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anactoriaTitle: Unfurl, Like A Wing In A Thermal
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
anactoria
Characters/pairing: Dean/Cas, Sam, Crowley, OCs.
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None
Word count: 20,000
Summary: After a run-in with a rogue Woman of Letters, Castiel finds himself with visible wings.
Being injured in the aftermath of the encounter and stuck on lockdown in the bunker is bad enough, but between attacking zombies, cultlike followers, and his tentative relationship with Dean, he soon finds that his injuries are the least of his worries.
Masterpost here.
The night turns into two nights, and then three, and there’s no sign of anybody leaving.
Mostly, they’re good at following the rules, though there are incessant questions once they get a glimpse inside the bunker. Nina sits alone in a corner, most of the time, a dreamy expression on her face. Trevor and Elinor immediately ask whether they can make themselves useful, and seem happy to take on any odd jobs thrown their way.
Elinor proves to be adept at using computers, and eventually Sam puts her to work on the hunt for zombie-girl, telling her that he’s trying to track a string of grave-robberies. She seems remarkably unfazed; but then Castiel remembers that she lost her sister to an angel, and that little else could be quite so devastating.
Trevor busies himself with grocery shopping and peeling potatoes, organising everyone else to help out with the chores, and even Dean seems to soften toward him when he realizes Trevor’s help leaves him with more time to devote to the hunt for zombie-girl. He even allows Trevor the run of the kitchen.
One day passes, and another, and nobody else appears.
On Day Three, there’s a knock at the door.
Sam looks up from his books, his abstraction turning instantly to alertness. Dean gets to his feet and makes for the door, hand at his waistband, ready to pull out his gun.
He glances at Sam. Sam nods. He opens the door.
There’s a young man standing there. His hair is dishevelled, and he wears an enormous woollen sweatshirt and baggy jeans. He looks as though he’s been on the road for days. His eyes widen when he catches sight of Dean’s expression, and he turns a shade paler.
“Uh,” he says. “Is Elmo here?”
Dean frowns at him. “Who?” he says, but the young man is already looking over his shoulder, his eyes lighting up. It’s as though he doesn’t even notice the winged man sitting a few feet away.
Elinor gets to her feet. Castiel turns to look at her and she reddens a little, but can’t quite keep the smile from her face. “Danny,” she says. “Hey.”
A grin splits the young man’s face. His eyes are full of love.
It makes Castiel think about seeing Dean wake up human again in the bunker’s basement, and he looks away.
“Seriously?” Dean says, but he sounds more resigned than angry. He passes by Sam and Castiel on his way back to the kitchen. “We have got to fix this,” he mutters.
Castiel glances over at Elinor and Danny, at Nina typing something on her phone, at Trevor coordinating volunteers to make soup, at the way they all steal glances at him when they think he isn’t looking, and he nods.
----
The next day, there’s another knock at the door. Castiel glances up in suprise from the old Men of Letters file he has been reading—though truthfully, it tells him so little of use that the interruption is welcome.
Sam answers, this time. But before he even has the door fully open, Nina is on her feet, ducking under his arm with her hands outstretched.
“There you are!” she exclaims. For so small a woman, she must have inordinately sharp elbows, since she manages to barge Sam out of the way.
Two women and a man trail after her into the library. They’re dressed in baggy, shapeless clothes. The man has a beard, and the women’s hair is long and unstyled. Nina raises her arm to point at Castiel, and they turn as one to gaze at him with awe.
“Didn’t I tell you?” she says to them. “He’s come for us. We’re chosen again!”
Castiel feels the blood drain from his face.
One of the women takes a step toward him. “Is it true?” she says, her voice soft and reverent. “Have you come to save us?”
He can’t help himself. Castiel has faced archangels, demons, monsters of all kinds—he has stormed the gates of Hell—but in the face of their adoring gazes, he turns on his heel and runs.
----
He shuts himself in the small bedroom Dean made up for him when he was first cursed. He’s still unused to sleeping, but he finds that he gets tired, and he dozes on the bed for an hour or two at a time when it becomes necessary, sprawled on his belly with his wings spread out over him like a blanket.
Now, he perches on the edge of the mattress and puts his head in his hands. He tries not to think of the way they looked at him, of how helpless he feels in the face of everything happening here. He tries to think of nothing but the sound of his heart pounding in his skull.
He breathes in, slowly. Out again. He has vague memories of Sam telling a traumatised civilian that this would help.
In. Out.
His heartbeat begins to slow. In. Out.
There is a tap at the door. He glances up, panic threatening to take hold again.
“’S only me.”
Dean. He lets out a sigh of relief.
“Can I come in?”
Castiel nods. Then he remembers Dean can’t see him, and clears his throat. “Yes,” he says. His voice is hoarse.
Dean lets himself in and closes the door behind him. He raises an eyebrow, when his gaze lands on Castiel’s face, but says nothing, just comes to sit on the bed beside him.
“We have to find a cure for this,” Castiel says, after a moment. His voice sounds like ground glass. “We have to find that girl.”
“Amen to that.” Dean pauses, watches him carefully. “How you doing, Cas?” he asks.
Castiel half-smiles. “I think the phrase is, ‘How do you think I’m doing?’”
“That bad, huh?”
“That bad seems to be a permanent state of affairs.”
Dean makes a sound that’s almost a laugh. Turns to look at Castiel’s bandaged wing.
The knock he gave it in the barn didn’t do too much damage. The bleeding was mostly superficial. The pain is almost gone—it just itches like a fire beneath the feathers, sometimes.
Dean frowns at it. “You think that can come off now?” he asks.
He’s changing the subject. Castiel is glad of it.
“Maybe,” he says. “I would be glad to have it gone.”
Dean nods and gets to his feet. Gently, he loosens the end of the bandage and begins to unwind it. Castiel closes his eyes, concentrating on the steady, rhythmic movement.
“Yeah,” Dean says, at last. “Looks pretty good.”
