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Entry tags:
spn fic - "interim" - castiel, dean
I wrote this listening to Imogen Heap's "2-1" and its instrumental version on a loop. Then again, I think I did everything in the past couple of days listening to these songs on a loop. (Why yes, it is that vid's fault.)
There are two ways to summarize this fic. One is with Sherod Santos's translation of Sappho:
The other is "Cas is a creeping creeper who creeps."
In conclusion, blame Edlund.
Interim
Supernatural. Castiel, Dean, Braedens, Rachel, Crowley. PG13. Spoilers for 6x20. Thank you to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
callowyn for betareading.
Set during the year before S6. ~1700 words
Castiel hurtles down to earth after blasting Raphael and his cronies away. There is some instinct calling him to Cicero, some wild and nameless fear that he will be punished for his actions, not with his destruction, but with Dean's. Castiel is sick with the immensity of what he has started, and he cannot calm himself until he sees the man making grilled cheese sandwiches as Ben sits at the kitchen table and talks about the upcoming school dance.
"She sounds nice," Dean says.
Ben shrugs. "She's okay."
And only then does Castiel breathe out. Only then does Castiel realize he is breathing out; such a human response. He surveys himself: the rapid-beating heart, his heated face. How his hands shake. He is too long on this earth, in this skin. The flesh is forcing unwanted information upon him, telegraphing to him his own weaknesses.
You are afraid, says his hands. You can never go back, says his blood turning into ice water. You are alone, says his heart as Castiel watches Dean get two glasses from the cupboard and fill them with milk. It's four o'clock on a Monday afternoon, and Dean smiles with uninhibited gentleness as Ben contemplates aloud the trials and tribulations of adolescence.
Castiel tries not to make a habit of it, but in his moments of weakness, he circles back to Indiana. After cleaning the blood from his sword or watching Crowley vivisect another monster, he would find himself back here just to be on the verge of confession. To test himself, maybe. To challenge the possibility of a different world. There is a restlessness in him grasping at the possibility of turning this around, but then Lisa sneaks up on Dean to kiss the back of his neck, or Ben pokes him for another round on the Xbox, and Castiel stays his hand. He was never really going to ask Dean anyway, and he reminds himself of that.
"Dean," Lisa says, glancing up at the flickering light, "can you do something about that light?"
"Castiel."
Castiel turns around and Rachel's expression is one of relief. He frowns. He regrets not covering his tracks better, but it's too late for that now. At the very least, Castiel is grateful it's only Rachel and not Johael, who thinks he spends too much time on earth as it is, or Tabris, whose dislike for humanity is only slightly outweighed by her dislike for Raphael. And of course there is Crowley.
"Are you all right?" Rachel asks. "We couldn't find you and--"
Dean scrapes a chair across the room and the movement draws Castiel's gaze.
"—we were worried. I thought..." Rachel trails off, finally taking in the scene. She flicks her eyes towards Dean, then back at him.
Castiel replies, "I'm fine."
"That's Dean Winchester," she murmurs, quietly as if in the presence of greatness although all Dean is doing is standing on a chair and fiddling with a lightbulb. It occurs to Castiel that she has never met the man, never even seen him before today, and neither have any of his other siblings, for that matter. Castiel's comrades have begun to preach the new gospel at each other, but only he has walked beside the Winchesters and known them. He has felt their wounds knit together under his hands. They exist in his mind not as holy writ, but as memory - tangible, specific, and warm to the touch.
What do the Winchesters really mean to the angels? What does he really know, except--
"Yes," Castiel says. "That's him."
Dean Winchester is telling Lisa that there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with the light.
"What news from the front?" Castiel asks.
Rachel's switch back into soldier mode is immediate and seamless. "Our soldiers are waiting," she says, as if reciting. "The rout was unsuccessful. Remiel and Elemiah are dead."
"Maybe we should change the bulb anyway," Lisa muses. "It's been doing that a lot."
Castiel spreads his wings, and as if in response, Rachel spreads hers. There is much to do.
+
Three in the morning and Dean is in the throes of some nightmare and this at least is familiar to Castiel. Against his better judgment, Castiel reaches out and puts his hand over the handprint, like it's the scar that conjures the angel instead of the other way around. He remembers for an instant Dean screaming at the searing heat of it, though Dean has forgotten. Dean no longer recalls the long road out of hell, how he had struggled fearfully in Castiel's grip, how he had fought to keep the shadows that knew him, and shrunk away from the light that wanted to.
