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'Heaven Sent You Downstream' - SPN - PG13 - Dean/Castiel - 2/2
Part the second.
Heaven Sent You Downstream
Supernatural. Dean/Castiel, Sam. PG13. Spoilers through 5x04. Much love and thanks to inveterate sexyfaces![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
serialkarma and sgrio for betareading.
Half casefic and half 'The End' episode tag in which Dean 1) investigates some disappearances in the mountains, and 2) finds it difficult to leave the future behind. Takes place after Castiel spirits Dean away from the motel, and before Dean meets up with Sam. ~11,100 words (Part 2: ~6100 words, including notes)
Part 1
Twilight: the last of the day streaks through the sky in shades of gold.
Ahead of him, Cas is becoming more difficult to see. Dean strains to listen for him and hears, not footsteps, but something heavier, akin to hoofbeats, and a whinnying giggle that reminds him of fingernails on blackboards.
“Cas, where are we going?” he calls out.
“We're almost there,” Cas assures him.
“Look, I gotta get back to Sam. Why don't we just--”
“We're almost there, Dean.”
“Hey!” Dean yells, and stops walking. It takes a surprising amount of willpower. “Cas, look. I've been walking for hours here. I'm exhausted, I'm out of food, water, and my feet feel like they're about to fall off.” He feels compelled to keep on walking, so he grabs onto a branch and hangs on.
Cas, lost to sight in the gloom, orders, “Dean, come.”
“Naw, man,” Dean says, ignoring the bile rising in his mouth. He gets the feeling like maybe he should've stopped sooner, should've tried to stop hours ago. “You come here. Come on, we've been walking all day.”
“We're almost there.”
“You've been saying that for the past two hours.” Dean feels some indiscernible force tug him forward, and he tightens his grip on the branch. “Cas, look, I have to...”
“Dean.”
“You keep forgetting this about humans, Cas. We're not the goddamn Energizer bunny, all right? Look, whatever is out here, whatever--” Whatever you are, Dean thinks desperately, because there is still a part of him that is aware enough to know what's going on, but it is not the part that controls his actions or his thoughts. It's not the part that can't be extinguished by the voice insisting that all this is real.
Dean manages to gasp, “Cas,” rallying his strength for that one syllable. He sags sideways against the tree and breathes hard, thinking of immoveable things. He wishes Sam were here. He wishes he'd called back.
“Maybe you're right,” Cas says from somewhere within the shadows. “Maybe I've been taking the wrong approach.”
The sound of footsteps draws near, changing from uneven and clumphing to hesitant and light. Dean steadies himself for whatever's coming, his heart jackhammering in his chest, his senses trying to be alert.
“It's difficult sometimes, I admit,” Cas continues, except it doesn't sound like Cas anymore, “to be able to tell the difference between what's at the forefront of your mind and what is at the heart of you. But I think I've learned something of you now, now that we've had time to get to know each other. Let's try again.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Dean rasps. He feels a chill that has nothing to do with the crepuscular drop in temperature. He knows that voice.
“Nothing,” says Sam, stepping into view. “Come on, Dean. Let's go home.”
Dean doesn't know whether his heart is squeezed tight from relief or disgust.
“You're not Sam,” he retorts, testing out how the words feel in his mouth.
Sam rolls his eyes. “Yeah, I'm the tooth fairy.”
He walks closer to Dean, his movements awkward and his limbs oddly cumbersome. Dean resists the urge to shrink back. This is Sammy here, and even if it's not...
Sam steps in real close and he has to bend his head to look Dean in the eyes. Dean has missed this. He's missed this proximity and ease, the looming bulk of his brother nearby, and the warmth with which Sammy is looking at him right now, even if his eyes are a little unfocused. Even if he's gripping Dean's shoulders a little too tight, reeking of the tobacco that neither of them smoke.
“It's been a while,” Sam says.
Dean swallows dryly, replies, “Yeah.”
“Why are you stopping?”
“I'm tired, Sammy.”
“I know, but we're not far now.”
“Sammy, I don't think--”
“Come on, Dean.”
Dean tries again: “You're not my...”
“I wouldn't let anything happen to you.” Sam slides his hands to Dean's arms, and tugs gently. “You know this, right? Come on.”
“No.”
“Dean.”
“No!”
“Why do you always have to fight me, Dean?” Sam sighs, and there's such frustration in his tone, which grates, and has always grated. There's a sad and wary smile on his brother's face that might have been meant to reassure, but Dean has seen that smile before and in that instant Dean sees his brother's eyes flare red and he sees--
--black eyes and a white suit, Sam's foot on Dean's neck and his smile being the last thing Dean sees before he sees nothing. It's the devil's smile via Sam's face, like Lucifer doesn't know how to use it, like the muscle and skin and sinew are just inconvenient necessities. Dean knows his brother and he knows his brother's smile, and this is not him. This is not it.
“I'm your brother,” the creature promises.
“You dumb shit,” Dean croaks. “All this trouble impersonating a Winchester and you don't even choose the handsome one.”
Dean shoves forward, throwing all his weight at the creature, and it wails in fury as they crash to the ground.
+
“In a way, I've always been waiting for you to come back,” Cas said to him in that other future, and Dean flinched because he wasn't ready to be what that sentence wanted him to be. Cas's eyes slid to the other Dean, up in front of the group, and quietly added, “Accept no substitutes.”
+
The fall knocks the wind out of Dean, but he still struggles to pin the beast to the ground.
Already it is changing its shape under him: already its arms darken and curl, already the legs become leaner and longer, nudging Dean off-balance. Sam's face narrows and elongates, its eyes moving apart, its hair concentrating itself down the middle of the head, like a mane. Like a horse's mane. It has a horse's face, but with none of the blankness of dumb beasts. It holds the intelligent fury of someone whose meticulous plans have been overthrown.
The creature throws Dean aside as if he were a rag doll.
“I knew you were difficult,” it says in its true voice, which comes out in a grainy hiss. “I didn't know how difficult. It was fun, Dean Winchester – your head is full of interesting highways and byways, many ways to make you fall. But,” its breath fogs in the air, “you are too stubborn for my tastes. If your brother does not bend you, perhaps we've come now to the end of our game.”
Dean remembers a sketch from his father's journal, a column of notes beside it, a map of the Philippines taped in with arrows pointing at northern Luzon, and scribbled phone numbers with west coast area codes. Dean's practically memorized the whole damn journal, back when he'd try to figure out his father through the catalog of things he killed, and the page is suddenly clear in his mind's eye. Here it is in front of him in living color, surround sound.
The creature raises itself on its hind legs, and confirms the generalities of his father's sketch: the tikbalang is a minotaur with horse parts instead of bull. It has the head of a horse and stands on a horse's hindquarters – deceptively strong for being so spindly-looking. It has the arms and torso of man. The eyes of an angry spirit. The smell of tobacco, which it loves to smoke. The constitution of a trickster, loving to obfuscate and lead astray and – when its mind games fail – to kill.
What his father's sketch failed to express was how fucking huge these things are in real life. It's got like two feet on Dean.
“You've proven more of a challenge than the others,” the tikbalang continues. It sways forward, its swagger belying great strength. “Then again, you are not like the others at all. You're very different, aren't you?”
“Save it, Seabiscuit,” Dean growls, pulling himself to his feet and reaching for his gun. Which isn't there. Not that it would help against a trickster figure, but anything's better than going empty-handed. Dean goes for his knife and at least that's there, and then Dean's back in fighting stance, ready for anything, but mostly he's ready to get his ass kicked.