Castiel expects him to move away; to leave, perhaps. He doesn’t. Instead, his hand comes to rest on the arch of Castiel’s wing, a steady anchor. It moves as though unconsciously, stroking a long flight feather down to its tip.
Castiel leans into the touch, his breath catching in his chest. A warmth curls through him. He doesn’t dare open his eyes.
They stay like that for a moment, very still. Castiel thinks that he would stay here forever if he could. He’d be as still as the carven angels that decorate tombstones, and he wouldn’t have to face zombies or witches, or young girls who think they are saving the world, or people who think he can tell them how to live their lives. He would stay here, and Dean would be with him.
There is a tap at the door.
“Hello?” says an uncertain voice. Elinor. “Sam sent me. He wanted to know if you were okay?”
Dean removes his hand. Castiel swallows.
“Yes,” he says. “We’re fine. We’ll be with you soon.”
He looks up, but Dean’s expression has already closed itself off.
----
They are in the library when it happens.
They’ve taken to keeping a police scanner running over the past couple of days, just to ensure that the small crowd currently camping out at the bunker hasn’t pinged anybody’s radar. Dean has it set up in his room, which Castiel suspects is mostly to give him an excuse to hide away from everybody else.
It seems like a good idea.
Nina’s friends haven’t tried speaking to Castiel, since he ran out of the library when they first appeared. They disquiet him, though. They sit in a corner, not bothering themselves with chores or research, the way the others do. Mostly, they pray. Castiel sometimes sees them staring when he turns to look at them, and it feels like a weight on his back.
He has his head buried in an ancient, moldy volume of Latin when Dean slams open the door to the library and beckons Castiel and Sam with a jerk of his head.
“Disturbance in the cemetery,” he says, when they’re out of earshot of the library. “Sounds a little too close to home to be coincidence, don’t it?”
“You think she’s been looking for us?” Sam says.
Dean shrugs. “Far as she’s concerned, Cas is a monster and we’re the assholes hiding him. Figures we’d be on her list. And if grandpa was a Man of Letters, he must’ve known about this place.”
Sam frowns. “Isn’t it abandoned, far as she knows?”
“Maybe.” Dean pauses, his gaze flicking toward the corridor. “But if any of those guys have been talking, if she’s seen anything about a dude with wings in this neck of the woods? It ain’t exactly a hard conclusion to jump to.”
Castiel’s heart sinks. The girl who cursed him was young—stupid to think she’d be living in an old-fashioned house, like the one where Dean and Sam found Sinclair. She probably has wi-fi. And she’s had time to work on her spell. Who knows how effective it is, by now?
“I’ll come with you,” he says. “I want to help.”
“No way,” says Dean, at the same time Sam says, “Someone should stay here. Protect these people.”
He’s right, of course. Castiel nods. “I’ll—”
There is a knock at the front door, loud enough to ring right through the bunker. He falls silent.
It is a hollow sound, as though the hands making it are something other than flesh and blood.
Or at least, not flesh and blood anymore.
“Fuck,” Dean mutters, and disappears into his bedroom.
He emerges with the bag of weapons he keeps beside the door, ready to go.
“Here.” He pulls out a machete and offers it to Castiel. “Heads off, remember?”
He doesn’t wait for an answer. They make for the library.
The front door shudders on its hinges. Elinor and most of the others crowd into a corner of the library, chairs piled up in front of them in an impromptu barricade. Nina stands up in front of her little group of followers, arms spread protectively, and in some recess of his mind, Castiel feels his estimation of her rise a notch. She may have made his life more difficult, but at least she is no coward.
He forces the thought away and faces the door, gripping the handle of his machete tight, every part of him rigid with tension.
There is a thud like that of a battering ram. Another.
The door bursts open.
And everything blurs.
It’s all adrenaline and movement, slashes and gunshots and bony hands clawing. Screams from the civilians; footsteps echoing down corridors as they sprint into the recesses of the bunker. Castiel finds that his wings make an effective distraction, drawing the mostly-mindless zombies’ attention away from the others, and powerful enough to beat back several at a time. It’s exhausting, but fear fizzes through his veins like a drug and keeps him going. Not because of the zombies, or because they don’t know where the girl controlling them is, but because there are civilians right here who wouldn’t be here if they hadn’t seen Castiel’s photograph on a website somewhere, and if one of them dies, it’s all his fault.
Whatever anyone says about it, it’s his fault.
There’s a crash somewhere on the other side of the room. Castiel turns, and sees that Elinor has managed to take out one of the zombies by throwing a vase at its head hard enough to knock it from its bony shoulders. Though, judging by the pained expression that crosses Sam’s face when he sees the shattered mess on the floor, it must have been an artefact with some mystical significance.
The fight seems endless. Castiel isn’t sure how many zombies there are—only that they seem to come in waves, inexorable as the ocean, and that surely there can’t be this many dead people in Lebanon.
It occurs to him that he’ll fight until he drops dead, right here in the library where he stands.
It occurs to him—and then it’s over.
The last zombie drops to the floor as Sam takes its head off, and they stand there staring at each other, breathing hard.
Castiel’s chest hurts.
No door opens out of nowhere this time; no figure appears in the doorway. They wait, but the girl doesn’t show herself.
Elinor raises her hand. “Okay,” she says. “What just happened?”
----
They pick up the pieces of zombie, and set them to burn at the back of the bunker. It’s mindless work, if disgusting; a relief after the fight.
And Castiel explains as best he can. He’s not sure whether he expects them to believe him. They came here looking for an angel, after all—and they found one, after a fashion. But a human being raising the dead because she believes she can save the world? Who would choose to believe that, if they could help it?
When he’s done explaining, though, Nina steps forward.
“We have—a compound,” she says. “My father’s church—we weren’t always popular, so it’s pretty secure. If you came to lead us—we could get enough people to man it. We’d be safer there.”
If you came to lead us. And that’s the problem.
Castiel looks her in the eyes. “Lead you to what?” he asks.