The nightmares dissipate and will not return tonight. Dean's expression softens. He turns on his side and curls around Lisa, who hums in her sleep and turns towards him.
Castiel leaves.
+
Castiel corners his brother in the caves under the Philippine cordillera, where the sounds of their fighting echo up to the cave mouth and is dismissed by an old man as the revelry of the dead.
"You can't win this, Castiel," Temeluch says, and even trapped, there is no malice in his voice, only disappointed sorrow. Grace leaks from his wounds and flickers against the wall, making teeth out of stalactites, monsters out of gnarled columns. Temeluch flickers in and out of the darkness, one second his brother, the next the great unknown.
"You can't be allowed to win," Castiel retorts, and Temeluch doesn't back away when Castiel raises his sword. He looks him in the eye, and that is one thing Castiel has always admired about his brother. It isn't that Temeluch fears nothing, it's that he doesn't run from fear. He would look oblivion in the eye and greet it with a steady voice. As for Castiel himself, his body is traitorous with weakness and confession: I am afraid, I can never go back, I am alone.
"Brother," Temeluch says softly, "it's not too late to return to us."
And then, from a great distance, small but clear:
Cas?
Castiel freezes.
Uh. Castiel who art in heaven, or whatever.
One second of distraction is all Temeluch needs.
Hallowed be thy trenchcoat.
He surges up with the ferocity of a cornered animal, and Castiel barely has time to twist out of the way of his sword as Temeluch cries out, "Castiel, be forgiven."
Dunno if you can hear me up there. You're probably busy.
Castiel lunges at him, pinning him face-first to the ground, and sinks his sword deep into his back. His brother screams, a raw and human howl that turns unearthly as death takes Temeluch apart from the inside.
I'll just get to the point.
Temeluch's dying act, like all angels, is to illuminate the world with grace. For a few seconds, the last of his brother fills the world with light. Castiel has always wondered what God meant by this particular symmetry: every fallen angel reminds him of creation's first day.
Cas, were you--
The light dies, and Temeluch with it.
Were you here last week?
Castiel spreads his wings and in an instant he is several thousand feet above the earth.
Could be I imagined it, but I coulda sworn...
Dean's voice is like a worry stone worn smooth by the constant touches of memory. To hear it address him again triggers a violent instinct that has nothing to do with violence, though it is at times equally destructive, and burns as bright.
I was having nightmares again. They're back. It's funny - you'd think being in the middle of suburbia, I'd be dreaming about softball games and mowing the lawn or some shit.
A typhoon blows westward from the Pacific Ocean but Castiel is the eye of his own storm and cuts straight through the lightning and the wind.
But no.
The blur of blue, the seeming endlessness of it.
It's not that I'm not grateful.
The expanse of water and sky mirroring each other, and the horizon, the approaching shoreline.
Lisa, she's been amazing, Lisa and Ben, I don't know what the hell they think they're doing with me, I don't know what I'd do without them--
Solid earth and the mountains and the wide open space, big sky country, the yawning plains.
--but... I'm not sure if I can change. And I don't know if that scares me or not. And that scares me.
Cicero, Indiana is a little dot getting bigger and bigger, quicker and quicker. The earth rushes up to meet him and colors become shapes, shapes become buildings, and from this height, he can see the trees, the leaves on the trees.
Look, Cas, I'm not gonna... But if you can hear this—
The people, small and vital, as if they can be held in cupped hands.
Cas, where the hell are you?
At the end of the street, that familiar house.
Fuck you. Don't make me say it.
And there, through the kitchen window, Dean at the table, his head bowed, his hands clasped around a bottle.
Don't make me-- "—say it."
The kitchen light flickers and Dean looks up.
"Cas?"
And his name is a request, a hope, a realization of the past. Castiel recognizes the unasked questions festering on one shaky exhale.
The blood rushes to Dean's face as he smirks to himself, chuckles quietly. It's a smile that doesn't reach his eyes. Dean takes another swig and slams the bottle down on the table, unnecessary force as a vessel of self-rebuke, like he was foolish to ever expect Castiel to listen, foolish to ever expect an angel to stay. The apocalypse took away everything, and how foolish it is to think that Castiel might be right here, right now, real close, with Dean’s own name on his lips and all the world waiting for him to make a choice.
Dean says, "Cas, I—" and then he stops. And then he says, "Amen."
+
Crowley looks up at the sound of wings. "You're late."
"I'm here now," Castiel says brusquely. "Let's get this over with."
The demon raises an eyebrow. "Well," he says, and smiles. "If you insist."
