasphemous-- he was practically begging, though he could not be sure what he was begging for.) When he tried to pull back, to clear his head and get his feet back on solid ground again, Dean's tongue followed, licking into his mouth with a dirty sort of intensity that Castiel forgot all about his noble intentions to stop. He was lost, more than he'd ever been, and suddenly knew how a man might feel that love was worth walking to Hell and back for, even if only to lose her at the end. He'd go to Hell and back to feel this again. And this was not love, this was — this was — was this love? As a first emotion of any sort, it was impossible to sort out from a tangled mess of brambles, confusion, terror, desire, and maybe, probably love.
Anyone who'd seen Dean standing, defiant, in the depths of Hell would have felt it, even an angel. Especially an angel.
The world spun, or something like it, and Castiel was on his back, Dean on top of him, grinning down at him, his hair slicked back and falling in wild tangles around his wild eyes, his lips glistening faintly, and Castiel stared at them and bit his own. He'd done that, his lips and his tongue — borrowed lips and borrowed tongue. He winced and closed his eyes.
"Oh, I'll remember this," Dean said. His voice sounded wrecked, from nightmares, screaming, breathlessness.
"You won't," Castiel told him faintly.
Dean brushed teasing lips over his, a soft brush of tongue, and Castiel made a noise in the back of his throat, eyes still closed. What am I doing what am I doing what am I--
"Who are you?" Dean asked, and Castiel finally opened his eyes, his thoughts falling silent, the panic and the terror and the desire all fading with a soft hush into something that burned as only love could.
Staring up into his eyes, Castiel whispered, "I am nothing. I was nothing before and I'm nothing now."
Before he had even finished the words, Dean was grinning, and he said, like he'd heard it before, or some echo of it, "You aren't nothing. I have reason to believe you may be everything."
And Castiel closed his eyes and rolled Dean onto his back, looking down at him again once his thighs were straddling Dean's hips, his palms on Dean's chest. He leaned close, lips brushing Dean's lips as he breathed, "Even if I am, you won't remember."
Dean opened his lips to respond and Castiel kissed him once more, breathing into him with the same intensity he had in Hell, and when he was done, Dean was gone, waking in his grave, and Castiel was alone, crouching on the floor of the abandoned building, trembling as he fought back wave after wave of emotion that he'd been taught he could never feel. He shuddered with pain, with confusion, with a tangle of everything that only a man was meant to feel, and something broke inside, strange noises catching in his throat that he could not recognize as sounds of grief.
Behind him, his wings, which had been white before he'd gone to Hell and stained them back, trembled too as he struggled to remember to breathe.
THE END
And with that, Happy New Year's, everyone! :D :D :D
starflowers, has just gotten caught up with the episodes and decided to dabble in Dean/Castiel for me! She wanted me to post it because her LJ is flocked, so here it is, and it's gorgeous:Title: Immortality Meant Never Dying
Author:
starflowersPairing: Dean/Castiel
Rating: I'd say PG-13
Summary: Summary, she didn't have a summary, this is a story about Castiel journeying through Hell to find Dean and bring him back.
It was not a place that Castiel had ever been to before, nor ever wished to see again, though he walked with unfaltering, trusting steps as his shoes, his pants, and the tips of his wings grew dusty and stained with sulfur, soot, and blood. He did not see the dark brushes that dirtied him, did not lower his eyes to the floor he walked on, the curl of his hands into fists at his sides, his chin tipped up enough to show defiance and certainly not a hint of fear. An angel, after all, cannot feel hunger, cold, exhaustion, pain, nor love; they certainly could not feel fear, even here, in the bottom depths of Hell.
He had come alone and knew not what he had come for, a vague mission from a far vaguer father, seek in the shadows and the pits for something, someone, who holds the fates of angels and men in his bloodstained, broken, bleeding hands. See if there is anything left to salvage, and if there is, bring him forth to serve the Lord and his Armies against the Darkness.
Castiel snorted faintly, blinked away the stinging ash that clung in flakes to his eyelashes, and restlessly scanned the pockmarked surface of rough gray stone that scarred the landscape in this part of Hell. Demons on all sides, those who were not twisted into unnatural shapes in punishment, or lying in pieces on the floor, or screaming for mercy from a torturer who had none, hissed at him, like frightened cats, yet they dared not touch him. Even dusty and dirty, they knew he stood as far more a risk than they were willing to take.
