![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
It was meant to be part of a chapter, but it's 3400 words standing alone, so I figured best leave it as an interlude instead -_-; This conversation has been in the works roughly since Operation Apocalypse, and it just ... seemed to fit here? Dean/Cas have been owed an interlude for a while.
Title: Conversation
Rating: PG-13
Fandoms: Supernatural, Good Omens
Continuity: Set immediately following Trust
Characters/Pairings: Dean and Castiel, primarily, mention of everyone else. Dean/Cas.
Summary: Two weeks is a long time to be afraid, and Cas just lost all patience
Wordcount: 3403
Warnings/Spoilers: References back to 4x16 in partic. Dean is ... not a healthy bunny, this one.
Disclaimer: Still no, unfortunately
Title: Conversation
Rating: PG-13
Fandoms: Supernatural, Good Omens
Continuity: Set immediately following Trust
Characters/Pairings: Dean and Castiel, primarily, mention of everyone else. Dean/Cas.
Summary: Two weeks is a long time to be afraid, and Cas just lost all patience
Wordcount: 3403
Warnings/Spoilers: References back to 4x16 in partic. Dean is ... not a healthy bunny, this one.
Disclaimer: Still no, unfortunately
Conversation
Okay, so this wasn't exactly how Dean had planned for this conversation to go. Actually, it was sort of the complete opposite of how he'd planned it to go. Which, this being Cas he was trying to talk to, he should probably have seen coming.
In his defense, though, he hadn't been able to see much of anything, around the red mist of rage over his eyes. He hadn't been able to see anything around the clutch of terror around his heart. Because this plan ... this plan was a stupid plan. Any plan that involved Cas going solo against anything from Zach's goon squad to potentially two frikking archangels was automatically a bad plan. Dean should know. He'd come up with lots of them.
So he'd stalked Castiel out into the yard, leaving everyone else to pick up their own pieces inside, and menaced his angel up against a junker with every intention of yelling at him until he got the fucking point already. He'd even gotten started, too, had even gotten up a nice head of steam and started chewing Cas out about this whole 'risking himself for the greater good' thing he had going, when Cas ... Cas decided to turn the tables.
Almost literally.
So here he was. Lifted bodily off his feet to dangle from Castiel's fist (and that was sort of awesome, actually, that did something to his heart, remembering how close his angel had come to never being able to do that kind of shit again ...), somebody's beat-up truck mirror digging into his spine, and Castiel's narrow, furious face about an inch away from his nose.
Nope. Not at all how he'd planned for this conversation to go.
"There are times I wish I could still threaten you with impunity, Dean Winchester," the angel growled, voice actually shaking. Shoulders trembling, too. Cas was vibrating as he shoved up against him, with rage or something else, Dean wasn't sure. Though he was betting mostly rage. "You may never have afforded me much respect, but at least when you feared me you did not question my capability to my face. At least when you disliked me, you did not ..."
He cut himself off with a savage growl, and shook Dean like a ragdoll. Quite possibly without even realising it, he was that upset, and in between waiting for his ears to stop ringing, Dean wondered what the hell was suddenly going on. This wasn't in any script he'd imagined coming out of a little yelling match over attempted suicide-by-archangel.
"Cas, what the hell are you talking about!" he bit out, reaching up to grab the arm fisted in his shirt and squeezing it. Hoping to remind the angel that he was still actually holding Dean, if nothing else. And then ... "And I've always respected you, what the hell?"
Castiel glared up at him, ignoring the press of Dean's hands on his arm, still holding him up off the ground and pinned to a car. Okay then. So maybe the whole shaking thing had been intentional after all. "Do not lie to me, Dean," he hissed, looking for all the world like a really, really pissed off cat. "Between you and Gabriel, I am beginning to get annoyed. And Gabriel, at least, has yet to add insult to injury, and try to protect me by offering to commit suicide!"
Dean blinked, ignoring the sudden squirming of something a little like guilt in his chest. Okay. So he might have some idea where this was coming from. But it didn't change ...
"Yeah," he snarled back, breathlessly because Cas still hadn't released him, and it was getting a little hard to breathe up here. "And your plan is so much better! Don't know if you've noticed, Cas, but that's at least one archangel you've decided to stand and piss off. That went so well last time, didn't it? Hey, you want your molar back?"