She raises her eyes to the ceiling. “Heaven?” she suggests.
“I can’t.” He shakes his head. “I’m not a leader, not like this. You should go to the compound yourselves. You’ll be safer away from me.” He turns to indicate the others, Elinor and Danny and Trevor. “You should go. You should all go.”
He turns away from them. Nobody follows him.
----
Castiel joins Dean out back, when they’re done with the clean-up. He’s sitting beside the pyre, poking at the glowing embers and grimacing when he uncovers a still-recognisable piece of zombie. Castiel sits beside him.
“So,” Dean says, after a moment, “they got some Fortress of Solitude you can go live in?”
“Apparently.”
“Hell, maybe you should go.” Dean’s watching the fire, not Castiel’s face. “Keep you outta trouble.”
“Dean,” Castiel says, and waits until Dean turns to look at him. “You remember what you said to me, when we were working against Metatron? About the angels who chose to follow me?”
Dean shrugs. “That they were douchebags?” he says. “Can’t remember if I said that, but I definitely shoulda done.”
“You said they were a cult,” Castiel says. “You were angry about that. And now you’d have me become a cult leader?”
Dean frowns, his expression going distant. Castiel doesn’t know what he is remembering.
Then Dean looks down, his eyelids flickering, and says, “Nah, you’re right.” He hesitates. “I was just thinking about—you being safe, is all.”
Castiel can’t help but bristle. “Because I’m useless like this.”
He’s startled when Dean reaches out and touches his hand, his fingers hovering there, as though he’s unsure whether or not he’s allowed to do this. It’s both less intimate than Dean touching his wings, and more so—because Dean doesn’t hold hands with people, and Dean certainly doesn’t hold hands with him.
“Hell no,” he says. “Because you’re not.”
Castiel blinks at him.
Dean looks back at him, his lips parted as though he is about to say something. Castiel watches his mouth. How soft it looks. How visible Dean’s hesitation is.
Dean breaks away from him. He gets to his feet and scrubs his sooty hands on the thighs of his jeans. “C’mon,” he says. “Let’s get this shit organised. They can’t stay here, but tonight? We should move them all out of the library, set up a watch in there in case she tries anything else. We can take shifts.”
Castiel reaches out and takes his hand before he can stride back into the recesses of the bunker. He almost misses, just manages to catch hold of Dean’s index finger, but Dean comes to a halt anyway. He looks back at Castiel, concern written all over his face, and it occurs to Castiel that this is how human infants hold the hands of their mothers.
He must look utterly pathetic.
“Thank you,” he says, and Dean laces their fingers together, a little awkwardly, and gives his hand a squeeze.
It gives him the courage he needs to go on.
“Some of them can stay in my room,” he offers.
Dean looks at him, a measuring kind of look, as though he’s trying to read between the lines. “You gotta sleep, Cas,” he points out. “Your angel juice is all—tied up.”
“Yes,” Castiel says.
Dean looks at him. And looks.
“I’d prefer not to be alone,” Castiel confesses, and Dean stares at him for a moment.
He shakes himself. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, sure, you can camp on my floor or whatever.”
Castiel smiles at him. That’s enough, he thinks. Not to be alone.
----
Sam has first watch. Castiel and Dean sit up with him until late, drinking coffee around the table in the library. It’s bitter, brutally strong, but still Castiel feels his eyelids growing heavy.
“Guys,” Sam says, stifling a yawn. “We gotta stop avoiding the obvious here. We’re not finding anything that could help us stop zombie-girl, but we do know a guy who knows more about spellwork than probably anyone else alive.” He shrugs. “Or, sort-of alive, anyway.”
Dean understands before Castiel does. His eyebrows shoot up cartoonishly. “Seriously? You’re suggesting we call in Crowley?”
“I know it isn’t ideal. I want to kill the guy at least as much as you do, believe me.” There’s a thin set to Sam’s lips, something there passing unspoken between the brothers. He sighs and spreads his hands. “But I don’t see what else we got.”
Dean looks at him. Looks around the library at the evidence of the earlier fight, and of all the people who have been camping out here. Castiel sees the moment when he gives in.
“Fine,” he says. “Fine, I’ll call the douche.”
----
Crowley appears in the library in a puff of sulfurous smoke before Dean has even hung up his cell phone. He glances between the three of them with an amused expression, and Castiel shifts uncomfortably in his seat, waiting for the mocking comment about his wings.
Sam cuts in before Crowley can make it. “So,” he says, “Dean filled you in. You got anything that could help us?”
“I think,” Crowley says, “the question is, why would I?”
“Because it’s only a matter of time before she sends them after your guys.”
Crowley puts his head on one side. “So you say.”
“So she says. Of course, if you want to wait for her to start taking out demons left, right and center, be our guest.” Sam shrugs. “Wonder how that’ll play in the polls?”
“Hell,” Crowley says, all pretense of good humor suddenly vanished from his face, “is not a democracy.” But then he glowers, says, “I’ll be in touch,” and vanishes with a snap of his fingers.
“Huh,” says Dean. “That went better than expected.”
Castiel opens his mouth to agree and a yawn comes out instead. Dean nudges him with a foot under the table.
“Dude,” he says. “Go to sleep.”
“I’m fine,” Castiel means to say, but he finds himself yawning again. His whole body feels heavy; his wings ache. He nods and gets to his feet.
----
He pads down the corridor to Dean’s bedroom and opens the wardrobe to hunt for bedding. The bunker’s floor are cold, but he has an oversized sweatshirt stolen from Sam which has room for at least two of him, and a pair of fleecy sweatpants which neither brother would lay claim to. He should be fine—and if he isn’t, well, a little discomfort is a small price to pay not to be alone.
Castiel finds a pillow and a pile of blankets big enough that he suspects Dean is stockpiling in case of another Apocalypse, and is about to close the wardrobe when he sees it.
He’s given up hope of ever rescuing his trench coat, but he sees a corner of tan fabric peeking out from under the bedding. He tugs at it and the end of a sleeve appears.