There are two ways to summarize this fic. One is with Sherod Santos's translation of Sappho:
As if yoked to twin swans a bronze carriage
hauled you back aslant the black earth
(the night air winded from its wing-beat rush),
you showed up breathless at my bedroom door
to ask again, How am I hurt?
What new heartache have I summoned you for?
The other is "Cas is a creeping creeper who creeps."
In conclusion, blame Edlund.
Interim
Supernatural. Castiel, Dean, Braedens, Rachel, Crowley. PG13. Spoilers for 6x20. Thank you to
callowyn for betareading.Set during the year before S6. ~1700 words
Castiel hurtles down to earth after blasting Raphael and his cronies away. There is some instinct calling him to Cicero, some wild and nameless fear that he will be punished for his actions, not with his destruction, but with Dean's. Castiel is sick with the immensity of what he has started, and he cannot calm himself until he sees the man making grilled cheese sandwiches as Ben sits at the kitchen table and talks about the upcoming school dance.
"She sounds nice," Dean says.
Ben shrugs. "She's okay."
And only then does Castiel breathe out. Only then does Castiel realize he is breathing out; such a human response. He surveys himself: the rapid-beating heart, his heated face. How his hands shake. He is too long on this earth, in this skin. The flesh is forcing unwanted information upon him, telegraphing to him his own weaknesses.
You are afraid, says his hands. You can never go back, says his blood turning into ice water. You are alone, says his heart as Castiel watches Dean get two glasses from the cupboard and fill them with milk. It's four o'clock on a Monday afternoon, and Dean smiles with uninhibited gentleness as Ben contemplates aloud the trials and tribulations of adolescence.
Castiel tries not to make a habit of it, but in his moments of weakness, he circles back to Indiana. After cleaning the blood from his sword or watching Crowley vivisect another monster, he would find himself back here just to be on the verge of confession. To test himself, maybe. To challenge the possibility of a different world. There is a restlessness in him grasping at the possibility of turning this around, but then Lisa sneaks up on Dean to kiss the back of his neck, or Ben pokes him for another round on the Xbox, and Castiel stays his hand. He was never really going to ask Dean anyway, and he reminds himself of that.
"Dean," Lisa says, glancing up at the flickering light, "can you do something about that light?"
"Castiel."
Castiel turns around and Rachel's expression is one of relief. He frowns. He regrets not covering his tracks better, but it's too late for that now. At the very least, Castiel is grateful it's only Rachel and not Johael, who thinks he spends too much time on earth as it is, or Tabris, whose dislike for humanity is only slightly outweighed by her dislike for Raphael. And of course there is Crowley.
"Are you all right?" Rachel asks. "We couldn't find you and--"
Dean scrapes a chair across the room and the movement draws Castiel's gaze.
"—we were worried. I thought..." Rachel trails off, finally taking in the scene. She flicks her eyes towards Dean, then back at him.
Castiel replies, "I'm fine."
"That's Dean Winchester," she murmurs, quietly as if in the presence of greatness although all Dean is doing is standing on a chair and fiddling with a lightbulb. It occurs to Castiel that she has never met the man, never even seen him before today, and neither have any of his other siblings, for that matter. Castiel's comrades have begun to preach the new gospel at each other, but only he has walked beside the Winchesters and known them. He has felt their wounds knit together under his hands. They exist in his mind not as holy writ, but as memory - tangible, specific, and warm to the touch.
What do the Winchesters really mean to the angels? What does he really know, except--
"Yes," Castiel says. "That's him."
Dean Winchester is telling Lisa that there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with the light.
"What news from the front?" Castiel asks.
Rachel's switch back into soldier mode is immediate and seamless. "Our soldiers are waiting," she says, as if reciting. "The rout was unsuccessful. Remiel and Elemiah are dead."
"Maybe we should change the bulb anyway," Lisa muses. "It's been doing that a lot."
Castiel spreads his wings, and as if in response, Rachel spreads hers. There is much to do.
+
Three in the morning and Dean is in the throes of some nightmare and this at least is familiar to Castiel. Against his better judgment, Castiel reaches out and puts his hand over the handprint, like it's the scar that conjures the angel instead of the other way around. He remembers for an instant Dean screaming at the searing heat of it, though Dean has forgotten. Dean no longer recalls the long road out of hell, how he had struggled fearfully in Castiel's grip, how he had fought to keep the shadows that knew him, and shrunk away from the light that wanted to.