Castiel's face hardened, icing over so fast it practically gave Dean thermal shock. "I have not forgotten Raphael's debt to me," he said quietly. Viciously, and there was something more than personal vengeance in it. Something righteous, the hand of justice coming round, and for a second Dean forgot to be pissed off. For a second, Dean had to remind himself that this was serious, life and death serious, and he had no call to be getting distracted. Then Castiel looked back up at him, savage contempt in his face, and suddenly that wasn't a problem anymore. "But that is irrelevant. This is not about vengeance, Dean. It is about survival."
Dean swallowed. "Yeah? And how are you planning on surviving, then? What, we just knock on Zach's door, and hope he doesn't call all the big guns in at once?" He shook his head, expression suddenly pleading. "This is suicide, Cas. At least my way ..."
Bad idea. Bad, bad idea. Castiel had been softening, for about half a second there, almost looking like he might at least let Dean down to talk to him, but as soon as he said that ... He'd forgotten, sort of, how granite-faced Cas could be. He'd forgotten what Cas looked like when he'd just lost all patience, and was seriously considering slinging your ass back in hell. Or not forgotten, but ... Gotten used to not seeing the look directed at him.
"Your way, we lose everything," Castiel said flatly. Inflectionless, blank. "It is not a matter of 'maybe', Dean. If you say yes to Michael, if either you or Sam even contemplate saying yes, then nothing I have done has meant anything. Nothing any of us has done will mean anything. Do you understand? If you say yes, Dean Winchester ceases to exist, and Heaven does what it wants. If you say yes, we will lose!"
Dean swallowed, hard, and looked away. Found himself looking away. "Yeah, well," he muttered, refusing to meet Cas' eyes. "Better me than Sam. Better me than you. We planned for one archangel, Cas. One. We've got a trap, and maybe we coulda gotten old Lucy into it, but with both Lucifer and Michael gunning for us ... And Sammy's been talking about ... At least if it's me, if it's Michael ..."
His feet touched the ground, and he blinked. His feet touched the ground, very, very gently, and he looked up to find Castiel watching him, with that strange expression he had, the one that was confused, and rueful, and something else, something deep and severe and pitying, something loving, and then his angel reached out and laid a hand, very carefully, on Dean's chest. Just over his heart.
"It does not have to be either of you," Castiel murmured softly. "It does not even have to be me, or Aziraphale, or any of us. You do not have to make that choice, Dean. You do not have to make that sacrifice. We can do this. This plan is not hopeless, it is not careless. We can do what needs to be done, and stay alive through it. You are not alone, Dean. You are not in this alone."
Dean smiled bitterly. "I know, Cas. That's sort of the problem." He shook his head, watching his angel's forehead wrinkle in confusion, watching the incomprehension in his eyes. The same completely baffled look Castiel had worn the first time they met, stunned that Dean didn't think he deserved saving. Because Cas ... for all that Cas was badass, and fierce, and for all that he'd spent the past year or so getting steadily more disillusioned (and yeah, that was Dean's fault too, he knew that) ... there were still something really innocent left in the angel. There was still something that looked at Dean, and saw something worth fighting for, no matter how many damn times Dean had already proven him wrong, and that ...
"Dean ..." Castiel started, frowning dubiously at him, head tilted to one side, and Dean ... Dean couldn't bear that. He couldn't.
"I started this," he whispered softly. Raggedly. "I started this, Cas. It's my stupid fault the end of the world happened, and it was bad enough when it was just me and Sam having to face the music, but now there's ... there's Aziraphale, and the crazy demon, and the stupid archangel, and ... And you. And you, and it's my fault, and you can't die for something that's my fault, Cas. You can't. I can't let you. I know you don't get that, and I know you think this is some bullshit human thing where I think you're useless and you can't do anything, but it's not, and I just ..."
He just couldn't watch it. He couldn't watch it, tomorrow, if Castiel stood up to Zachariah and Raphael and fucking Michael himself, and got himself splatted all over again, and Dean could have stopped it. He could have stopped it, with just one word. Just one. And there was Sam, too, and the way Sammy had spent the past two weeks thinking about saying his own one word, thinking about walking into a trap just to get the Devil where they wanted him, and Dean couldn't watch that either. He didn't know why it mattered now when it hadn't before, when he hadn't cared before, when he'd told Zachariah to go screw himself, but the past few weeks ... he'd started to hope. He'd started to hope, and he'd started to see the others hope, and for the first time in over a year he'd started to feel like maybe they had a chance of having something past the end of this, like they had a chance of living after, and ...