He had seen much of Hell since stepping into the shadows, passing through the Gates which led deeper and deeper, wondering why the man he sought warranted such a deep, dark prison, on one of the lowest levels of Hell. The further he wandered, the more Castiel wished he'd thought to tie a ribbon to his wrist and the first gate of Hell, if only to find his way out again.
Knowing his luck, a demon would take it and tie it in circles, and he'd spend forever down here, walking in endless loops without ever finding the broken saviour he'd been sent for.
He stopped when the shadows grew thick and inky, where darkness lay heavily like a blanket, or a plague. He could hear breathing, hitched and desperate, and endlessly repeated, at least a thousand souls, begging for mercy with every exhale. The air smelled of blood and the faithless, and Castiel hesitated, eyes searching the dark.
He thought, for a moment, that he found the man he sought, when he saw a broken and bleeding form of a man on a rack, twisted features a mask of pain and horror, though maybe they had once been beautiful. Dark hair hung in ratty tangles around a pale, emaciated face, eyes glazed over, seeking in the shadows for something, anything to end this; Castiel was drawn to the man, unable to look away from the patterns carved into the soft flesh of his stomach, portraits painted in blood.
This must be the saviour, Castiel decided, reaching out for the man, who trembled with animalistic terror.
There did not seem to be much left to save, an empty husk, torn up and bleeding, only an animal left inside.
There was a soft sound behind him, and Castiel turned.
He forgot the man, his ruined beauty, and his blood markings in an instant, because there, standing before him was not the demon he had expected, who had tortured these souls around him. Instead, there was a man, not the empty shell of one who was nothing more than animalistic instinct, but something deeper and darker, more desperate. He was not broken, or if he had been, he had forged all the broken pieces back together again, into a shape that was at once human, and at the same time, breathlessly, painfully shattered.
There was a look in this man's eyes that was somehow darker and deeper than any shadow that Castiel had seen in his walk through Hell to find him.
There was no hesitation this time. Castiel knew now who he had come for, and could see, through the cracks and bruises that made up whatever was left of his father's saviour that it was worth every step.
But the man flinched back, eyes narrowed and cold. "I'll fucking tear you apart," he said, and at Castiel's disbelieving smile, he glanced at the bloody man on the rack, and all the other souls who hung alongside him.
The blood on his hands made more sense now, and Castiel hesitated, studying him as anyone might study a skittish animal preparing to bite or flee. He certainly did not want to spend any more time in Hell than he had to.
"I am Castiel," he said. "An angel of the Lord."
The man laughed coldly, scornfully. "Sure you are. And I'm the bloody tooth fairy."
"You are—" he began, but the man shook his head once, hard.
"I am nothing," he said, eyes flickering away from Castiel and into the darkness on either side of him. Blood dripped from his fingertips. "I was nothing before and I'm nothing now. Get out of my way."
He moved to step closer to the man who waited on the rack behind him, but Castiel did not let him pass. "You aren't nothing," he said calmly, stepping forward, reaching a hand out for Dean. "I have reason to believe you may be everything."
He touched the man then, palm pressed to the ragged, dirty leather jacket above where his heart was meant to be beating, and the man reacted instinctively, his hand moving to push Castiel away. Instead, he left a bloody handprint on Castiel's chest, branded into the pale cotton above the spot where his heart might have been.
Castiel did not let go, and he would not be pushed away. Instead, he slid his hand beneath the jacket, up to the neckline of the man's shirt, and then back, over one shoulder and down his arm, up beneath the cuff of his shirt, until he could feel hot skin beneath his palm, skin which, when he stopped the sliding motion of his hand, began to burn and bruise.
The man's head fell back and a scream rose in his throat, but before it could come, Castiel jerked him against his chest, and crushed their mouths together. He breathed, forcing air into the man's broken lungs, and inhaled, and then breathed it back in on the exhale, taking with it all the buried bits and pieces of Dean that Dean had lost or forgotten or hidden away in the deepest parts of him. Pieces of what had made him human, made him strong enough to still be standing after forty years in this pit, everything that Dean had forgotten, had pushed away. As Castiel breathed it in, Dean remembered it as well, and he started fighting brutally against Castiel's hold.
Castiel, for his part, could not seem to loosen his grip, lost in the sudden shock of knowledge, the echo of anything and everything that Dean had ever thought or done or felt. It was a kiss for him, one that offered a glimpse of all the foolish human things that angels were not built to covet or even to understand, for risk of sinning against their God.
It took his breath away and made his knees weak the way any kiss might.
It was not a kiss to Dean, it was a breath, a remembering, that was painful and broke every defense he'd built for himself here, every nightlight and closet door he'd constructed inside himself to keep the monsters out, and Dean shattered again, broken bits falling to the floor as he screamed and screamed until his throat was raw.