Dean pieces together now the interrupted phone conversation with Sam, setting it next to his father's journal entry. Number one reason he's going to get his ass kicked: Dean has no stake dipped in victims' blood. He has a single goddamn knife. Number two reason: tikbalangs are strong and fast, and you need to be fit when you're facing off with them, not hungry and thirsty and emotionally drained because you've been wandering hypnotized around the mountains all day.
He asks, low and angry, “Where are the other hikers?”
The tikbalang replies, “You'll soon find out.”
And it strikes.
Dean ducks and rolls, but a tikbalang has a long reach. It grabs Dean by the shirt collar and drags him closer, but he writhes and stabs, and the tikbalang screams, lets go. Dean shoots back up to his feet, spares a glance at the forest floor looking for a glint of metal that might be his gun, but no dice.
“Where are the other hikers, you son of a bitch?” he snaps. “Don't make me ask again!”
“Don't worry,” it assures him. “You won't get the chance.”
Dean charges a hair of a second before it does, and when they crash into each other, it's a tornado of blows and yells and drastic movement, or at least it is on Dean's part, because he quickly realizes that the tikbalang isn't even trying. It evades Dean's maneuvers with lazy ease, dodging this way and that like this is just some amusing dance, like it's the fucking drunken master. Like Dean isn't fighting for his life.
Dean's best bet in the absence of a stake is to climb up on the beast's back and cut off its thickest lock of mane, which would weaken it and more, but he is in no condition to do that. But it's not like 'stab the fucker!' is any better of a plan either. His throat is parched, his muscles ache, and when the tikbalang suddenly barrels forward and deals out a quick succession of blows, Dean goes down, straight down, and his ears are ringing and his vision blurs.
He's crumpled in a heap on the forest floor, and when he looks up at the beast, he sees only a dark shape. He hears it say, “Paalam,” which – in the weird clarity that visits you when you're about to die – is a word that Dean remembers from a pretty waitress in Santa Clara, back when he was hunting gaki out west. The waitress taught him: dagat means 'ocean' and puso means 'heart' and paalam means 'goodbye'.
Dean hopes, with a vague detachment, that Sammy won't take his death too hard. Again.
He hears the rustle of wings.
The tikbalang disappears from view, blocked by a beige trenchcoat, and Dean hears the granite-edged rumble of a voice he's come to associate with eleventh-hour rescues and the willful ignorance of the concept of personal space.
“You will not touch him,” Castiel threatens, “or I'll destroy you where you stand.”
“Cas--” Dean gasps, and the angel lifts his hand for silence.
“Another player for our game?” the tikbalang asks, amused.
“Cas, be careful,” Dean blabbers, “it's a tikbalang, a trickster--”
“I know what it is,” Cas says simply. “Give me your knife.”
Dean does, and Castiel attacks.
The last time Dean saw him, the angel was weakened and stiff from pain, but Dean is reminded now of how, above all things, Castiel is a soldier, a warrior of God. The tikbalang barely has time to react before the angel slams an elbow into its belly. It doubles over with a throaty bray, and Cas clouts it across the face for good measure before before grabbing fistfuls of its mane and hoisting himself onto its back. Dean scrambles out of the way, narrowly missing having his ribcage flattened by a massive hoof.
The tikbalang roars, flailing at the back of its head where Cas hangs on with his legs hooked around its shoulders. There is barely enough light to see by, and Dean sees the action mostly as silhouettes, shadow puppets dancing against a darkening sky. The tikbalang tries to dislodge Castiel, thrashing this way and that, shaking and jerking, and still Cas holds on like he's going for the grand prize at the goddamn rodeo.
The beast manages to catch the edge of Cas's coat and goddammit, Dean knew that coat was going to be a pain in the ass someday, unwieldy and bulky and getting caught on things that are man-broncos from the Philippines. But Cas doesn't even lose a beat. The angel hunches forward and angles his arms back, and lets the coat slide off him.
Cas looks for all the world like a door-to-door salesman, waving around a hunting knife as he rides the carousel horse from hell.
The tikbalang whinnies frustratedly when it realizes that the coat is empty, and those two seconds of distraction are all Cas needs: Dean can see the fervor of near-victory in Cas's hunched shoulders that means he's found it, the thickest cord of mane.
He cuts it.
The tikbalang screams, and suddenly Cas is kneeling next to Dean.
“Dean, are you all right?” he asks.
“Holy shit,” is what Dean says. He grabs Castiel's shoulder and the angel helps him to his feet. “Your timing is impeccable as always. I'm fine.”
It doesn't take long for the creature to settle down, stumbling around as the murderous rage gives way to a dazed stupor. Soon it becomes as docile as Dean had been all day, and he can't help thinking hah, you fucker, because if you can't feel vindictive at monsters, then what can you feel vindictive at? (He thinks of his brother in a white suit, then doesn't.) Still, Dean keeps one eye on it. Just in case. It's just that there's something unnerving about having an eight-foot mutant Mr. Ed looming nearby, especially one that was just trying to kill you.
“It wasn't easy tracking you,” Castiel says gruffly, as if annoyed with himself for not arriving sooner. “It's not easy finding a tikbalang, or its victims before it releases them.”
Dean grins. “Well, thanks. You saved my ass. Again.”
Castiel nods solemnly. “You're welcome.”
“How'd you know to find me?”
“Sam called me. He became worried when you didn't answer your phone.”
“Sammy?” Dean chuckles. “Sam worries about everything.”
“He worries about you most of all,” Cas says, like Dean doesn't already know.
“Yeah, it's gonna give him wrinkles.”
Cas says, “He wants you to call him back as soon as you can.”
“Cas,” Dean says, and puts both hands on the angel's shoulders.
“Yes?” Castiel tilts his head at him, bird-like, with that familiar expression of patient curiosity like Dean just cracked wise about yet another eighties sitcom. And that's Cas right there, that's the angel he knows, the one who sucks at not being a Vulcan and who would rather be trapping archangels than getting laid. The one who leaves Dean's side only to look for his father, and if that isn't a sentiment that Dean can identify with, then what is?
“Cas,” Dean repeats, because he's not sure what to say yet. He's not even sure he wants to say anything. He just wants to stay here in this moment, washed clean of illusions, refreshed by the solidity of something honest under his hands. Castiel's coat is still lying on the ground some distance away, and without the bulk of it, Cas looks much smaller, deceptively so. Castiel can rip Dean to shreds and scatter his molecules to the edge of the universe if he wants to, and it's humbling to have the loyalty of a creature so terrifying, to have him look at Dean like Dean's the axis on which everything spins. Dean thinks, I'm the one who should be looking at you like that.
Dean says, “I could kiss you right now.”
Cas raises an eyebrow, and Dean tugs him into a bear hug to end all bear hugs. The angel makes a sound that sounds suspiciously like 'urp!' and hesitantly, carefully, like he's trying to figure out the inner workings of a complicated machine, puts his arms around Dean and hugs back. Then, having figured out that it's not as hard as he thought, hugs Dean closer, unstiffening as he eases into Dean's embrace.
“You son of a bitch,” Dean croaks into Castiel's neck. “You're capable of hugs after all, aren't you?”
“I am capable of hugs,” Cas confirms.
This is not a new feeling, the way the world seems fresher after escaping certain death (again), but it's a great feeling every time. But over Castiel's shoulder Dean sees the tikbalang shuffling vaguely between the trees, looking around like it's lost. It kind of reminds him of the dog waiting for Fry to return in the only Futurama episode to ever make Dean tear up, not that anyone will ever know that. There are loose ends to attend to.