The nightmares dissipate and will not return tonight. Dean's expression softens. He turns on his side and curls around Lisa, who hums in her sleep and turns towards him.
Castiel leaves.
+
Castiel corners his brother in the caves under the Philippine cordillera, where the sounds of their fighting echo up to the cave mouth and is dismissed by an old man as the revelry of the dead.
"You can't win this, Castiel," Temeluch says, and even trapped, there is no malice in his voice, only disappointed sorrow. Grace leaks from his wounds and flickers against the wall, making teeth out of stalactites, monsters out of gnarled columns. Temeluch flickers in and out of the darkness, one second his brother, the next the great unknown.
"You can't be allowed to win," Castiel retorts, and Temeluch doesn't back away when Castiel raises his sword. He looks him in the eye, and that is one thing Castiel has always admired about his brother. It isn't that Temeluch fears nothing, it's that he doesn't run from fear. He would look oblivion in the eye and greet it with a steady voice. As for Castiel himself, his body is traitorous with weakness and confession: I am afraid, I can never go back, I am alone.
"Brother," Temeluch says softly, "it's not too late to return to us."
And then, from a great distance, small but clear:
Cas?
Castiel freezes.
Uh. Castiel who art in heaven, or whatever.
One second of distraction is all Temeluch needs.
Hallowed be thy trenchcoat.
He surges up with the ferocity of a cornered animal, and Castiel barely has time to twist out of the way of his sword as Temeluch cries out, "Castiel, be forgiven."
Dunno if you can hear me up there. You're probably busy.
Castiel lunges at him, pinning him face-first to the ground, and sinks his sword deep into his back. His brother screams, a raw and human howl that turns unearthly as death takes Temeluch apart from the inside.
I'll just get to the point.
Temeluch's dying act, like all angels, is to illuminate the world with grace. For a few seconds, the last of his brother fills the world with light. Castiel has always wondered what God meant by this particular symmetry: every fallen angel reminds him of creation's first day.
Cas, were you--
The light dies, and Temeluch with it.
Were you here last week?
Castiel spreads his wings and in an instant he is several thousand feet above the earth.
Could be I imagined it, but I coulda sworn...
Dean's voice is like a worry stone worn smooth by the constant touches of memory. To hear it address him again triggers a violent instinct that has nothing to do with violence, though it is at times equally destructive, and burns as bright.
I was having nightmares again. They're back. It's funny - you'd think being in the middle of suburbia, I'd be dreaming about softball games and mowing the lawn or some shit.
A typhoon blows westward from the Pacific Ocean but Castiel is the eye of his own storm and cuts straight through the lightning and the wind.
But no.
The blur of blue, the seeming endlessness of it.
It's not that I'm not grateful.
The expanse of water and sky mirroring each other, and the horizon, the approaching shoreline.
Lisa, she's been amazing, Lisa and Ben, I don't know what the hell they think they're doing with me, I don't know what I'd do without them--
Solid earth and the mountains and the wide open space, big sky country, the yawning plains.
--but... I'm not sure if I can change. And I don't know if that scares me or not. And that scares me.
Cicero, Indiana is a little dot getting bigger and bigger, quicker and quicker. The earth rushes up to meet him and colors become shapes, shapes become buildings, and from this height, he can see the trees, the leaves on the trees.
Look, Cas, I'm not gonna... But if you can hear this—
The people, small and vital, as if they can be held in cupped hands.
Cas, where the hell are you?
At the end of the street, that familiar house.
Fuck you. Don't make me say it.
And there, through the kitchen window, Dean at the table, his head bowed, his hands clasped around a bottle.
Don't make me-- "—say it."
The kitchen light flickers and Dean looks up.
"Cas?"
And his name is a request, a hope, a realization of the past. Castiel recognizes the unasked questions festering on one shaky exhale.
The blood rushes to Dean's face as he smirks to himself, chuckles quietly. It's a smile that doesn't reach his eyes. Dean takes another swig and slams the bottle down on the table, unnecessary force as a vessel of self-rebuke, like he was foolish to ever expect Castiel to listen, foolish to ever expect an angel to stay. The apocalypse took away everything, and how foolish it is to think that Castiel might be right here, right now, real close, with Dean’s own name on his lips and all the world waiting for him to make a choice.
Dean says, "Cas, I—" and then he stops. And then he says, "Amen."
+
Crowley looks up at the sound of wings. "You're late."
"I'm here now," Castiel says brusquely. "Let's get this over with."
The demon raises an eyebrow. "Well," he says, and smiles. "If you insist."