Castiel knelt beside him, hand pressed to his shoulder, near the mark he'd left on Dean's arm, leather and cotton layers between them now. He said his name, again and again, unsure of any other way to reach out, to comfort him. An angel was not born nor bred to offer comfort, and instead, he could only wait, his knees stained now from the dirt and dust on the ground in Hell.
Finally, Dean sucked in a ragged breath and his eyes opened, slowly, carefully. He looked up at Castiel, at the black wings which framed him, at the solemn, quiet watchfulness in his eyes. Then Dean licked his chapped, dried lips, and breathed, "Sammy sent you for me, I knew he'd come for me. I knew he would."
"Your brother does not keep company with angels, Dean," Castiel said, at once earnest and careful, in some ways gentle. "Though I have come to take you home."
Something twisted in Dean then, Castiel could feel it in the shudder that shook Dean's body. "You're taking me to Sam," he said.
"No," Castiel told him. "Not yet. There is something—"
"No, motherfucker, you're taking me to Sam," Dean snapped, eyes wild again, searching the darkness. Blood was leaking from his nose and his mouth. "I'll hurt you," he said, echoing his animalistic threat from earlier. "I'll fucking tear you apart, motherfucker, fucking try me." His voice grew louder while Castiel struggled to retain his calm, his faith. Dean was not so broken that he couldn't be saved; he mustn't be.
He waited until Dean wore himself down, sunk into a panting, terrified, exhausted mess, and then he picked him up, one arm beneath his shoulders, the others his knees. Dean twisted and fought for a moment, desperate growls catching in his throat until he gave up with a sudden exhale, the fight draining from him suddenly, until one fist was twisted in Castiel's shirt, mangling the bloody handprint there, and his shoulder had no choice but to land reluctantly on Castiel's shoulder.
By the upper levels of Hell, Dean was gone, lost in feverish dreams and nightmares, mumbling against Castiel's throat, calling out for mercy, or death, his father, or mostly just Sam.
They were both streaked in blood and black soot when Castiel stepped out of the dark gates of Hell and into weak sunlight and a faint, misting rain, Dean still cradled in his arms and his wings a blackened, bruised mess behind him.
He was meant to bring him to where he'd been buried, to leave him there to find his own way into the sunlight again, but Castiel couldn't seem to. Instead, he found himself still covered in dust and ash, on his knees with his wings folded behind him, beside Dean, who lay on a pile of old, softly musty blankets in the dark, secret place in an abandoned building where Castiel came sometimes to breathe. Breathing, to him, was a new and cherished thing.
Dean was feverish, which made sense. Castiel remembered his own disorientation when he'd left his true form for the one he had now, the strange feeling of ending where fingertips ended, and his own weight holding him to the earth. He imagined that remembering a body without pain, without nerves screaming for rest and for mercy might be just as shocking, as shuddering, as that. Perhaps—probably—moreso.
Castiel watched him, listening as well, because Dean spoke through his hazy nightmares. He screamed, his throat was hoarse from it, and he twisted, calling out, again, for his brother to save him. His father, his mother, and every other earthly thing seemed forgotten.
"Sam," Dean said, sometime near dawn. His eyes were still dark, still tortured. "It hurts, Sam, make it stop."
"I've made it stop," Castiel told him, still watching carefully. "There is no pain now, Dean."
For a moment, it seemed like Dean's eyes finally saw through the fever dream, and they focused on Castiel's face, locking there. He stared up through thick lashes, spiked with tears and sweat. "I'm thirsty," he said, and Castiel's eyes widened. He had not thought of that, and he rose quickly to go in search of water.
There was a corner store across the street from the abandoned building, and he made his way there. As he did, Uriel fell into step beside him.
"What is it, exactly, that you think you're doing?" he asked, sounding like it was just polite conversation. Castiel knew better.
"Following orders," he said easily. A bell rang on the door as he pushed it open, and he glanced around the shop before making his way towards the water cooler.
"Orders did not involve keeping the boy like a pet," Uriel said coldly. "Nor did they involve petty theft."
Castiel slipped the bottle of water into the pocket of his coat, and then another. "Everything in here was made by the Lord and belongs to him," he said, calm, as he turned for the door. "And I will not send Dean to crawl from his grave when he still thinks he's in hell. Do you honestly think he'll have reason to try at all if he thinks he's still down there? Give me today and tonight to let him realize that it has stopped hurting. Then he'll have something to crawl for. I was meant to see that there was something worth salvaging; what is it you think I'm doing?"