It’s his coat. He pulls it out from under the blankets, and takes a breath of surprise.
It’s clean. Not only that, but it’s been mended, the tears where his wings broke through painstakingly hemmed into spaces like arm-holes. There are even buttons at the shoulders, so he can fasten it up over his wings.
The stitching is imperfect, and the buttons mismatched. It isn’t as good as new. But he could wear it.
It has scars, he thinks; the same way they all do. Perhaps it will suit him better this way.
“You, uh.” He startles at the sound of Dean’s voice behind him, and he turns on the spot. “You don’t have to wear that.”
Dean is looking at the floor. It’s hard to tell in the dim light, but Castiel thinks he might be blushing a little.
He puts his head on one side. “You didn’t tell me you were doing this,” he says.
“Yeah, well.” Dean doesn’t meet his eyes. “Didn’t wanna disappoint you if I screwed it up.”
“But you didn’t.”
Dean shrugs. “Hey, you got a lot of stuff going on. I dunno.” He pauses. “Seemed kinda stupid.”
There are things in there that Dean isn’t saying. Castiel doesn’t dare assume he knows what they are. Still, he moves closer.
“Dean,” he says. He holds up the coat. “This is not stupid. You did this for me.” He can’t keep the wonder out of his voice. He struggles for words to explain himself, to explain how he could have all the devotees in the world and none of them would ever be as important as Dean—who never ceases grumbling and teasing and pointing out his mistakes, who loves him exactly as he loves his human family.
He doesn’t have the words. But Dean is still looking at him, not moving, and there’s color in his cheeks and relief in his eyes, and he looks as though he wants to say something but can’t.
Castiel feels his heartbeat in his ears. This could all go so terribly wrong.
But he doesn’t have words, he only has this, and so he closes his eyes and closes the short distance between them, and he kisses Dean on the mouth.
Dean goes still. Castiel pulls back fractionally. His stomach drops.
This was all a mistake. This was a mistake, and Dean will never want to speak to him again, and—
Dean’s hand is on his waist. And Dean is leaning in close to him, and he murmurs, “Fuck, Cas, this is a terrible idea,” against Castiel’s lips, and then they’re kissing again. Soft and slow and sweet, a surprise in itself, not a prelude to something else.
There is warmth in Castiel’s chest, and he lets his coat fall onto the bed and wraps his arms around Dean instead, closing his eyes as though he might be able to get lost in Dean’s warmth, his presence, how solid he is in Castiel’s arms.
After a moment, Dean pulls back from him, just a fraction of an inch. “Uh,” he says. “Cas?”
Castiel opens his eyes onto darkness. He blinks owlishly, and after a second he realizes it’s him. He’s wrapped his wings around both of them, like a shield.
He flushes with embarrassment. “I didn’t—” he begins, but Dean is laughing.
They’re both laughing, then. They’re holding onto each other, and laughing, and their world is on its way to Hell as usual, but just for a moment, they’re laughing.
----
Crowley shows up again late the next afternoon, this time startling everyone as he materialises in the library. Elinor squeaks audibly.
He raises an eyebrow. “Didn’t realise this was Battersea Dogs’ Home,” he says. “Have to say, boys, you used to have a better class of tenant.”
Dean gives him a smile edged with danger. “Your old room’s free.”
Crowley glowers at him, but hands over a rolled-up piece of paper. It looks ancient. “That should do it,” he says. “If not—well, don’t come crying to me.”
----
Castiel is out back, near the remains of the zombie pyre, when Dean finds him. He sits down without speaking, pushing at the dirt with the toe of his boot. Then he looks up.
“So,” he says. “King Douche came through, we think. Sammy’s got us a location.”
Castiel looks sideways at him. “Tomorrow, then?” he says.
“Tomorrow.”
Castiel feels a curl of apprehension in his gut. Tomorrow, if it works, he’ll be himself again, draining-away grace and all. He’ll have to find a way to save himself. Dean will have to find a way to touch him without excuses.
He pushes the thoughts away. One fight at a time. And the next one on the list is neither of those things. He remembers Dean looking at his own eyes in the mirror, Dean touching the Mark on his arm, Dean dismissing his own gift as stupid.
The next thing they have to save is Dean.
“Do you think they’ll be okay?” he asks, instead of saying it. He inclines his head toward the bunker, to indicate the civilians inside.
Dean shrugs. “I dunno, Cas. They’ve seen some crap.” He reaches out and takes Castiel’s hand—quickly, as though he’s trying not to think too hard about it. “It ain’t your job to babysit them,” he tells Castiel. “You did what you could to help them, but—” He shrugs. “’S a big, shitty world out there. Can’t save everyone.”
Castiel raises an eyebrow. How many times has he heard someone try to give Dean the same talk? How many times has he tried himself?
He doesn’t say that out loud.
He stretches out a wing to encircle them both, and holds his breath until Dean leans back and relaxes into it.
“You never did try flying,” Dean says, after a moment. He reaches out to touch the tip of a feather.
“I… don’t think I mind,” Castiel tells him, and is surprised to find it true.
They’re quiet for a long moment. Dean closes his eyes and Castiel watches his face; the lines of worry etched under his eyes.
“I’m not a savior,” Castiel says, at length. “Not the way they want me to be. Neither are you.” He pauses; turns his head, his lips grazing the stubble at Dean’s jaw.
“Hey,” Dean says. “Preaching to the choir, Cas.”
“We are not saviors,” he says, soft enough he isn’t sure that Dean hears it. “But we will save you.”
And maybe then we’ll save me, he thinks. Maybe we’ll save each other.
END
Author:
anactoriaCharacters/pairing: Dean/Cas, Sam, Crowley, OCs.
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None
Word count: 20,000
Summary: After a run-in with a rogue Woman of Letters, Castiel finds himself with visible wings.
Being injured in the aftermath of the encounter and stuck on lockdown in the bunker is bad enough, but between attacking zombies, cultlike followers, and his tentative relationship with Dean, he soon finds that his injuries are the least of his worries.