“Okay,” Dean says, patting Castiel's back. “Come on, we're not out of the woods yet.”
“We're miles from the road,” Cas agrees, stepping back.
“I also meant that figuratively. We've got some unfinished business, not the least of which is Kentucky Derby over there. Cas, can you stick around?” Dean asks. “You don't need to zip off to like Tir Nan Og or whatever, do you?”
“No.”
“Good. First, we need to--” and all of a sudden Dean finds himself talking to air.
The angel materializes next to his fallen trenchcoat. He picks it up and dusts it off before he swings the coat around himself, putting it on in one fluid movement. He looks up at an amused Dean, and nods. “I'm ready.”
+
“And that's just how I roll,” Cas concluded as they drove to the croat hot zone. The amphetamines were starting to kick in and, in the passenger seat, Dean wondered wearily how far they had to drive. “Because God is dead, Dean,” Cas said, and laughed to himself. “Welcome to the end times!”
“Okay, Nietzsche, eyes on the road,” Dean muttered.
“Nietzsche would have loved this! Can you imagine? God is dead and he remains dead,” Cas recited. “And we have killed him! How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers?” He gave Dean an exaggerated heartbroken look. “What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent?”
“Clue?” Dean suggested. “Humanity, in the library, with the zombie apocalypse?”
“Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us?” Cas continued, hovering between histrionic jest and genuine mourning. “Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?”
“Are you saying you're God?”
“I'm saying,” Cas said, “fuck it.”
Dean scoffed, “So this is what happens when an angel falls? They get stoned and go all Philosophy 101 on you? What are you, a freshman?”
“A fresh man,” he mused. “Hmm. I haven't been fresh for as long as I've been a man, I can tell you that. But if you think about it,” he met Dean's eyes in the rear-view mirror, “what choice do I have?”
“You always have a choice.”
“I chose you,” Cas shrugged. “I always have.”
+
The thickest, longest cord of a tikbalang's mane is the source of, not necessarily its power, but its freedom. Whomsoever cuts it becomes the master of the creature, and the tikbalang becomes as confused into their submission as its victims usually become to it. Dean inspects it, frowning: it's gnarled, almost bark-like, like a dreadlock off of a particularly earthy Grateful Dead fan. Gross.
“So he's yours now?” Dean asks Castiel, nodding at the beast swaying in front of them. “Like a dog? A pet?”
“Yes,” Cas replies, “though I don't require the services of a tikbalang currently.”
“Don't forget to walk it and feed it twice a day. You should probably get a collar for it too. A license, a leash. What are you gonna name it?”
“You are making a joke,” Cas guesses.
Dean sighs. “Yes.”
“Hahaha,” Castiel offers, valiantly.
“Thanks, Cas. Thank you.” Then, on to more important matters. “Okay, so let's ice this bastard.”
Castiel hesitates. “I don't think we need to ice it.”
“In this context, ice means kill,” Dean clarifies.
“You've explained to me what 'ice' means,” Cas says irritably, “but now that the tikbalang is bound to me... perhaps its death is unnecessary. I can make it do what I say.”
Dean raises his eyebrows.
“Avoid unnecessary deaths,” Castiel says, quoting Dean back at him, “in this war that's probably going to claim a... shitload, of lives.”
Dean smirks outwardly, but he stays quiet, feels his throat go dry and his heart do a funny sort of ta-thump.
“Dean,” Cas says, a smile quirking at the edge of his mouth, “we talked about this.”
And yes, they did, they've talked about a lot of things, and god, if Cas is doomed to fall and become human or whatever, then let this be the humanity that he clings to – compassion, mercy – instead of the hedonism and barely concealed desperation of that other Cas, wherever and whenever he is.
“Well, hop to it,” Dean says, and Cas hops to.
It's kind of weird, seeing a giant horse-monster crouch low to hear what this diminutive man has to say. The expression on the tikbalang's face is one of concentration, as if struggling to see through a fog. Leave the humans alone, Cas instructs. Keep out of sight. Just eat your fruits and smoke your tobacco, and do no harm.
And of course the creature has no choice but to say, “I will obey.”
Cas lifts his hand and touches the tikbalang's muzzle. Is the tikbalang nuzzling it back? It totally is. Dean makes a mental note to give Cas shit about that later. Castiel: Tikbalang Whisperer.
The tikbalang gives off the impression of untangling itself as it rises its feet. Hooves. As it stands up, and it makes no sound when it turns around and disappears into the trees.
“Are you sure I can't kill it?” Dean asks when they go off to find the other hikers.
Cas frowns at him. “Why are you so intent on killing it?”
Dean shrugs and looks away.
It doesn't take long for Castiel to find the survivors, and to bring Dean to them. Out of the six hikers taken by the tikbalang, only four are alive, and even then just barely. They also find the two disoriented rangers who disappeared from the search party. Dean tells them that it's okay now, everything's gonna be okay. Help is on its way. (“Get help,” Dean tells Cas, out of sight of the survivors, and Cas is gone before Dean even blinks.)
Some of the survivors have stories to tell, once they find the energy for words. My boyfriend, my girlfriend, my mother, my father, my best friend, they told me to follow them. And Dean wants to say I know, I know, but instead he tells them that it was probably hallucinations caused by sunstroke.
As for the bodies, an anonymous tip to the rangers later will have to do, just so they'll know where to find the remains.
By the time they get back to the motel, Dean is too tired to do anything but collapse on the bed and groan, “Cheeseburger. Bacon. Extra fries. And pie.”
“Apple?” Cas asks.
“Chocolate cream.”
And with the muted rush of wingbeats, Dean is alone in the room once more. He kicks off his boots, takes out his cellphone, and dials the first number on his Missed Calls list.
“YOU STUPID MOTHERFUCKER,” is how Sam answers the phone.
At the sound of his brother's voice, Dean laughs with relief, and it's like releasing a breath he didn't even realize he was holding. “Hey, Sammy,” Dean says, and grins so hard his face hurts.
+
“They didn't have chocolate cream,” Cas says when he returns, “so I got one of each.” He holds out the bags of food. “Lemon meringue or pecan?”
Cas is awesome.
“In retrospect,” Dean is saying, around a mouthful of pecan pie, “the tikbalang wasn't even that good at the whole shapeshifting thing. It looked like Sam, sure. But it acted like some homicidal stoner the whole time.”
Dean has decided not to tell the angel that the tikbalang took on Cas's form most of the time.
“The tikbalang doesn't need to act exactly like your brother,” Cas points out. “It has other ways of clouding your senses and making you do what it wants.”
“So this trickster is like, part siren, part 'shifter.”
Cas sighs. “It is what it is. It's not just some collage of the things you know.”
“Part centaur,” Dean continues, “but in minotaur format. Our little pony here didn't even make up new realities.”
“It shifted yours just enough to matter. There are many kinds of tricksters, Dean.”
Dean takes another bite of pie and asks, “So how was Babylon?”
Cas grimaces. “Full of tourists. Their flash photography was distracting.”
“...Their what?”
“It was difficult to find a space to summon Marduk. The vendors kept trying to sell me t-shirts and sunglasses.”
It took a few seconds for this to process. “Wait, what? T-shirts?” Dean frowns. “This is Babylon as in hanging gardens Babylon?”
“Yes. Its ruins are not far from the city you know as Baghdad.”
“Oh. Well, shit.” He had gotten the impression that Cas was time-traveling again. Maybe Cas is too weak now for even that. “Did, uh, Marduk know anything about your dad?”