And he couldn't risk it, now. He couldn't risk that one of them would be killed, would die at the end of this, for something that was Dean's fucking fault, and he'd be the one to live afterwards knowing he was the last goddamn person who should have. At least with Michael, at least if he said yes ... He'd be the only one to fall. He could make sure of that, if he said yes ...
"Dean," someone said, very quietly, and Dean looked up again, looked up from the increasingly blurry dirt under his feet, and scrubbed angrily at his eyes so he could see Castiel staring at him. So he could see the narrow, exasperated expression on his angel's face, and find himself almost smiling at it. Almost.
"I'm sorry, Cas," he whispered. "I know you don't get it. But I'm just some stupid human, and I started this, and this plan ... you and Gabriel and Crowley ... I can't help, I can't do any fucking thing to help, and if you die ..."
He stopped, fists clenched. Saw Cas flinch, saw the confusion and pain in those eyes, but he was too busy remembering lying in a hospital bed trying to explain this exact damn thing to this angel, a year ago, a lifetime ago, and what'd happened since had only proven how fucking right he was, back then. Because he could destroy his own people, yeah, sure, he could pull them from the sky and steal their faith and watch them slowly wither, but when it came to actually fighting for them, to actually protecting them like he was supposed to ... And this plan, it was all of them. It was his angel, and Sam's angel, and their crazy demon, who were doing all the work, taking all the risks, and he was ...
"You are not helpless, Dean," Castiel interrupted. Flat and impatient, the way he was when he was stating absolute fact. The World is Ending, Zachariah is an Asshole, and You are not Helpless. Holy writ, come from on high, and Dean found himself grinning a little, despite himself, just at the thought of it. That after all this, after everything ... Castiel was still a damn pissy Angel of the Lord, and you'd best not forget it!
Which wasn't to say he was right, though. "That's nice of you to say, Cas," he managed, smiling tiredly. "But when we're talking archangels, here ... Michael, at least ..."
"Michael is a ... a loser!" Castiel shot back, fumbling a little around the word, and Dean actually blinked at him. Stared. Castiel growled faintly and stormed right on. "Michael is nothing next to you, or Sam, or anyone in that house! Michael does not deserve the least of us, as a vessel or anything else, and we do not need him!"
He shook his head, a short, vicious movement, and Dean stared at him. "Uh ... Cas?"
His angel glared at him, furious and flustered, bewildered by his own vehemence, savage in his conviction, and Dean could only blink at him as he went on. Low and cold and deadly. "Michael has allowed Heaven to fall," Castiel growled. "He has allowed Zachariah free reign, and in doing so cost me and many of my brothers our faith. He allowed you to be tortured, and Hell to come to Earth, and Gabriel to be hurt, he killed Anna. Michael has done nothing to help Heaven or Earth, or us, or his own brothers! He has done nothing!"
He paused, breathed for a second, and then looked up at Dean. Looked up at the poor dumb human staring at him in shock, and his face softened. Gentled. Still coldly determined, but no longer furious, and there was a faint, almost wondering smile tucked in the corner of his lips.
"We do not need him, Dean," Castiel continued quietly. Grim and passionate, and holding his truths to be self-evident. "You do not need him. Everything he failed to do, you have done as best you could. It does not matter if you did not always succeed. At least, unlike him, you tried. You have tried, and you have stood beside the rest of us as we tried, and tomorrow you will stand by us again, and whether we win or we lose, even if we die in the attempt, we will have done more than Michael ever did."
Dean ... blinked. Hard. Opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Because ... because ... And there was a lump in his chest, an aching, burning thing, and all he could look at was the fierce surety in his angel's eyes. "Cas," he rasped, shaking his head uselessly. "Cas ..."
Castiel scowled, stalking forward until he pressed Dean back against the junker again, but on the ground this time. And not with a hand. Not with a fist. With the full length of his body, with the full measure of otherworldly strength and steady, implacable determination. Castiel pressed Dean back, and glared right into his eyes. His soul.