Masterpost here.
The night turns into two nights, and then three, and there’s no sign of anybody leaving.
Mostly, they’re good at following the rules, though there are incessant questions once they get a glimpse inside the bunker. Nina sits alone in a corner, most of the time, a dreamy expression on her face. Trevor and Elinor immediately ask whether they can make themselves useful, and seem happy to take on any odd jobs thrown their way.
Elinor proves to be adept at using computers, and eventually Sam puts her to work on the hunt for zombie-girl, telling her that he’s trying to track a string of grave-robberies. She seems remarkably unfazed; but then Castiel remembers that she lost her sister to an angel, and that little else could be quite so devastating.
Trevor busies himself with grocery shopping and peeling potatoes, organising everyone else to help out with the chores, and even Dean seems to soften toward him when he realizes Trevor’s help leaves him with more time to devote to the hunt for zombie-girl. He even allows Trevor the run of the kitchen.
One day passes, and another, and nobody else appears.
On Day Three, there’s a knock at the door.
Sam looks up from his books, his abstraction turning instantly to alertness. Dean gets to his feet and makes for the door, hand at his waistband, ready to pull out his gun.
He glances at Sam. Sam nods. He opens the door.
There’s a young man standing there. His hair is dishevelled, and he wears an enormous woollen sweatshirt and baggy jeans. He looks as though he’s been on the road for days. His eyes widen when he catches sight of Dean’s expression, and he turns a shade paler.
“Uh,” he says. “Is Elmo here?”
Dean frowns at him. “Who?” he says, but the young man is already looking over his shoulder, his eyes lighting up. It’s as though he doesn’t even notice the winged man sitting a few feet away.
Elinor gets to her feet. Castiel turns to look at her and she reddens a little, but can’t quite keep the smile from her face. “Danny,” she says. “Hey.”
A grin splits the young man’s face. His eyes are full of love.
It makes Castiel think about seeing Dean wake up human again in the bunker’s basement, and he looks away.
“Seriously?” Dean says, but he sounds more resigned than angry. He passes by Sam and Castiel on his way back to the kitchen. “We have got to fix this,” he mutters.
Castiel glances over at Elinor and Danny, at Nina typing something on her phone, at Trevor coordinating volunteers to make soup, at the way they all steal glances at him when they think he isn’t looking, and he nods.
The next day, there’s another knock at the door. Castiel glances up in suprise from the old Men of Letters file he has been reading—though truthfully, it tells him so little of use that the interruption is welcome.
Sam answers, this time. But before he even has the door fully open, Nina is on her feet, ducking under his arm with her hands outstretched.
“There you are!” she exclaims. For so small a woman, she must have inordinately sharp elbows, since she manages to barge Sam out of the way.
Two women and a man trail after her into the library. They’re dressed in baggy, shapeless clothes. The man has a beard, and the women’s hair is long and unstyled. Nina raises her arm to point at Castiel, and they turn as one to gaze at him with awe.
“Didn’t I tell you?” she says to them. “He’s come for us. We’re chosen again!”
Castiel feels the blood drain from his face.
One of the women takes a step toward him. “Is it true?” she says, her voice soft and reverent. “Have you come to save us?”
He can’t help himself. Castiel has faced archangels, demons, monsters of all kinds—he has stormed the gates of Hell—but in the face of their adoring gazes, he turns on his heel and runs.
He shuts himself in the small bedroom Dean made up for him when he was first cursed. He’s still unused to sleeping, but he finds that he gets tired, and he dozes on the bed for an hour or two at a time when it becomes necessary, sprawled on his belly with his wings spread out over him like a blanket.
Now, he perches on the edge of the mattress and puts his head in his hands. He tries not to think of the way they looked at him, of how helpless he feels in the face of everything happening here. He tries to think of nothing but the sound of his heart pounding in his skull.
He breathes in, slowly. Out again. He has vague memories of Sam telling a traumatised civilian that this would help.
In. Out.
His heartbeat begins to slow. In. Out.
There is a tap at the door. He glances up, panic threatening to take hold again.
“’S only me.”
Dean. He lets out a sigh of relief.
“Can I come in?”
Castiel nods. Then he remembers Dean can’t see him, and clears his throat. “Yes,” he says. His voice is hoarse.
Dean lets himself in and closes the door behind him. He raises an eyebrow, when his gaze lands on Castiel’s face, but says nothing, just comes to sit on the bed beside him.
“We have to find a cure for this,” Castiel says, after a moment. His voice sounds like ground glass. “We have to find that girl.”
“Amen to that.” Dean pauses, watches him carefully. “How you doing, Cas?” he asks.
Castiel half-smiles. “I think the phrase is, ‘How do you think I’m doing?’”
“That bad, huh?”
“That bad seems to be a permanent state of affairs.”
Dean makes a sound that’s almost a laugh. Turns to look at Castiel’s bandaged wing.
The knock he gave it in the barn didn’t do too much damage. The bleeding was mostly superficial. The pain is almost gone—it just itches like a fire beneath the feathers, sometimes.
Dean frowns at it. “You think that can come off now?” he asks.
He’s changing the subject. Castiel is glad of it.
“Maybe,” he says. “I would be glad to have it gone.”
Dean nods and gets to his feet. Gently, he loosens the end of the bandage and begins to unwind it. Castiel closes his eyes, concentrating on the steady, rhythmic movement.
“Yeah,” Dean says, at last. “Looks pretty good.”
Castiel expects him to move away; to leave, perhaps. He doesn’t. Instead, his hand comes to rest on the arch of Castiel’s wing, a steady anchor. It moves as though unconsciously, stroking a long flight feather down to its tip.
Castiel leans into the touch, his breath catching in his chest. A warmth curls through him. He doesn’t dare open his eyes.