Cas closes his eyes and shakes his head.
“You'll find Him, buddy,” Dean assures him, saying the words he's never believed in. “At least your angel powers are back, huh? Should make things easier.”
“Yes,” Castiel says morosely. “For now.”
“For now's good enough, Cas,” Dean says, taking another bite of pie. “For now's pretty excellent.”
+
Dean finishes all the food while Cas stays with him and regales him with theories on where Lucifer might be, what Lucifer might be doing next, why God is AWOL, and where he will go next and why.
“You mentioned Tir Nan Og earlier,” the angel says. “There is potential in that idea. The Tuatha De Danann are recalcitrant at the best of times, but it is possible that they are more flexible now that end is nigh.”
It's the grasping at straws that Dean recognizes from back when Sam looked everywhere for a way to get Dean out of the deal with the crossroads demon, the same harried postulating back from when they were still going after seals. Dean tosses ideas back and forth with Cas anyway, because it's good to keep busy, even if nothing might come of it, and it does Dean good to see Cas riled up. He still can't quite shake glassy blue eyes and cynical laughter from his head, can't shake the feel of deft hands and hot breaths on his neck, and he almost hates Future Cas for turning on the lightbulb over what Dean had been fine being blind to all this time.
Finally, Cas rises to his feet. “I'm glad you're safe, Dean. We'll be in touch.”
“Wait, hang on,” Dean says, and stands too. “Cas, c'mere.”
“I'm here.”
“Come closer.”
So the angel steps around the table, stands in front of Dean, hesitant. “You said personal space--”
“Yeah, I know what I said,” Dean mutters, and puts his hands on Castiel's shoulders like back in the mountains. Cas glances at them, furrows his brows, then looks up at Dean again, waiting. “Look,” Dean says. “I just... Thank you.”
“You already thanked me.”
“I know. But like, thank you for... everything. You're a real stand-up guy.”
'Stand-up guy'? Who the hell says that anymore? But Dean can't think properly, on account of Cas being right there. It dredges up the muscle memory that has refused to leave him since he returned from the future. Dean's getting distracted by the little details; he wonders what kissing Cas would taste like when the angel isn't eating half a pharmacy and most of the liquor store. What sounds would he make if Dean were to graze his teeth along his skin? What is it like to tug off that coat, that blazer, that shirt, to know him this way too?
On impulse, he lifts a hand to cup Cas's cheek, reasoning that Cas is too socially awkward to know that this is socially awkward anyway.
“...Dean?”
Dean slings an arm around Castiel's neck and pulls him close to press a kiss against the angel's forehead.
Cas blinks.
“Um,” Dean says, intelligently. “That's for luck.”
Just. Shoot him now. 'For luck'? Jesus christ.
“So, uh,” Dean says.
Then he thinks, This is maybe a bad idea, and kisses Castiel's mouth.
Cas freezes, but if anything, Dean's tentativeness is testament to his determination. The brush of his lips against Cas's is gentle and light, and Dean doesn't relax until he feels Cas relax too, exhaling softly into Dean's mouth. Cas lowers his shoulders and just as tentatively kisses him back. When Dean parts his lips, Cas does too, with the bright-edged trepidation of those who ask a question they think already know the answer to.
Oh god, this is happening, Dean babbles in his head, and leans into the kiss, pressing harder, lifting both his hands to cup Cas's face. This is his mistake. At this raising of stakes, Cas sucks in his breath sharply and stiffens again. The angel shifts his head slightly away, and damn it, okay. Dean knows how to take a hint.
Dean takes a step back.
“That was, uh,” Dean says.
And Cas just stands there, looking as bewildered as Dean feels.
“So take care of yourself, buddy,” Dean bursts out, and pats Castiel's shoulder. “Good luck on the God search, okay? Tell me how it goes.”
“Dean,” Castiel says, and is he looking more serious than usual? It's hard to tell, with Cas.
“If you find Him, tell Him Dean Winchester says hi, and also that He better get off His ass and--”
“Dean.”
“What.”
Oh god, not this, not the soulful staring. Usually Dean can handle the soulful staring, but not right now. Not after that. Usually Dean's pretty good at distinguishing between id time and superego time, so how what just happened happened... he doesn't even... Fuck, maybe Dean just needs to go to bed, it's been a long day. Maybe--
Dean's second-guessing is cut short when Cas lifts a faltering hand and touches Dean's mouth. The angel frowns contemplatively, as if analyzing the sensation, cataloging it for future reference. Castiel's touch is as light as his kiss, and he runs his thumb over Dean's lower lip with a gentleness that strains to ask, “What if I...?”
“I've always wondered,” Castiel says softly. “This vessel... I've felt,” he begins, and stops, and as much as Dean wants to ask FELT WHAT? he lets it go, because he understands the lack of words, and also because he doesn't want Cas to stop touching him. Cas's hand slides to his cheek in an echo of Dean earlier, and Dean finds himself following the movement to brush his lips against Castiel's palm.
Castiel's breath hitches, just a little, and Dean murmurs, “Sorry.”
“Don't apologize,” Cas says, and there is something brittle and aching in his voice. He withdraws his hand, and declares, “I have to go.”
“Yeah, I have to sleep,” Dean replies.
They don't move.
“Good night, Dean.”
“You too, Cas.”
They don't move.
“So--” Dean says, but is interrupted when Cas suddenly appears in his space and brushes a kiss against Dean's lips, fast and soft, and then Dean hears the beat of wings, and Cas is gone.
Standing in the empty motel room, Dean says, “Well, shit.”
He smiles.
+
Dean's forgotten how tired he is until he actually climbs into bed, and that's when all the aches and bruises crackle up to the surface. He groans into his pillow, rolls over and pulls the blanket up to his chin like that might help somehow. It doesn't.
The whiskey bottle on the nightstand catches his eye. He stares at it for a few seconds before deciding what the hell. Nightcap.
The burn in his throat is comforting in its familiarity, but it brings with it something threadbare and Pavlovian that visits upon him failures past and future: all that he might and might not be, what he could and couldn't do. They gather on the edge of his mind and taunt him, poking and prodding. Dean contemplates another shot to drown them out, but instead he closes his eyes and thinks about Sam chewing him out on the phone, Cas sighing about how difficult it is to get an audience with the Morrigan these days. The warm burr in Sam's voice when he told Dean to come home, and the spark in Cas's expression when he touched Dean's mouth.
Dean waits, and eventually they outshine everything else in his head.
He sleeps.
[end.]
NOTES
1.Like most folk tales, tikbalang lore is varied and often contradictory. What is common is that it is a trickster figure who likes to mess with travelers, and it looks kind of like this. I referred to various sources (I use the term 'sources' lightly) for details, which I cobbled together haphazardly for the purposes of this story. I drew from this site, this site, and this site, then applied artistic license.
2.That was Nietzsche's “Parable of the Madman” that Cas quoted to Dean on the way to the croat hot zone. Chuck wonders sometimes if maybe he should've recommended some lighter reading to Cas, maybe some Maeve Binchy or R.L. Stine. Cas seems to like it though. It's just, when does it stop becoming catharsis and start becoming pain?
3. Dagat, puso, and paalam are Tagalog words. The waitress's name was Concepcion Vitan, but most people know her as Connie. She grew up in Bulacan, which she told Dean she wanted to visit again someday. Dean wondered what it says about his life that when Connie started telling him about her childhood home, his first thoughts were curiosity about how hunters operate in the Philippines, if they have a network there like in the US, whether they use different weapons, and what the monsters are like on the other side of the world.