"You gave me a choice, Dean," he rumbled. "You showed me Heaven's lies, and you gave me a choice, and you made me what I am now. You showed me that I can choose for myself, that I do not need to be Heaven's tool, that there are things in this world to believe in beyond Heaven's lies. You gave me my choice, and you do not get to take it away now! You do not get to become Michael's tool, and render everything I have done meaningless!"
His wings flooded out of nowhere, wings Dean had never seen before, not properly, not truly, and closed them around them on all sides, so that there was nothing in Dean's world now beyond Castiel, and the fierce demand in his eyes. So that nothing existed in all the world beyond his angel, and the choice he offered.
"Perhaps I will die tomorrow," Castiel whispered. "Perhaps Aziraphale's plan will fail, and we will all die. Even if we do. I will die knowing who I am. I will die having made my own choice. I will die as myself, as Castiel, and I will die ... knowing I chose you. Not Michael. Not Heaven. I will die knowing I chose Dean Winchester, and I will die knowing ... that it was worth it."
Dean swallowed, feeling his eyes slip closed, feeling the tears sting free and slide down. Feeling Castiel reach up to touch his face in bemused concern, and wipe them carefully away. He swallowed, and surrendered, and whispered quietly "I don't want you to die at all" because it was all he had left. Because it was the only truth he had left, and Castiel was right. He could not take the choice from them. Because that's what Heaven did, and had done, and Dean wasn't ever going to be like that. He wasn't ever going to be like Michael, or Zach, or everyone else who'd betrayed his angel.
"Then we will not," Castiel answered, with a little growl. "It is a good plan, and Gabriel will have our backs, and it will work, Dean. We will make it work, and you will not say yes." He paused, frowned a bit, and then offered: "And ... neither will your brother, Dean. Even if mine must trap him in TV land for a century to ensure it. Gabriel has not ... been happy, these past two weeks. I believe he has finally run out of patience."
Justifiably, his expression seemed to say. In fact, from the darkness that moved through those blue eyes, Dean had a sneaking suspicion he wasn't the only Winchester due a lecture on stupidity from Cas. Not by a long shot. And again, he fought a smile, fought the weird, sappy expression that wanted to use his face, because he couldn't help it, because it seemed like no matter how bad things got, how broken they all got, Cas wouldn't stop, would never stop, would never not be Cas, and that ... That settled something, in Dean's world. That anchored something. That made things ... different.
"Yeah?" he asked, shifting a little against the line of Cas pressed against him, curling into his angel and grinning a little as Cas frowned at him for it. Moving his hands over angelic hips, and biting his lip as his knuckles brushed against feathers, brushed against the shielding walls of Castiel's wings around them. Against the touch of something he'd never imagined or hoped for ... "He as pissed off as you, then?"
"He is dealing with a Winchester," Castiel growled, leaning close in his turn, brow furrowed in an impressive frown, but there was the ghost of a smile around the hard line of his mouth. The ghost of a grin Dean had only seen a few times, when Cas thought he was ahead of the game, when Cas thought he was being really smart, and Dean shifted his hands, stroking the backs of his knuckles through the feathers, and watched the frown falter. Heard his angel's breath hitch.
"That's bad, is it?" he murmured, rubbing his thumb along the shaft of a feather, waiting, maybe, for Castiel to tell him to stop, for Cas to tug his wing away, because he had been paying attention all this time, he knew what it meant for Cas to let him touch him this way, and maybe he shouldn't be pushing it, maybe this was such a bad time to push, but ... But Castiel wasn't pulling away. And Castiel might be going to die for him tomorrow, or the day after. And Castiel wasn't pulling away. "Dealing with a Winchester? It's bad?"
Castiel growled. Muscled Dean backwards, pressed them both between metal and wings, pressed them together, and then Dean felt the muscles under his fingers flex, felt the feathers shift and slide and press up into his hands, and Castiel's mouth was on his neck, his growl vibrating along Dean's pulse and sending just about every sense Dean had into a tailspin.
"It is ... troublesome," Castiel purred. A happy, deadly little hum, as Dean's knees went a little and his angel caught him, pulled him to him. "But ... worth it. Yes. I believe ... it is certainly worth it." A small smile, then. A smug little grin. Because Cas was ahead of the game. Because Cas was always ahead of the game. "Dean Winchester. Mine. Yes. I think that is worth it."