They stay like that for a moment, very still. Castiel thinks that he would stay here forever if he could. He’d be as still as the carven angels that decorate tombstones, and he wouldn’t have to face zombies or witches, or young girls who think they are saving the world, or people who think he can tell them how to live their lives. He would stay here, and Dean would be with him.
There is a tap at the door.
“Hello?” says an uncertain voice. Elinor. “Sam sent me. He wanted to know if you were okay?”
Dean removes his hand. Castiel swallows.
“Yes,” he says. “We’re fine. We’ll be with you soon.”
He looks up, but Dean’s expression has already closed itself off.
They are in the library when it happens.
They’ve taken to keeping a police scanner running over the past couple of days, just to ensure that the small crowd currently camping out at the bunker hasn’t pinged anybody’s radar. Dean has it set up in his room, which Castiel suspects is mostly to give him an excuse to hide away from everybody else.
It seems like a good idea.
Nina’s friends haven’t tried speaking to Castiel, since he ran out of the library when they first appeared. They disquiet him, though. They sit in a corner, not bothering themselves with chores or research, the way the others do. Mostly, they pray. Castiel sometimes sees them staring when he turns to look at them, and it feels like a weight on his back.
He has his head buried in an ancient, moldy volume of Latin when Dean slams open the door to the library and beckons Castiel and Sam with a jerk of his head.
“Disturbance in the cemetery,” he says, when they’re out of earshot of the library. “Sounds a little too close to home to be coincidence, don’t it?”
“You think she’s been looking for us?” Sam says.
Dean shrugs. “Far as she’s concerned, Cas is a monster and we’re the assholes hiding him. Figures we’d be on her list. And if grandpa was a Man of Letters, he must’ve known about this place.”
Sam frowns. “Isn’t it abandoned, far as she knows?”
“Maybe.” Dean pauses, his gaze flicking toward the corridor. “But if any of those guys have been talking, if she’s seen anything about a dude with wings in this neck of the woods? It ain’t exactly a hard conclusion to jump to.”
Castiel’s heart sinks. The girl who cursed him was young—stupid to think she’d be living in an old-fashioned house, like the one where Dean and Sam found Sinclair. She probably has wi-fi. And she’s had time to work on her spell. Who knows how effective it is, by now?
“I’ll come with you,” he says. “I want to help.”
“No way,” says Dean, at the same time Sam says, “Someone should stay here. Protect these people.”
He’s right, of course. Castiel nods. “I’ll—”
There is a knock at the front door, loud enough to ring right through the bunker. He falls silent.
It is a hollow sound, as though the hands making it are something other than flesh and blood.
Or at least, not flesh and blood anymore.
“Fuck,” Dean mutters, and disappears into his bedroom.
He emerges with the bag of weapons he keeps beside the door, ready to go.
“Here.” He pulls out a machete and offers it to Castiel. “Heads off, remember?”
He doesn’t wait for an answer. They make for the library.
The front door shudders on its hinges. Elinor and most of the others crowd into a corner of the library, chairs piled up in front of them in an impromptu barricade. Nina stands up in front of her little group of followers, arms spread protectively, and in some recess of his mind, Castiel feels his estimation of her rise a notch. She may have made his life more difficult, but at least she is no coward.
He forces the thought away and faces the door, gripping the handle of his machete tight, every part of him rigid with tension.
There is a thud like that of a battering ram. Another.
The door bursts open.
And everything blurs.
It’s all adrenaline and movement, slashes and gunshots and bony hands clawing. Screams from the civilians; footsteps echoing down corridors as they sprint into the recesses of the bunker. Castiel finds that his wings make an effective distraction, drawing the mostly-mindless zombies’ attention away from the others, and powerful enough to beat back several at a time. It’s exhausting, but fear fizzes through his veins like a drug and keeps him going. Not because of the zombies, or because they don’t know where the girl controlling them is, but because there are civilians right here who wouldn’t be here if they hadn’t seen Castiel’s photograph on a website somewhere, and if one of them dies, it’s all his fault.
Whatever anyone says about it, it’s his fault.
There’s a crash somewhere on the other side of the room. Castiel turns, and sees that Elinor has managed to take out one of the zombies by throwing a vase at its head hard enough to knock it from its bony shoulders. Though, judging by the pained expression that crosses Sam’s face when he sees the shattered mess on the floor, it must have been an artefact with some mystical significance.
The fight seems endless. Castiel isn’t sure how many zombies there are—only that they seem to come in waves, inexorable as the ocean, and that surely there can’t be this many dead people in Lebanon.
It occurs to him that he’ll fight until he drops dead, right here in the library where he stands.
It occurs to him—and then it’s over.
The last zombie drops to the floor as Sam takes its head off, and they stand there staring at each other, breathing hard.
Castiel’s chest hurts.
No door opens out of nowhere this time; no figure appears in the doorway. They wait, but the girl doesn’t show herself.
Elinor raises her hand. “Okay,” she says. “What just happened?”
They pick up the pieces of zombie, and set them to burn at the back of the bunker. It’s mindless work, if disgusting; a relief after the fight.
And Castiel explains as best he can. He’s not sure whether he expects them to believe him. They came here looking for an angel, after all—and they found one, after a fashion. But a human being raising the dead because she believes she can save the world? Who would choose to believe that, if they could help it?
When he’s done explaining, though, Nina steps forward.
“We have—a compound,” she says. “My father’s church—we weren’t always popular, so it’s pretty secure. If you came to lead us—we could get enough people to man it. We’d be safer there.”
If you came to lead us. And that’s the problem.
Castiel looks her in the eyes. “Lead you to what?” he asks.
She raises her eyes to the ceiling. “Heaven?” she suggests.
“I can’t.” He shakes his head. “I’m not a leader, not like this. You should go to the compound yourselves. You’ll be safer away from me.” He turns to indicate the others, Elinor and Danny and Trevor. “You should go. You should all go.”
He turns away from them. Nobody follows him.
Castiel joins Dean out back, when they’re done with the clean-up. He’s sitting beside the pyre, poking at the glowing embers and grimacing when he uncovers a still-recognisable piece of zombie. Castiel sits beside him.