Heaven Sent You Downstream
Supernatural. Dean/Castiel, Sam. PG13. Spoilers through 5x04. Much love and thanks to inveterate sexyfaces
serialkarma and sgrio for betareading.Half casefic and half 'The End' episode tag in which Dean 1) investigates some disappearances in the mountains, and 2) finds it difficult to leave the future behind. Takes place after Castiel spirits Dean away from the motel, and before Dean meets up with Sam. ~11,100 words (Part 2: ~6100 words, including notes)
Part 1
Twilight: the last of the day streaks through the sky in shades of gold.
Ahead of him, Cas is becoming more difficult to see. Dean strains to listen for him and hears, not footsteps, but something heavier, akin to hoofbeats, and a whinnying giggle that reminds him of fingernails on blackboards.
“Cas, where are we going?” he calls out.
“We're almost there,” Cas assures him.
“Look, I gotta get back to Sam. Why don't we just--”
“We're almost there, Dean.”
“Hey!” Dean yells, and stops walking. It takes a surprising amount of willpower. “Cas, look. I've been walking for hours here. I'm exhausted, I'm out of food, water, and my feet feel like they're about to fall off.” He feels compelled to keep on walking, so he grabs onto a branch and hangs on.
Cas, lost to sight in the gloom, orders, “Dean, come.”
“Naw, man,” Dean says, ignoring the bile rising in his mouth. He gets the feeling like maybe he should've stopped sooner, should've tried to stop hours ago. “You come here. Come on, we've been walking all day.”
“We're almost there.”
“You've been saying that for the past two hours.” Dean feels some indiscernible force tug him forward, and he tightens his grip on the branch. “Cas, look, I have to...”
“Dean.”
“You keep forgetting this about humans, Cas. We're not the goddamn Energizer bunny, all right? Look, whatever is out here, whatever--” Whatever you are, Dean thinks desperately, because there is still a part of him that is aware enough to know what's going on, but it is not the part that controls his actions or his thoughts. It's not the part that can't be extinguished by the voice insisting that all this is real.
Dean manages to gasp, “Cas,” rallying his strength for that one syllable. He sags sideways against the tree and breathes hard, thinking of immoveable things. He wishes Sam were here. He wishes he'd called back.
“Maybe you're right,” Cas says from somewhere within the shadows. “Maybe I've been taking the wrong approach.”
The sound of footsteps draws near, changing from uneven and clumphing to hesitant and light. Dean steadies himself for whatever's coming, his heart jackhammering in his chest, his senses trying to be alert.
“It's difficult sometimes, I admit,” Cas continues, except it doesn't sound like Cas anymore, “to be able to tell the difference between what's at the forefront of your mind and what is at the heart of you. But I think I've learned something of you now, now that we've had time to get to know each other. Let's try again.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Dean rasps. He feels a chill that has nothing to do with the crepuscular drop in temperature. He knows that voice.
“Nothing,” says Sam, stepping into view. “Come on, Dean. Let's go home.”
Dean doesn't know whether his heart is squeezed tight from relief or disgust.
“You're not Sam,” he retorts, testing out how the words feel in his mouth.
Sam rolls his eyes. “Yeah, I'm the tooth fairy.”
He walks closer to Dean, his movements awkward and his limbs oddly cumbersome. Dean resists the urge to shrink back. This is Sammy here, and even if it's not...
Sam steps in real close and he has to bend his head to look Dean in the eyes. Dean has missed this. He's missed this proximity and ease, the looming bulk of his brother nearby, and the warmth with which Sammy is looking at him right now, even if his eyes are a little unfocused. Even if he's gripping Dean's shoulders a little too tight, reeking of the tobacco that neither of them smoke.
“It's been a while,” Sam says.
Dean swallows dryly, replies, “Yeah.”
“Why are you stopping?”
“I'm tired, Sammy.”
“I know, but we're not far now.”
“Sammy, I don't think--”
“Come on, Dean.”
Dean tries again: “You're not my...”
“I wouldn't let anything happen to you.” Sam slides his hands to Dean's arms, and tugs gently. “You know this, right? Come on.”
“No.”
“Dean.”
“No!”
“Why do you always have to fight me, Dean?” Sam sighs, and there's such frustration in his tone, which grates, and has always grated. There's a sad and wary smile on his brother's face that might have been meant to reassure, but Dean has seen that smile before and in that instant Dean sees his brother's eyes flare red and he sees--
--black eyes and a white suit, Sam's foot on Dean's neck and his smile being the last thing Dean sees before he sees nothing. It's the devil's smile via Sam's face, like Lucifer doesn't know how to use it, like the muscle and skin and sinew are just inconvenient necessities. Dean knows his brother and he knows his brother's smile, and this is not him. This is not it.
“I'm your brother,” the creature promises.
“You dumb shit,” Dean croaks. “All this trouble impersonating a Winchester and you don't even choose the handsome one.”
Dean shoves forward, throwing all his weight at the creature, and it wails in fury as they crash to the ground.
+
“In a way, I've always been waiting for you to come back,” Cas said to him in that other future, and Dean flinched because he wasn't ready to be what that sentence wanted him to be. Cas's eyes slid to the other Dean, up in front of the group, and quietly added, “Accept no substitutes.”
+
The fall knocks the wind out of Dean, but he still struggles to pin the beast to the ground.
Already it is changing its shape under him: already its arms darken and curl, already the legs become leaner and longer, nudging Dean off-balance. Sam's face narrows and elongates, its eyes moving apart, its hair concentrating itself down the middle of the head, like a mane. Like a horse's mane. It has a horse's face, but with none of the blankness of dumb beasts. It holds the intelligent fury of someone whose meticulous plans have been overthrown.
The creature throws Dean aside as if he were a rag doll.
“I knew you were difficult,” it says in its true voice, which comes out in a grainy hiss. “I didn't know how difficult. It was fun, Dean Winchester – your head is full of interesting highways and byways, many ways to make you fall. But,” its breath fogs in the air, “you are too stubborn for my tastes. If your brother does not bend you, perhaps we've come now to the end of our game.”
Dean remembers a sketch from his father's journal, a column of notes beside it, a map of the Philippines taped in with arrows pointing at northern Luzon, and scribbled phone numbers with west coast area codes. Dean's practically memorized the whole damn journal, back when he'd try to figure out his father through the catalog of things he killed, and the page is suddenly clear in his mind's eye. Here it is in front of him in living color, surround sound.
The creature raises itself on its hind legs, and confirms the generalities of his father's sketch: the tikbalang is a minotaur with horse parts instead of bull. It has the head of a horse and stands on a horse's hindquarters – deceptively strong for being so spindly-looking. It has the arms and torso of man. The eyes of an angry spirit. The smell of tobacco, which it loves to smoke. The constitution of a trickster, loving to obfuscate and lead astray and – when its mind games fail – to kill.
What his father's sketch failed to express was how fucking huge these things are in real life. It's got like two feet on Dean.
“You've proven more of a challenge than the others,” the tikbalang continues. It sways forward, its swagger belying great strength. “Then again, you are not like the others at all. You're very different, aren't you?”
“Save it, Seabiscuit,” Dean growls, pulling himself to his feet and reaching for his gun. Which isn't there. Not that it would help against a trickster figure, but anything's better than going empty-handed. Dean goes for his knife and at least that's there, and then Dean's back in fighting stance, ready for anything, but mostly he's ready to get his ass kicked.