Yup. Totally not where he'd seen this conversation going. Absolutely not. Maybe later, he might actually remember why. Right now, though? Better things to be doing. So, so much better. His angel. His Cas.
Screw Heaven anyway. Who the hell needed Michael, when you could have Castiel instead?
NOTE: Because of RL problems, I have not been able to complete this fic, and won't be for at least a year. In an effort not to leave people hanging, I've done out a rough summation of where the last few chapters were intended to go, here. NOT a new chapter, only a summary. If you want to see where the story was going, head there.
My apologies, and sincere thanks.
Okay, so this wasn't exactly how Dean had planned for this conversation to go. Actually, it was sort of the complete opposite of how he'd planned it to go. Which, this being Cas he was trying to talk to, he should probably have seen coming.
In his defense, though, he hadn't been able to see much of anything, around the red mist of rage over his eyes. He hadn't been able to see anything around the clutch of terror around his heart. Because this plan ... this plan was a stupid plan. Any plan that involved Cas going solo against anything from Zach's goon squad to potentially two frikking archangels was automatically a bad plan. Dean should know. He'd come up with lots of them.
So he'd stalked Castiel out into the yard, leaving everyone else to pick up their own pieces inside, and menaced his angel up against a junker with every intention of yelling at him until he got the fucking point already. He'd even gotten started, too, had even gotten up a nice head of steam and started chewing Cas out about this whole 'risking himself for the greater good' thing he had going, when Cas ... Cas decided to turn the tables.
Almost literally.
So here he was. Lifted bodily off his feet to dangle from Castiel's fist (and that was sort of awesome, actually, that did something to his heart, remembering how close his angel had come to never being able to do that kind of shit again ...), somebody's beat-up truck mirror digging into his spine, and Castiel's narrow, furious face about an inch away from his nose.
Nope. Not at all how he'd planned for this conversation to go.
"There are times I wish I could still threaten you with impunity, Dean Winchester," the angel growled, voice actually shaking. Shoulders trembling, too. Cas was vibrating as he shoved up against him, with rage or something else, Dean wasn't sure. Though he was betting mostly rage. "You may never have afforded me much respect, but at least when you feared me you did not question my capability to my face. At least when you disliked me, you did not ..."
He cut himself off with a savage growl, and shook Dean like a ragdoll. Quite possibly without even realising it, he was that upset, and in between waiting for his ears to stop ringing, Dean wondered what the hell was suddenly going on. This wasn't in any script he'd imagined coming out of a little yelling match over attempted suicide-by-archangel.
"Cas, what the hell are you talking about!" he bit out, reaching up to grab the arm fisted in his shirt and squeezing it. Hoping to remind the angel that he was still actually holding Dean, if nothing else. And then ... "And I've always respected you, what the hell?"
Castiel glared up at him, ignoring the press of Dean's hands on his arm, still holding him up off the ground and pinned to a car. Okay then. So maybe the whole shaking thing had been intentional after all. "Do not lie to me, Dean," he hissed, looking for all the world like a really, really pissed off cat. "Between you and Gabriel, I am beginning to get annoyed. And Gabriel, at least, has yet to add insult to injury, and try to protect me by offering to commit suicide!"
Dean blinked, ignoring the sudden squirming of something a little like guilt in his chest. Okay. So he might have some idea where this was coming from. But it didn't change ...
"Yeah," he snarled back, breathlessly because Cas still hadn't released him, and it was getting a little hard to breathe up here. "And your plan is so much better! Don't know if you've noticed, Cas, but that's at least one archangel you've decided to stand and piss off. That went so well last time, didn't it? Hey, you want your molar back?"
Castiel's face hardened, icing over so fast it practically gave Dean thermal shock. "I have not forgotten Raphael's debt to me," he said quietly. Viciously, and there was something more than personal vengeance in it. Something righteous, the hand of justice coming round, and for a second Dean forgot to be pissed off. For a second, Dean had to remind himself that this was serious, life and death serious, and he had no call to be getting distracted. Then Castiel looked back up at him, savage contempt in his face, and suddenly that wasn't a problem anymore. "But that is irrelevant. This is not about vengeance, Dean. It is about survival."