“So,” Dean says, after a moment, “they got some Fortress of Solitude you can go live in?”
“Apparently.”
“Hell, maybe you should go.” Dean’s watching the fire, not Castiel’s face. “Keep you outta trouble.”
“Dean,” Castiel says, and waits until Dean turns to look at him. “You remember what you said to me, when we were working against Metatron? About the angels who chose to follow me?”
Dean shrugs. “That they were douchebags?” he says. “Can’t remember if I said that, but I definitely shoulda done.”
“You said they were a cult,” Castiel says. “You were angry about that. And now you’d have me become a cult leader?”
Dean frowns, his expression going distant. Castiel doesn’t know what he is remembering.
Then Dean looks down, his eyelids flickering, and says, “Nah, you’re right.” He hesitates. “I was just thinking about—you being safe, is all.”
Castiel can’t help but bristle. “Because I’m useless like this.”
He’s startled when Dean reaches out and touches his hand, his fingers hovering there, as though he’s unsure whether or not he’s allowed to do this. It’s both less intimate than Dean touching his wings, and more so—because Dean doesn’t hold hands with people, and Dean certainly doesn’t hold hands with him.
“Hell no,” he says. “Because you’re not.”
Castiel blinks at him.
Dean looks back at him, his lips parted as though he is about to say something. Castiel watches his mouth. How soft it looks. How visible Dean’s hesitation is.
Dean breaks away from him. He gets to his feet and scrubs his sooty hands on the thighs of his jeans. “C’mon,” he says. “Let’s get this shit organised. They can’t stay here, but tonight? We should move them all out of the library, set up a watch in there in case she tries anything else. We can take shifts.”
Castiel reaches out and takes his hand before he can stride back into the recesses of the bunker. He almost misses, just manages to catch hold of Dean’s index finger, but Dean comes to a halt anyway. He looks back at Castiel, concern written all over his face, and it occurs to Castiel that this is how human infants hold the hands of their mothers.
He must look utterly pathetic.
“Thank you,” he says, and Dean laces their fingers together, a little awkwardly, and gives his hand a squeeze.
It gives him the courage he needs to go on.
“Some of them can stay in my room,” he offers.
Dean looks at him, a measuring kind of look, as though he’s trying to read between the lines. “You gotta sleep, Cas,” he points out. “Your angel juice is all—tied up.”
“Yes,” Castiel says.
Dean looks at him. And looks.
“I’d prefer not to be alone,” Castiel confesses, and Dean stares at him for a moment.
He shakes himself. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, sure, you can camp on my floor or whatever.”
Castiel smiles at him. That’s enough, he thinks. Not to be alone.
Sam has first watch. Castiel and Dean sit up with him until late, drinking coffee around the table in the library. It’s bitter, brutally strong, but still Castiel feels his eyelids growing heavy.
“Guys,” Sam says, stifling a yawn. “We gotta stop avoiding the obvious here. We’re not finding anything that could help us stop zombie-girl, but we do know a guy who knows more about spellwork than probably anyone else alive.” He shrugs. “Or, sort-of alive, anyway.”
Dean understands before Castiel does. His eyebrows shoot up cartoonishly. “Seriously? You’re suggesting we call in Crowley?”
“I know it isn’t ideal. I want to kill the guy at least as much as you do, believe me.” There’s a thin set to Sam’s lips, something there passing unspoken between the brothers. He sighs and spreads his hands. “But I don’t see what else we got.”
Dean looks at him. Looks around the library at the evidence of the earlier fight, and of all the people who have been camping out here. Castiel sees the moment when he gives in.
“Fine,” he says. “Fine, I’ll call the douche.”
Crowley appears in the library in a puff of sulfurous smoke before Dean has even hung up his cell phone. He glances between the three of them with an amused expression, and Castiel shifts uncomfortably in his seat, waiting for the mocking comment about his wings.
Sam cuts in before Crowley can make it. “So,” he says, “Dean filled you in. You got anything that could help us?”
“I think,” Crowley says, “the question is, why would I?”
“Because it’s only a matter of time before she sends them after your guys.”
Crowley puts his head on one side. “So you say.”
“So she says. Of course, if you want to wait for her to start taking out demons left, right and center, be our guest.” Sam shrugs. “Wonder how that’ll play in the polls?”
“Hell,” Crowley says, all pretense of good humor suddenly vanished from his face, “is not a democracy.” But then he glowers, says, “I’ll be in touch,” and vanishes with a snap of his fingers.
“Huh,” says Dean. “That went better than expected.”
Castiel opens his mouth to agree and a yawn comes out instead. Dean nudges him with a foot under the table.
“Dude,” he says. “Go to sleep.”
“I’m fine,” Castiel means to say, but he finds himself yawning again. His whole body feels heavy; his wings ache. He nods and gets to his feet.
He pads down the corridor to Dean’s bedroom and opens the wardrobe to hunt for bedding. The bunker’s floor are cold, but he has an oversized sweatshirt stolen from Sam which has room for at least two of him, and a pair of fleecy sweatpants which neither brother would lay claim to. He should be fine—and if he isn’t, well, a little discomfort is a small price to pay not to be alone.
Castiel finds a pillow and a pile of blankets big enough that he suspects Dean is stockpiling in case of another Apocalypse, and is about to close the wardrobe when he sees it.
He’s given up hope of ever rescuing his trench coat, but he sees a corner of tan fabric peeking out from under the bedding. He tugs at it and the end of a sleeve appears.
It’s his coat. He pulls it out from under the blankets, and takes a breath of surprise.
It’s clean. Not only that, but it’s been mended, the tears where his wings broke through painstakingly hemmed into spaces like arm-holes. There are even buttons at the shoulders, so he can fasten it up over his wings.
The stitching is imperfect, and the buttons mismatched. It isn’t as good as new. But he could wear it.