Dean pieces together now the interrupted phone conversation with Sam, setting it next to his father's journal entry. Number one reason he's going to get his ass kicked: Dean has no stake dipped in victims' blood. He has a single goddamn knife. Number two reason: tikbalangs are strong and fast, and you need to be fit when you're facing off with them, not hungry and thirsty and emotionally drained because you've been wandering hypnotized around the mountains all day.
He asks, low and angry, “Where are the other hikers?”
The tikbalang replies, “You'll soon find out.”
And it strikes.
Dean ducks and rolls, but a tikbalang has a long reach. It grabs Dean by the shirt collar and drags him closer, but he writhes and stabs, and the tikbalang screams, lets go. Dean shoots back up to his feet, spares a glance at the forest floor looking for a glint of metal that might be his gun, but no dice.
“Where are the other hikers, you son of a bitch?” he snaps. “Don't make me ask again!”
“Don't worry,” it assures him. “You won't get the chance.”
Dean charges a hair of a second before it does, and when they crash into each other, it's a tornado of blows and yells and drastic movement, or at least it is on Dean's part, because he quickly realizes that the tikbalang isn't even trying. It evades Dean's maneuvers with lazy ease, dodging this way and that like this is just some amusing dance, like it's the fucking drunken master. Like Dean isn't fighting for his life.
Dean's best bet in the absence of a stake is to climb up on the beast's back and cut off its thickest lock of mane, which would weaken it and more, but he is in no condition to do that. But it's not like 'stab the fucker!' is any better of a plan either. His throat is parched, his muscles ache, and when the tikbalang suddenly barrels forward and deals out a quick succession of blows, Dean goes down, straight down, and his ears are ringing and his vision blurs.
He's crumpled in a heap on the forest floor, and when he looks up at the beast, he sees only a dark shape. He hears it say, “Paalam,” which – in the weird clarity that visits you when you're about to die – is a word that Dean remembers from a pretty waitress in Santa Clara, back when he was hunting gaki out west. The waitress taught him: dagat means 'ocean' and puso means 'heart' and paalam means 'goodbye'.
Dean hopes, with a vague detachment, that Sammy won't take his death too hard. Again.
He hears the rustle of wings.
The tikbalang disappears from view, blocked by a beige trenchcoat, and Dean hears the granite-edged rumble of a voice he's come to associate with eleventh-hour rescues and the willful ignorance of the concept of personal space.
“You will not touch him,” Castiel threatens, “or I'll destroy you where you stand.”
“Cas--” Dean gasps, and the angel lifts his hand for silence.
“Another player for our game?” the tikbalang asks, amused.
“Cas, be careful,” Dean blabbers, “it's a tikbalang, a trickster--”
“I know what it is,” Cas says simply. “Give me your knife.”
Dean does, and Castiel attacks.
The last time Dean saw him, the angel was weakened and stiff from pain, but Dean is reminded now of how, above all things, Castiel is a soldier, a warrior of God. The tikbalang barely has time to react before the angel slams an elbow into its belly. It doubles over with a throaty bray, and Cas clouts it across the face for good measure before before grabbing fistfuls of its mane and hoisting himself onto its back. Dean scrambles out of the way, narrowly missing having his ribcage flattened by a massive hoof.
The tikbalang roars, flailing at the back of its head where Cas hangs on with his legs hooked around its shoulders. There is barely enough light to see by, and Dean sees the action mostly as silhouettes, shadow puppets dancing against a darkening sky. The tikbalang tries to dislodge Castiel, thrashing this way and that, shaking and jerking, and still Cas holds on like he's going for the grand prize at the goddamn rodeo.
The beast manages to catch the edge of Cas's coat and goddammit, Dean knew that coat was going to be a pain in the ass someday, unwieldy and bulky and getting caught on things that are man-broncos from the Philippines. But Cas doesn't even lose a beat. The angel hunches forward and angles his arms back, and lets the coat slide off him.
Cas looks for all the world like a door-to-door salesman, waving around a hunting knife as he rides the carousel horse from hell.
The tikbalang whinnies frustratedly when it realizes that the coat is empty, and those two seconds of distraction are all Cas needs: Dean can see the fervor of near-victory in Cas's hunched shoulders that means he's found it, the thickest cord of mane.
He cuts it.
The tikbalang screams, and suddenly Cas is kneeling next to Dean.
“Dean, are you all right?” he asks.
“Holy shit,” is what Dean says. He grabs Castiel's shoulder and the angel helps him to his feet. “Your timing is impeccable as always. I'm fine.”
It doesn't take long for the creature to settle down, stumbling around as the murderous rage gives way to a dazed stupor. Soon it becomes as docile as Dean had been all day, and he can't help thinking hah, you fucker, because if you can't feel vindictive at monsters, then what can you feel vindictive at? (He thinks of his brother in a white suit, then doesn't.) Still, Dean keeps one eye on it. Just in case. It's just that there's something unnerving about having an eight-foot mutant Mr. Ed looming nearby, especially one that was just trying to kill you.
“It wasn't easy tracking you,” Castiel says gruffly, as if annoyed with himself for not arriving sooner. “It's not easy finding a tikbalang, or its victims before it releases them.”
Dean grins. “Well, thanks. You saved my ass. Again.”
Castiel nods solemnly. “You're welcome.”
“How'd you know to find me?”
“Sam called me. He became worried when you didn't answer your phone.”
“Sammy?” Dean chuckles. “Sam worries about everything.”
“He worries about you most of all,” Cas says, like Dean doesn't already know.
“Yeah, it's gonna give him wrinkles.”
Cas says, “He wants you to call him back as soon as you can.”
“Cas,” Dean says, and puts both hands on the angel's shoulders.
“Yes?” Castiel tilts his head at him, bird-like, with that familiar expression of patient curiosity like Dean just cracked wise about yet another eighties sitcom. And that's Cas right there, that's the angel he knows, the one who sucks at not being a Vulcan and who would rather be trapping archangels than getting laid. The one who leaves Dean's side only to look for his father, and if that isn't a sentiment that Dean can identify with, then what is?
“Cas,” Dean repeats, because he's not sure what to say yet. He's not even sure he wants to say anything. He just wants to stay here in this moment, washed clean of illusions, refreshed by the solidity of something honest under his hands. Castiel's coat is still lying on the ground some distance away, and without the bulk of it, Cas looks much smaller, deceptively so. Castiel can rip Dean to shreds and scatter his molecules to the edge of the universe if he wants to, and it's humbling to have the loyalty of a creature so terrifying, to have him look at Dean like Dean's the axis on which everything spins. Dean thinks, I'm the one who should be looking at you like that.
Dean says, “I could kiss you right now.”
Cas raises an eyebrow, and Dean tugs him into a bear hug to end all bear hugs. The angel makes a sound that sounds suspiciously like 'urp!' and hesitantly, carefully, like he's trying to figure out the inner workings of a complicated machine, puts his arms around Dean and hugs back. Then, having figured out that it's not as hard as he thought, hugs Dean closer, unstiffening as he eases into Dean's embrace.
“You son of a bitch,” Dean croaks into Castiel's neck. “You're capable of hugs after all, aren't you?”
“I am capable of hugs,” Cas confirms.
This is not a new feeling, the way the world seems fresher after escaping certain death (again), but it's a great feeling every time. But over Castiel's shoulder Dean sees the tikbalang shuffling vaguely between the trees, looking around like it's lost. It kind of reminds him of the dog waiting for Fry to return in the only Futurama episode to ever make Dean tear up, not that anyone will ever know that. There are loose ends to attend to.