They were crossing the road again, Uriel shaking his head. "He won't remember this after, you realize."
Castiel looked at him for a moment and then away again. "Probably for the best," he said, and when he ducked back into the abandoned house, Uriel didn't follow. He glanced over his shoulder and the doorway was empty; a raven disappeared into the sky over the corner store and was gone.
Dean was where he'd left him, lying down and twisting weakly, still hot from fever.
"Here," Castiel said quietly, twisting a bottle cap off and holding it to Dean's lips. The water trickled down his chin and pooled in the hollow of his throat, and with an impatient sound, Castiel slipped one hand to the back of Dean's neck, cradling the back of his head, and lifting him so Dean could drink more easily.
With a faint sound, Dean drank thirstily, until he began to cough, and Castiel took the water from him, and moved to pull his hand away.
Dean caught it with his own. "No," he said, feverish eyes flickering up to Castiel's and then restlessly. "You're cold."
For a moment, Castiel could not understand what Dean meant, and then he reached with hesitant fingers and brushed them against Dean's forehead. His cool touch seemed to soothe him, and Dean sighed, eyelids fluttering a moment before they slid shut.
"Yes," he breathed, and Castiel, in the name of his God and to preserve whatever bits of Dean had survived hell, let his touch linger, wandering down to Dean's cheek.
He'd never touched a human being like this, and there was curiosity mingled with obedience in the way he touched him, and Castiel did not like to think of that or to feel that, because it was disobedient to the core to feel anything at all.
"Sleep, Dean," he said, his voice a bit harsher than he intended. His fingertips had brushed the burning pulse point in Dean's neck, and he jerked his hand away. "I'll wake you if nightmares threaten."
Dean slept like the dead, and Castiel paced, watching him and more agitated than he had been in quite some time. He didn't like it.
Dean was breathing, ragged and broken, body fighting with the fever, and the morning passed into afternoon. The silence grew unnerving, and there were so many things that he was meant to be doing, and yet Castiel could not find it in himself to leave Dean here, like this, vulnerable and defenseless. The man who stood tall in hell and threatened to tear an angel apart was not meant to be vulnerable.
Finally, when the silence grew stifling, Castiel sat beside Dean again, and matched their breathing. He pressed a hand to Dean's chest, feeling his heart still beating, off-time and broken rhythm, struggling with proper melody. He touched his other hand to the bloody handprint on his shirt, and there was no echoing sound. Castiel did not have a heart to beat.
"He's too fragile," Castiel said, in case his God was listening. "You cannot send a man of bone and blood to do a task that even the angels cannot do."
But God did not answer, and Castiel's hand followed the line of Dean's ribcage up to his throat again, where his pulse beat, and then finally stopped when his fingertips were brushing along the line of his jaw, rougher than the delicate skin on his throat had been.
"You are not the first to be taken from Hell," Castiel told him, as he wet the edge of his long coat with the water and began to carefully wash the ash from Dean's face. "Orpheus went after his Euridyce, a grand gesture of love." He considered for a moment, and Dean did not wake. "I cannot help but think that love must make more fools of men than anything else, to chase a soul all the way to hell, and look back again before she's properly in the light."
He was washing Dean's throat now, the black marks on his own face forgotten, when Dean moved beneath his touch. Startled, Castiel's eyes flew to Dean's but they were still closed, breathing laboured with heat and fever.
He realized, staring at Dean's clean face, that it would just get covered with grave dirt soon enough, and Castiel let his hand fall away. There was still curiosity in the way he watched Dean, never really having had the opportunity to see a human like this, never having had a chance to think, about the rising and falling of breath in Dean's chest, the movement of his throat when he swallowed water, the shifting of eyelids and lashes when he was caught in a dream.
There were many things that Castiel had been curious about, if he was being honest to himself, which was never something he had had to think about before. He had been curious about all of the epic things that had happened on Earth because of human mistakes, made in hate or love. He understood hate well enough, knew the story of Satan well enough to comprehend all of that, but he had never before had time to sit and study someone capable of love, like the love that Dean so clearly had for his brother. He'd sold his soul for his brother, and it seemed to Castiel then, in one heart-shattering moment of disobedience, that a heart nor a soul ought not to be damned out of love. How could it be a sin worthy of damnation to be desperate enough to give one's soul for the live of a loved one?
He remembered then, of course, that it implied that the earthly love was worth more than Godly love, that a man was meant to love God more than any earthly being — but then, what had God ever done for Dean Winchester? Sam had done it all.