Dean swallowed. "Yeah? And how are you planning on surviving, then? What, we just knock on Zach's door, and hope he doesn't call all the big guns in at once?" He shook his head, expression suddenly pleading. "This is suicide, Cas. At least my way ..."
Bad idea. Bad, bad idea. Castiel had been softening, for about half a second there, almost looking like he might at least let Dean down to talk to him, but as soon as he said that ... He'd forgotten, sort of, how granite-faced Cas could be. He'd forgotten what Cas looked like when he'd just lost all patience, and was seriously considering slinging your ass back in hell. Or not forgotten, but ... Gotten used to not seeing the look directed at him.
"Your way, we lose everything," Castiel said flatly. Inflectionless, blank. "It is not a matter of 'maybe', Dean. If you say yes to Michael, if either you or Sam even contemplate saying yes, then nothing I have done has meant anything. Nothing any of us has done will mean anything. Do you understand? If you say yes, Dean Winchester ceases to exist, and Heaven does what it wants. If you say yes, we will lose!"
Dean swallowed, hard, and looked away. Found himself looking away. "Yeah, well," he muttered, refusing to meet Cas' eyes. "Better me than Sam. Better me than you. We planned for one archangel, Cas. One. We've got a trap, and maybe we coulda gotten old Lucy into it, but with both Lucifer and Michael gunning for us ... And Sammy's been talking about ... At least if it's me, if it's Michael ..."
His feet touched the ground, and he blinked. His feet touched the ground, very, very gently, and he looked up to find Castiel watching him, with that strange expression he had, the one that was confused, and rueful, and something else, something deep and severe and pitying, something loving, and then his angel reached out and laid a hand, very carefully, on Dean's chest. Just over his heart.
"It does not have to be either of you," Castiel murmured softly. "It does not even have to be me, or Aziraphale, or any of us. You do not have to make that choice, Dean. You do not have to make that sacrifice. We can do this. This plan is not hopeless, it is not careless. We can do what needs to be done, and stay alive through it. You are not alone, Dean. You are not in this alone."
Dean smiled bitterly. "I know, Cas. That's sort of the problem." He shook his head, watching his angel's forehead wrinkle in confusion, watching the incomprehension in his eyes. The same completely baffled look Castiel had worn the first time they met, stunned that Dean didn't think he deserved saving. Because Cas ... for all that Cas was badass, and fierce, and for all that he'd spent the past year or so getting steadily more disillusioned (and yeah, that was Dean's fault too, he knew that) ... there were still something really innocent left in the angel. There was still something that looked at Dean, and saw something worth fighting for, no matter how many damn times Dean had already proven him wrong, and that ...
"Dean ..." Castiel started, frowning dubiously at him, head tilted to one side, and Dean ... Dean couldn't bear that. He couldn't.
"I started this," he whispered softly. Raggedly. "I started this, Cas. It's my stupid fault the end of the world happened, and it was bad enough when it was just me and Sam having to face the music, but now there's ... there's Aziraphale, and the crazy demon, and the stupid archangel, and ... And you. And you, and it's my fault, and you can't die for something that's my fault, Cas. You can't. I can't let you. I know you don't get that, and I know you think this is some bullshit human thing where I think you're useless and you can't do anything, but it's not, and I just ..."
He just couldn't watch it. He couldn't watch it, tomorrow, if Castiel stood up to Zachariah and Raphael and fucking Michael himself, and got himself splatted all over again, and Dean could have stopped it. He could have stopped it, with just one word. Just one. And there was Sam, too, and the way Sammy had spent the past two weeks thinking about saying his own one word, thinking about walking into a trap just to get the Devil where they wanted him, and Dean couldn't watch that either. He didn't know why it mattered now when it hadn't before, when he hadn't cared before, when he'd told Zachariah to go screw himself, but the past few weeks ... he'd started to hope. He'd started to hope, and he'd started to see the others hope, and for the first time in over a year he'd started to feel like maybe they had a chance of having something past the end of this, like they had a chance of living after, and ...
And he couldn't risk it, now. He couldn't risk that one of them would be killed, would die at the end of this, for something that was Dean's fucking fault, and he'd be the one to live afterwards knowing he was the last goddamn person who should have. At least with Michael, at least if he said yes ... He'd be the only one to fall. He could make sure of that, if he said yes ...