“Okay,” Dean says, patting Castiel's back. “Come on, we're not out of the woods yet.”
“We're miles from the road,” Cas agrees, stepping back.
“I also meant that figuratively. We've got some unfinished business, not the least of which is Kentucky Derby over there. Cas, can you stick around?” Dean asks. “You don't need to zip off to like Tir Nan Og or whatever, do you?”
“No.”
“Good. First, we need to--” and all of a sudden Dean finds himself talking to air.
The angel materializes next to his fallen trenchcoat. He picks it up and dusts it off before he swings the coat around himself, putting it on in one fluid movement. He looks up at an amused Dean, and nods. “I'm ready.”
+
“And that's just how I roll,” Cas concluded as they drove to the croat hot zone. The amphetamines were starting to kick in and, in the passenger seat, Dean wondered wearily how far they had to drive. “Because God is dead, Dean,” Cas said, and laughed to himself. “Welcome to the end times!”
“Okay, Nietzsche, eyes on the road,” Dean muttered.
“Nietzsche would have loved this! Can you imagine? God is dead and he remains dead,” Cas recited. “And we have killed him! How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers?” He gave Dean an exaggerated heartbroken look. “What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent?”
“Clue?” Dean suggested. “Humanity, in the library, with the zombie apocalypse?”
“Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us?” Cas continued, hovering between histrionic jest and genuine mourning. “Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?”
“Are you saying you're God?”
“I'm saying,” Cas said, “fuck it.”
Dean scoffed, “So this is what happens when an angel falls? They get stoned and go all Philosophy 101 on you? What are you, a freshman?”
“A fresh man,” he mused. “Hmm. I haven't been fresh for as long as I've been a man, I can tell you that. But if you think about it,” he met Dean's eyes in the rear-view mirror, “what choice do I have?”
“You always have a choice.”
“I chose you,” Cas shrugged. “I always have.”
+
The thickest, longest cord of a tikbalang's mane is the source of, not necessarily its power, but its freedom. Whomsoever cuts it becomes the master of the creature, and the tikbalang becomes as confused into their submission as its victims usually become to it. Dean inspects it, frowning: it's gnarled, almost bark-like, like a dreadlock off of a particularly earthy Grateful Dead fan. Gross.
“So he's yours now?” Dean asks Castiel, nodding at the beast swaying in front of them. “Like a dog? A pet?”
“Yes,” Cas replies, “though I don't require the services of a tikbalang currently.”
“Don't forget to walk it and feed it twice a day. You should probably get a collar for it too. A license, a leash. What are you gonna name it?”
“You are making a joke,” Cas guesses.
Dean sighs. “Yes.”
“Hahaha,” Castiel offers, valiantly.
“Thanks, Cas. Thank you.” Then, on to more important matters. “Okay, so let's ice this bastard.”
Castiel hesitates. “I don't think we need to ice it.”
“In this context, ice means kill,” Dean clarifies.
“You've explained to me what 'ice' means,” Cas says irritably, “but now that the tikbalang is bound to me... perhaps its death is unnecessary. I can make it do what I say.”
Dean raises his eyebrows.
“Avoid unnecessary deaths,” Castiel says, quoting Dean back at him, “in this war that's probably going to claim a... shitload, of lives.”
Dean smirks outwardly, but he stays quiet, feels his throat go dry and his heart do a funny sort of ta-thump.
“Dean,” Cas says, a smile quirking at the edge of his mouth, “we talked about this.”
And yes, they did, they've talked about a lot of things, and god, if Cas is doomed to fall and become human or whatever, then let this be the humanity that he clings to – compassion, mercy – instead of the hedonism and barely concealed desperation of that other Cas, wherever and whenever he is.
“Well, hop to it,” Dean says, and Cas hops to.
It's kind of weird, seeing a giant horse-monster crouch low to hear what this diminutive man has to say. The expression on the tikbalang's face is one of concentration, as if struggling to see through a fog. Leave the humans alone, Cas instructs. Keep out of sight. Just eat your fruits and smoke your tobacco, and do no harm.
And of course the creature has no choice but to say, “I will obey.”
Cas lifts his hand and touches the tikbalang's muzzle. Is the tikbalang nuzzling it back? It totally is. Dean makes a mental note to give Cas shit about that later. Castiel: Tikbalang Whisperer.
The tikbalang gives off the impression of untangling itself as it rises its feet. Hooves. As it stands up, and it makes no sound when it turns around and disappears into the trees.
“Are you sure I can't kill it?” Dean asks when they go off to find the other hikers.
Cas frowns at him. “Why are you so intent on killing it?”
Dean shrugs and looks away.
It doesn't take long for Castiel to find the survivors, and to bring Dean to them. Out of the six hikers taken by the tikbalang, only four are alive, and even then just barely. They also find the two disoriented rangers who disappeared from the search party. Dean tells them that it's okay now, everything's gonna be okay. Help is on its way. (“Get help,” Dean tells Cas, out of sight of the survivors, and Cas is gone before Dean even blinks.)
Some of the survivors have stories to tell, once they find the energy for words. My boyfriend, my girlfriend, my mother, my father, my best friend, they told me to follow them. And Dean wants to say I know, I know, but instead he tells them that it was probably hallucinations caused by sunstroke.
As for the bodies, an anonymous tip to the rangers later will have to do, just so they'll know where to find the remains.
By the time they get back to the motel, Dean is too tired to do anything but collapse on the bed and groan, “Cheeseburger. Bacon. Extra fries. And pie.”
“Apple?” Cas asks.
“Chocolate cream.”
And with the muted rush of wingbeats, Dean is alone in the room once more. He kicks off his boots, takes out his cellphone, and dials the first number on his Missed Calls list.
“YOU STUPID MOTHERFUCKER,” is how Sam answers the phone.
At the sound of his brother's voice, Dean laughs with relief, and it's like releasing a breath he didn't even realize he was holding. “Hey, Sammy,” Dean says, and grins so hard his face hurts.
+
“They didn't have chocolate cream,” Cas says when he returns, “so I got one of each.” He holds out the bags of food. “Lemon meringue or pecan?”
Cas is awesome.
“In retrospect,” Dean is saying, around a mouthful of pecan pie, “the tikbalang wasn't even that good at the whole shapeshifting thing. It looked like Sam, sure. But it acted like some homicidal stoner the whole time.”
Dean has decided not to tell the angel that the tikbalang took on Cas's form most of the time.
“The tikbalang doesn't need to act exactly like your brother,” Cas points out. “It has other ways of clouding your senses and making you do what it wants.”
“So this trickster is like, part siren, part 'shifter.”
Cas sighs. “It is what it is. It's not just some collage of the things you know.”
“Part centaur,” Dean continues, “but in minotaur format. Our little pony here didn't even make up new realities.”
“It shifted yours just enough to matter. There are many kinds of tricksters, Dean.”
Dean takes another bite of pie and asks, “So how was Babylon?”
Cas grimaces. “Full of tourists. Their flash photography was distracting.”
“...Their what?”
“It was difficult to find a space to summon Marduk. The vendors kept trying to sell me t-shirts and sunglasses.”
It took a few seconds for this to process. “Wait, what? T-shirts?” Dean frowns. “This is Babylon as in hanging gardens Babylon?”
“Yes. Its ruins are not far from the city you know as Baghdad.”
“Oh. Well, shit.” He had gotten the impression that Cas was time-traveling again. Maybe Cas is too weak now for even that. “Did, uh, Marduk know anything about your dad?”