But an angel was not meant to think such things, and Castiel stirred restlessly, uncertainly.
Dean slept on.
Castiel leaned closer, hesitating on the verge of some wonder, some question, desire, that he was not meant to have. He licked his bottom lip, and his eyes fell to Dean's, tracing the lines of his face, and he wondered of love, and how easy it might be to feel it for a man who had come from hell looking as this man had, so much like an angel. The dangerous kind, but an angel all the same.
He wondered what it might be like, what touch might feel like when it was not done in the shadows of an abandoned place, at the risk of disobeying the Lord, what love might smell like, sound like. Taste like.
Dean opened his eyes.
"You are not going to remember this," Castiel told him apologetically. It came out sounding breathless.
Dean blinked slowly, sleepily, and his lips twitched up in a grin, shadows of charm and flirtatiousness that once must have come so easily to him. The fever was broken, but remnants of dreams, of confusion, still lingered.
"Don't see how that's possible," Dean said huskily, and before Castiel could act on his treasonous impulse, Dean had pushed himself up with one hand on the floor, tangled the other hand in his hair, and crushed his lips against Castiel's. It was bruising, awkward, somehow angry, and Castiel lost his balance at the force of it, the taste of it, the rush of emotions that came with it. He fell, landing heavily and pushing Dean back down, flat on the floor, Castiel half on top of him. Still, their mouths did not part.
It was instinct, or something unexplained, anyway, because Castiel could not tell where he ended, where he began, lost in the breath he could feel in his mouth and his lungs that was not his breath, Dean breathing into him the way Castiel had breathed into him in Hell. His tongue was in Dean's mouth, Dean's tongue pushing against it before he pushed up to bite at his lips. Castiel whimpered (an angel brought to his knees by a kiss, it was obscene, it was wrong, it was blasphemous-- he was practically begging, though he could not be sure what he was begging for.) When he tried to pull back, to clear his head and get his feet back on solid ground again, Dean's tongue followed, licking into his mouth with a dirty sort of intensity that Castiel forgot all about his noble intentions to stop. He was lost, more than he'd ever been, and suddenly knew how a man might feel that love was worth walking to Hell and back for, even if only to lose her at the end. He'd go to Hell and back to feel this again. And this was not love, this was — this was — was this love? As a first emotion of any sort, it was impossible to sort out from a tangled mess of brambles, confusion, terror, desire, and maybe, probably love.
Anyone who'd seen Dean standing, defiant, in the depths of Hell would have felt it, even an angel. Especially an angel.
The world spun, or something like it, and Castiel was on his back, Dean on top of him, grinning down at him, his hair slicked back and falling in wild tangles around his wild eyes, his lips glistening faintly, and Castiel stared at them and bit his own. He'd done that, his lips and his tongue — borrowed lips and borrowed tongue. He winced and closed his eyes.
"Oh, I'll remember this," Dean said. His voice sounded wrecked, from nightmares, screaming, breathlessness.
"You won't," Castiel told him faintly.
Dean brushed teasing lips over his, a soft brush of tongue, and Castiel made a noise in the back of his throat, eyes still closed. What am I doing what am I doing what am I--
"Who are you?" Dean asked, and Castiel finally opened his eyes, his thoughts falling silent, the panic and the terror and the desire all fading with a soft hush into something that burned as only love could.
Staring up into his eyes, Castiel whispered, "I am nothing. I was nothing before and I'm nothing now."
Before he had even finished the words, Dean was grinning, and he said, like he'd heard it before, or some echo of it, "You aren't nothing. I have reason to believe you may be everything."
And Castiel closed his eyes and rolled Dean onto his back, looking down at him again once his thighs were straddling Dean's hips, his palms on Dean's chest. He leaned close, lips brushing Dean's lips as he breathed, "Even if I am, you won't remember."
Dean opened his lips to respond and Castiel kissed him once more, breathing into him with the same intensity he had in Hell, and when he was done, Dean was gone, waking in his grave, and Castiel was alone, crouching on the floor of the abandoned building, trembling as he fought back wave after wave of emotion that he'd been taught he could never feel. He shuddered with pain, with confusion, with a tangle of everything that only a man was meant to feel, and something broke inside, strange noises catching in his throat that he could not recognize as sounds of grief.
Behind him, his wings, which had been white before he'd gone to Hell and stained them back, trembled too as he struggled to remember to breathe.
THE END
And with that, Happy New Year's, everyone! :D :D :D