It has scars, he thinks; the same way they all do. Perhaps it will suit him better this way.
“You, uh.” He startles at the sound of Dean’s voice behind him, and he turns on the spot. “You don’t have to wear that.”
Dean is looking at the floor. It’s hard to tell in the dim light, but Castiel thinks he might be blushing a little.
He puts his head on one side. “You didn’t tell me you were doing this,” he says.
“Yeah, well.” Dean doesn’t meet his eyes. “Didn’t wanna disappoint you if I screwed it up.”
“But you didn’t.”
Dean shrugs. “Hey, you got a lot of stuff going on. I dunno.” He pauses. “Seemed kinda stupid.”
There are things in there that Dean isn’t saying. Castiel doesn’t dare assume he knows what they are. Still, he moves closer.
“Dean,” he says. He holds up the coat. “This is not stupid. You did this for me.” He can’t keep the wonder out of his voice. He struggles for words to explain himself, to explain how he could have all the devotees in the world and none of them would ever be as important as Dean—who never ceases grumbling and teasing and pointing out his mistakes, who loves him exactly as he loves his human family.
He doesn’t have the words. But Dean is still looking at him, not moving, and there’s color in his cheeks and relief in his eyes, and he looks as though he wants to say something but can’t.
Castiel feels his heartbeat in his ears. This could all go so terribly wrong.
But he doesn’t have words, he only has this, and so he closes his eyes and closes the short distance between them, and he kisses Dean on the mouth.
Dean goes still. Castiel pulls back fractionally. His stomach drops.
This was all a mistake. This was a mistake, and Dean will never want to speak to him again, and—
Dean’s hand is on his waist. And Dean is leaning in close to him, and he murmurs, “Fuck, Cas, this is a terrible idea,” against Castiel’s lips, and then they’re kissing again. Soft and slow and sweet, a surprise in itself, not a prelude to something else.
There is warmth in Castiel’s chest, and he lets his coat fall onto the bed and wraps his arms around Dean instead, closing his eyes as though he might be able to get lost in Dean’s warmth, his presence, how solid he is in Castiel’s arms.
After a moment, Dean pulls back from him, just a fraction of an inch. “Uh,” he says. “Cas?”
Castiel opens his eyes onto darkness. He blinks owlishly, and after a second he realizes it’s him. He’s wrapped his wings around both of them, like a shield.
He flushes with embarrassment. “I didn’t—” he begins, but Dean is laughing.
They’re both laughing, then. They’re holding onto each other, and laughing, and their world is on its way to Hell as usual, but just for a moment, they’re laughing.
Crowley shows up again late the next afternoon, this time startling everyone as he materialises in the library. Elinor squeaks audibly.
He raises an eyebrow. “Didn’t realise this was Battersea Dogs’ Home,” he says. “Have to say, boys, you used to have a better class of tenant.”
Dean gives him a smile edged with danger. “Your old room’s free.”
Crowley glowers at him, but hands over a rolled-up piece of paper. It looks ancient. “That should do it,” he says. “If not—well, don’t come crying to me.”
Castiel is out back, near the remains of the zombie pyre, when Dean finds him. He sits down without speaking, pushing at the dirt with the toe of his boot. Then he looks up.
“So,” he says. “King Douche came through, we think. Sammy’s got us a location.”
Castiel looks sideways at him. “Tomorrow, then?” he says.
“Tomorrow.”
Castiel feels a curl of apprehension in his gut. Tomorrow, if it works, he’ll be himself again, draining-away grace and all. He’ll have to find a way to save himself. Dean will have to find a way to touch him without excuses.
He pushes the thoughts away. One fight at a time. And the next one on the list is neither of those things. He remembers Dean looking at his own eyes in the mirror, Dean touching the Mark on his arm, Dean dismissing his own gift as stupid.
The next thing they have to save is Dean.
“Do you think they’ll be okay?” he asks, instead of saying it. He inclines his head toward the bunker, to indicate the civilians inside.
Dean shrugs. “I dunno, Cas. They’ve seen some crap.” He reaches out and takes Castiel’s hand—quickly, as though he’s trying not to think too hard about it. “It ain’t your job to babysit them,” he tells Castiel. “You did what you could to help them, but—” He shrugs. “’S a big, shitty world out there. Can’t save everyone.”
Castiel raises an eyebrow. How many times has he heard someone try to give Dean the same talk? How many times has he tried himself?
He doesn’t say that out loud.
He stretches out a wing to encircle them both, and holds his breath until Dean leans back and relaxes into it.
“You never did try flying,” Dean says, after a moment. He reaches out to touch the tip of a feather.
“I… don’t think I mind,” Castiel tells him, and is surprised to find it true.
They’re quiet for a long moment. Dean closes his eyes and Castiel watches his face; the lines of worry etched under his eyes.
“I’m not a savior,” Castiel says, at length. “Not the way they want me to be. Neither are you.” He pauses; turns his head, his lips grazing the stubble at Dean’s jaw.
“Hey,” Dean says. “Preaching to the choir, Cas.”
“We are not saviors,” he says, soft enough he isn’t sure that Dean hears it. “But we will save you.”
And maybe then we’ll save me, he thinks. Maybe we’ll save each other.
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no subject
Date: 2015-01-06 04:58 am (UTC)poor Cas! You painted how exposed he felt, really well. and the way he's dealing with his failing grace. so heartbreaking.
I loved seeing more of Team Free Will - damn I miss them! and there was a definite feeling of hope at the end - thankyou for that!
this was a wonderful read.
no subject
Date: 2015-01-06 12:40 pm (UTC)Me too!
Thanks so much for reading -- I'm glad you enjoyed the story. :)
no subject
Date: 2015-01-20 02:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-01-21 12:53 am (UTC)I thought that with everything going on around them, Cas's subconscious probably decided they needed some alone-time. ;)
Thank you for reading! And for taking the time to comment as you went along -- it's very much appreciated. ♥
no subject
Date: 2015-01-21 10:05 am (UTC)