Cas closes his eyes and shakes his head.
“You'll find Him, buddy,” Dean assures him, saying the words he's never believed in. “At least your angel powers are back, huh? Should make things easier.”
“Yes,” Castiel says morosely. “For now.”
“For now's good enough, Cas,” Dean says, taking another bite of pie. “For now's pretty excellent.”
+
Dean finishes all the food while Cas stays with him and regales him with theories on where Lucifer might be, what Lucifer might be doing next, why God is AWOL, and where he will go next and why.
“You mentioned Tir Nan Og earlier,” the angel says. “There is potential in that idea. The Tuatha De Danann are recalcitrant at the best of times, but it is possible that they are more flexible now that end is nigh.”
It's the grasping at straws that Dean recognizes from back when Sam looked everywhere for a way to get Dean out of the deal with the crossroads demon, the same harried postulating back from when they were still going after seals. Dean tosses ideas back and forth with Cas anyway, because it's good to keep busy, even if nothing might come of it, and it does Dean good to see Cas riled up. He still can't quite shake glassy blue eyes and cynical laughter from his head, can't shake the feel of deft hands and hot breaths on his neck, and he almost hates Future Cas for turning on the lightbulb over what Dean had been fine being blind to all this time.
Finally, Cas rises to his feet. “I'm glad you're safe, Dean. We'll be in touch.”
“Wait, hang on,” Dean says, and stands too. “Cas, c'mere.”
“I'm here.”
“Come closer.”
So the angel steps around the table, stands in front of Dean, hesitant. “You said personal space--”
“Yeah, I know what I said,” Dean mutters, and puts his hands on Castiel's shoulders like back in the mountains. Cas glances at them, furrows his brows, then looks up at Dean again, waiting. “Look,” Dean says. “I just... Thank you.”
“You already thanked me.”
“I know. But like, thank you for... everything. You're a real stand-up guy.”
'Stand-up guy'? Who the hell says that anymore? But Dean can't think properly, on account of Cas being right there. It dredges up the muscle memory that has refused to leave him since he returned from the future. Dean's getting distracted by the little details; he wonders what kissing Cas would taste like when the angel isn't eating half a pharmacy and most of the liquor store. What sounds would he make if Dean were to graze his teeth along his skin? What is it like to tug off that coat, that blazer, that shirt, to know him this way too?
On impulse, he lifts a hand to cup Cas's cheek, reasoning that Cas is too socially awkward to know that this is socially awkward anyway.
“...Dean?”
Dean slings an arm around Castiel's neck and pulls him close to press a kiss against the angel's forehead.
Cas blinks.
“Um,” Dean says, intelligently. “That's for luck.”
Just. Shoot him now. 'For luck'? Jesus christ.
“So, uh,” Dean says.
Then he thinks, This is maybe a bad idea, and kisses Castiel's mouth.
Cas freezes, but if anything, Dean's tentativeness is testament to his determination. The brush of his lips against Cas's is gentle and light, and Dean doesn't relax until he feels Cas relax too, exhaling softly into Dean's mouth. Cas lowers his shoulders and just as tentatively kisses him back. When Dean parts his lips, Cas does too, with the bright-edged trepidation of those who ask a question they think already know the answer to.
Oh god, this is happening, Dean babbles in his head, and leans into the kiss, pressing harder, lifting both his hands to cup Cas's face. This is his mistake. At this raising of stakes, Cas sucks in his breath sharply and stiffens again. The angel shifts his head slightly away, and damn it, okay. Dean knows how to take a hint.
Dean takes a step back.
“That was, uh,” Dean says.
And Cas just stands there, looking as bewildered as Dean feels.
“So take care of yourself, buddy,” Dean bursts out, and pats Castiel's shoulder. “Good luck on the God search, okay? Tell me how it goes.”
“Dean,” Castiel says, and is he looking more serious than usual? It's hard to tell, with Cas.
“If you find Him, tell Him Dean Winchester says hi, and also that He better get off His ass and--”
“Dean.”
“What.”
Oh god, not this, not the soulful staring. Usually Dean can handle the soulful staring, but not right now. Not after that. Usually Dean's pretty good at distinguishing between id time and superego time, so how what just happened happened... he doesn't even... Fuck, maybe Dean just needs to go to bed, it's been a long day. Maybe--
Dean's second-guessing is cut short when Cas lifts a faltering hand and touches Dean's mouth. The angel frowns contemplatively, as if analyzing the sensation, cataloging it for future reference. Castiel's touch is as light as his kiss, and he runs his thumb over Dean's lower lip with a gentleness that strains to ask, “What if I...?”
“I've always wondered,” Castiel says softly. “This vessel... I've felt,” he begins, and stops, and as much as Dean wants to ask FELT WHAT? he lets it go, because he understands the lack of words, and also because he doesn't want Cas to stop touching him. Cas's hand slides to his cheek in an echo of Dean earlier, and Dean finds himself following the movement to brush his lips against Castiel's palm.
Castiel's breath hitches, just a little, and Dean murmurs, “Sorry.”
“Don't apologize,” Cas says, and there is something brittle and aching in his voice. He withdraws his hand, and declares, “I have to go.”
“Yeah, I have to sleep,” Dean replies.
They don't move.
“Good night, Dean.”
“You too, Cas.”
They don't move.
“So--” Dean says, but is interrupted when Cas suddenly appears in his space and brushes a kiss against Dean's lips, fast and soft, and then Dean hears the beat of wings, and Cas is gone.
Standing in the empty motel room, Dean says, “Well, shit.”
He smiles.
+
Dean's forgotten how tired he is until he actually climbs into bed, and that's when all the aches and bruises crackle up to the surface. He groans into his pillow, rolls over and pulls the blanket up to his chin like that might help somehow. It doesn't.
The whiskey bottle on the nightstand catches his eye. He stares at it for a few seconds before deciding what the hell. Nightcap.
The burn in his throat is comforting in its familiarity, but it brings with it something threadbare and Pavlovian that visits upon him failures past and future: all that he might and might not be, what he could and couldn't do. They gather on the edge of his mind and taunt him, poking and prodding. Dean contemplates another shot to drown them out, but instead he closes his eyes and thinks about Sam chewing him out on the phone, Cas sighing about how difficult it is to get an audience with the Morrigan these days. The warm burr in Sam's voice when he told Dean to come home, and the spark in Cas's expression when he touched Dean's mouth.
Dean waits, and eventually they outshine everything else in his head.
He sleeps.
[end.]
NOTES
1.Like most folk tales, tikbalang lore is varied and often contradictory. What is common is that it is a trickster figure who likes to mess with travelers, and it looks kind of like this. I referred to various sources (I use the term 'sources' lightly) for details, which I cobbled together haphazardly for the purposes of this story. I drew from this site, this site, and this site, then applied artistic license.
2.That was Nietzsche's “Parable of the Madman” that Cas quoted to Dean on the way to the croat hot zone. Chuck wonders sometimes if maybe he should've recommended some lighter reading to Cas, maybe some Maeve Binchy or R.L. Stine. Cas seems to like it though. It's just, when does it stop becoming catharsis and start becoming pain?
3. Dagat, puso, and paalam are Tagalog words. The waitress's name was Concepcion Vitan, but most people know her as Connie. She grew up in Bulacan, which she told Dean she wanted to visit again someday. Dean wondered what it says about his life that when Connie started telling him about her childhood home, his first thoughts were curiosity about how hunters operate in the Philippines, if they have a network there like in the US, whether they use different weapons, and what the monsters are like on the other side of the world.