"Dean," someone said, very quietly, and Dean looked up again, looked up from the increasingly blurry dirt under his feet, and scrubbed angrily at his eyes so he could see Castiel staring at him. So he could see the narrow, exasperated expression on his angel's face, and find himself almost smiling at it. Almost.
"I'm sorry, Cas," he whispered. "I know you don't get it. But I'm just some stupid human, and I started this, and this plan ... you and Gabriel and Crowley ... I can't help, I can't do any fucking thing to help, and if you die ..."
He stopped, fists clenched. Saw Cas flinch, saw the confusion and pain in those eyes, but he was too busy remembering lying in a hospital bed trying to explain this exact damn thing to this angel, a year ago, a lifetime ago, and what'd happened since had only proven how fucking right he was, back then. Because he could destroy his own people, yeah, sure, he could pull them from the sky and steal their faith and watch them slowly wither, but when it came to actually fighting for them, to actually protecting them like he was supposed to ... And this plan, it was all of them. It was his angel, and Sam's angel, and their crazy demon, who were doing all the work, taking all the risks, and he was ...
"You are not helpless, Dean," Castiel interrupted. Flat and impatient, the way he was when he was stating absolute fact. The World is Ending, Zachariah is an Asshole, and You are not Helpless. Holy writ, come from on high, and Dean found himself grinning a little, despite himself, just at the thought of it. That after all this, after everything ... Castiel was still a damn pissy Angel of the Lord, and you'd best not forget it!
Which wasn't to say he was right, though. "That's nice of you to say, Cas," he managed, smiling tiredly. "But when we're talking archangels, here ... Michael, at least ..."
"Michael is a ... a loser!" Castiel shot back, fumbling a little around the word, and Dean actually blinked at him. Stared. Castiel growled faintly and stormed right on. "Michael is nothing next to you, or Sam, or anyone in that house! Michael does not deserve the least of us, as a vessel or anything else, and we do not need him!"
He shook his head, a short, vicious movement, and Dean stared at him. "Uh ... Cas?"
His angel glared at him, furious and flustered, bewildered by his own vehemence, savage in his conviction, and Dean could only blink at him as he went on. Low and cold and deadly. "Michael has allowed Heaven to fall," Castiel growled. "He has allowed Zachariah free reign, and in doing so cost me and many of my brothers our faith. He allowed you to be tortured, and Hell to come to Earth, and Gabriel to be hurt, he killed Anna. Michael has done nothing to help Heaven or Earth, or us, or his own brothers! He has done nothing!"
He paused, breathed for a second, and then looked up at Dean. Looked up at the poor dumb human staring at him in shock, and his face softened. Gentled. Still coldly determined, but no longer furious, and there was a faint, almost wondering smile tucked in the corner of his lips.
"We do not need him, Dean," Castiel continued quietly. Grim and passionate, and holding his truths to be self-evident. "You do not need him. Everything he failed to do, you have done as best you could. It does not matter if you did not always succeed. At least, unlike him, you tried. You have tried, and you have stood beside the rest of us as we tried, and tomorrow you will stand by us again, and whether we win or we lose, even if we die in the attempt, we will have done more than Michael ever did."
Dean ... blinked. Hard. Opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Because ... because ... And there was a lump in his chest, an aching, burning thing, and all he could look at was the fierce surety in his angel's eyes. "Cas," he rasped, shaking his head uselessly. "Cas ..."
Castiel scowled, stalking forward until he pressed Dean back against the junker again, but on the ground this time. And not with a hand. Not with a fist. With the full length of his body, with the full measure of otherworldly strength and steady, implacable determination. Castiel pressed Dean back, and glared right into his eyes. His soul.
"You gave me a choice, Dean," he rumbled. "You showed me Heaven's lies, and you gave me a choice, and you made me what I am now. You showed me that I can choose for myself, that I do not need to be Heaven's tool, that there are things in this world to believe in beyond Heaven's lies. You gave me my choice, and you do not get to take it away now! You do not get to become Michael's tool, and render everything I have done meaningless!"
His wings flooded out of nowhere, wings Dean had never seen before, not properly, not truly, and closed them around them on all sides, so that there was nothing in Dean's world now beyond Castiel, and the fierce demand in his eyes. So that nothing existed in all the world beyond his angel, and the choice he offered.
"Perhaps I will die tomorrow," Castiel whispered. "Perhaps Aziraphale's plan will fail, and we will all die. Even if we do. I will die knowing who I am. I will die having made my own choice. I will die as myself, as Castiel, and I will die ... knowing I chose you. Not Michael. Not Heaven. I will die knowing I chose Dean Winchester, and I will die knowing ... that it was worth it."
Dean swallowed, feeling his eyes slip closed, feeling the tears sting free and slide down. Feeling Castiel reach up to touch his face in bemused concern, and wipe them carefully away. He swallowed, and surrendered, and whispered quietly "I don't want you to die at all" because it was all he had left. Because it was the only truth he had left, and Castiel was right. He could not take the choice from them. Because that's what Heaven did, and had done, and Dean wasn't ever going to be like that. He wasn't ever going to be like Michael, or Zach, or everyone else who'd betrayed his angel.
"Then we will not," Castiel answered, with a little growl. "It is a good plan, and Gabriel will have our backs, and it will work, Dean. We will make it work, and you will not say yes." He paused, frowned a bit, and then offered: "And ... neither will your brother, Dean. Even if mine must trap him in TV land for a century to ensure it. Gabriel has not ... been happy, these past two weeks. I believe he has finally run out of patience."
Justifiably, his expression seemed to say. In fact, from the darkness that moved through those blue eyes, Dean had a sneaking suspicion he wasn't the only Winchester due a lecture on stupidity from Cas. Not by a long shot. And again, he fought a smile, fought the weird, sappy expression that wanted to use his face, because he couldn't help it, because it seemed like no matter how bad things got, how broken they all got, Cas wouldn't stop, would never stop, would never not be Cas, and that ... That settled something, in Dean's world. That anchored something. That made things ... different.
"Yeah?" he asked, shifting a little against the line of Cas pressed against him, curling into his angel and grinning a little as Cas frowned at him for it. Moving his hands over angelic hips, and biting his lip as his knuckles brushed against feathers, brushed against the shielding walls of Castiel's wings around them. Against the touch of something he'd never imagined or hoped for ... "He as pissed off as you, then?"
"He is dealing with a Winchester," Castiel growled, leaning close in his turn, brow furrowed in an impressive frown, but there was the ghost of a smile around the hard line of his mouth. The ghost of a grin Dean had only seen a few times, when Cas thought he was ahead of the game, when Cas thought he was being really smart, and Dean shifted his hands, stroking the backs of his knuckles through the feathers, and watched the frown falter. Heard his angel's breath hitch.
"That's bad, is it?" he murmured, rubbing his thumb along the shaft of a feather, waiting, maybe, for Castiel to tell him to stop, for Cas to tug his wing away, because he had been paying attention all this time, he knew what it meant for Cas to let him touch him this way, and maybe he shouldn't be pushing it, maybe this was such a bad time to push, but ... But Castiel wasn't pulling away. And Castiel might be going to die for him tomorrow, or the day after. And Castiel wasn't pulling away. "Dealing with a Winchester? It's bad?"
Castiel growled. Muscled Dean backwards, pressed them both between metal and wings, pressed them together, and then Dean felt the muscles under his fingers flex, felt the feathers shift and slide and press up into his hands, and Castiel's mouth was on his neck, his growl vibrating along Dean's pulse and sending just about every sense Dean had into a tailspin.
"It is ... troublesome," Castiel purred. A happy, deadly little hum, as Dean's knees went a little and his angel caught him, pulled him to him. "But ... worth it. Yes. I believe ... it is certainly worth it." A small smile, then. A smug little grin. Because Cas was ahead of the game. Because Cas was always ahead of the game. "Dean Winchester. Mine. Yes. I think that is worth it."
Yup. Totally not where he'd seen this conversation going. Absolutely not. Maybe later, he might actually remember why. Right now, though? Better things to be doing. So, so much better. His angel. His Cas.
Screw Heaven anyway. Who the hell needed Michael, when you could have Castiel instead?
NOTE: Because of RL problems, I have not been able to complete this fic, and won't be for at least a year. In an effort not to leave people hanging, I've done out a rough summation of where the last few chapters were intended to go, here. NOT a new chapter, only a summary. If you want to see where the story was going, head there.
My apologies, and sincere thanks.
Tags: