Work Text:
Castiel enjoyed the music made by the Earth.
Existence itself was a vibrating mass of energy that coalesced and harmonized with itself to form both reality and empty space in kind. With every shock of something against another came a single note. As the notes came together, the song of life was sung. Before the birth of man, if Castiel deigned to stray from heaven, he could always be found by the side of a still lake, just barely brimming with life. He would sit there for hours—days — and just listen to the music. The harpsichord of the wind set a fleeting melody as it danced the leaves into bell chimes. Cool water lapped against the dirt and sand like a gentle plucking of strings. Birds and fish and squirrels occasionally added new motifs and accompaniments. It was so different from the uniform hum of Heaven, which was only livened up by the presence of another angel.
But with the creation of man came a new sound, unique in all types. The sound of a human soul was unexpected and strange. Similar to the sounds of nature, but fundamentally other. Some angels hated it. Others were fascinated. Castiel was indifferent. Some souls had very pleasing tones, some did not. Esther’s soul sounded like the prolonged vibration of a lightly struck cymbal, while Peter’s soul was the raucous note of a pitchy piccolo. He still wandered down to Earth to sit lakeside and enjoy the music, now with the chance of a human adding their new sound to the others. But Castiel found he didn’t much like their additions.
As humans spread themselves and their unique sounds, Castiel left Heaven less and less. Decades would pass before he would even think of visiting a lake. Centuries might go between actual trips. That suddenly changed when Heaven began to take its chance on apocalypse. Plans were being made, and with all the talk of the Earth, Castiel resumed his visits. There were less lakesides that he remembered, but also ones in spots where previously there was nothing. The humans formed in massive orchestras to sound out thousands of different cacophonies. The Earth sounded different and Castiel didn’t know how to feel about that. He missed the unfettered arrangement from before humans infiltrated every verse.
And then Castiel dragged a human soul from hell. His life was a deep thrum that made the angel grit his teeth. It cut across his awareness and made itself prevalent in everything the man touched. Dean Winchester was a discordant thorn in his side.
Until he wasn’t.
The longer Castiel stood by the man’s side, the more that low bass of Dean’s soul brought everything together. He changed the sound of cities and nature and existence. He made every piece of music better. Castiel visited lakesides less often, and instead spent his time watching Dean. Listening to Dean. He watched him sleep because even unconscious he was a wonder to behold. The angel was free to appreciate the way he took the harsh dissonance of ratty motels and small town backroads and bent them into shape. Dean was less a pleasing note and more a skilled conductor. There was nowhere that didn’t sound better with Dean there.
He’d tried to explain it once. He knew his senses as an angel were leagues above a human’s but he wasn’t fully aware that humans were so ignorant to the symphony around them.
“So it’s like music?” Dean cocked an eyebrow but didn’t look away from the gun that he was reassembling after a thorough cleaning. They were in another run down motel in a small corner of Texas. With their hunt complete, the brothers would leave tomorrow and head east to Georgia for another job. Sam was out fetching food while Dean pretended that the busted AC and sweltering heat weren’t affecting him. In spite of the setting sun and darkening skies, the dry air refused to cool. Castiel sat on Dean’s bed, surreptitiously using his Grace to lower the temperature of the sheets and pillow.
“In a way. It’s hard to explain in terms you would understand. Music made by instruments certainly have sound, but the sounds made by existence are more metaphysical. While I may say that a breeze sounds similar to a piano, it’s not an apt comparison, but it’s the only one I have. There is a word for it in Enochian, but it doesn’t quite translate into any human tongue. Mortal music is a poor recreation of what I can hear.” Under his breath, fully knowing that Castiel can hear perfectly well, Dean muttered something along the lines of “But can trees and shit sound like Led Zeppelin?” Castiel knew the comment wasn’t really meant for him, but he answered anyway, a small smile teased the edges of his mouth up.
“No, I suppose they don’t.” Dean rolled his eyes and went back to the gun in front of him. He sat at a small square table in front of the only window in the room, which was cracked open and not helping the heat at all. Castiel watched his steady fingers work and followed a bead of sweat run down his jaw and beneath the collar of the thin white t-shirt he wore.
“So uh... what’s your favorite song?” Dean asked awkwardly. His hands had already moved onto their next task of packing coarse salt into new rounds. His head still faced his work, but it was clear to Castiel that his full attention was on him.
It was a struggle to not blurt out that Dean was his favorite song. So much time with humans had led him to be almost as reactive as them, but Castiel was an angel, and was therefore able to think before he spoke. Barely. Besides, even though Castiel had grown to crave the steady strum of Dean’s soul, it was only one note. Hardly a song.
Castiel also liked to think that he knew the Winchesters very well by now, and he had the feeling that the truth might turn the interaction sour. So he silently mulled over his answer. It took more of his angelic patience to not correct Dean in his idea that there was any one “song” to be heard. There was no start or end to the music made by Earth. It was a continuous melody and rhythm that constantly changed and evolved. The concept of a song included the concepts of a beginning and end. And where there is an end, there is the chance to repeat, to start from that beginning and run its course again. While the lakeside provided his favorite music—maybe Castiel should liken it to a band? Genre?— there was no repetition. No new songs, no old songs, simply different measures in an infinite score. He would never hear what he’d heard at what is now known as Lake Naivasha on a cool Spring day before man walked the Earth. And as he’d said before, Castiel knew the Winchesters. He knew Dean didn’t want dates and approximate musical theory to describe a moment in time and space and sound.
So instead of giving Dean the complete truth or an answer that he wouldn’t be able to appreciate, Castiel used a skill he learned from humanity. Half-truths.
“Your dream. On the lake, fishing.” Dean’s hands froze in place, and he finally swiveled his head to actually look at Castiel. His mouth was parted just so and twitched with half-born words.
“The one you visit me in sometimes?” The angel nodded. “That’s your favorite?”
“I enjoy the music of lakesides,” Castiel said simply. That was true of course, but it wasn’t so simple. The only time a “song” could be repeated was in a memory or a dream. Dean’s fishing dream was lovely. It was both relaxing and set to a calm ballad of wind and ripping water. It reminded Castiel of before humankind butted into everything. With the exception of Dean himself. The man was what made the music truly sing. His low bass note gave presence to the rustling pine needles and bubbling fish. But Dean didn’t need to know that.
Dean propped an arm up on the back of the chair he was in, bobbing his head from side to side as if he were weighing the merits of Castiel’s favorite “song”. Eventually, Castiel received a shrug and a finger pointed his way.
“Still has nothing on anything Led Zeppelin made.” Castiel conceded to the man with a chuckle. He would never tell him that he could only stand to listen to Dean’s preferred music because of Dean’s own sound.
After that, Dean got into the habit of wondering after the sounds of random places. Dean would ask what the dive bar they were in sounded like. The ghost infested third floor apartment in Boise. The police station in Waverly. The archive in a town hall basement in Heflin. The roadside diner in Mississippi that had just run out of pie. It felt like a game. It got to the point where Dean would need only to make a vague hand motion and look around wherever they were, and Castiel would know what to do.
Despite his descriptions of what each locale sounded like to him, Castiel knew Dean didn’t really get it. He could never experience the world the way the angel could, but it made something in his chest flutter each time Dean asked.
Castiel came to the realization that he loved Dean in the middle of a fight. It was something stupid. Castiel felt underappreciated and Dean believed that his crusade against Heaven and Hell was more important than anything else. Dean had been cruel and Castiel had been cruel in turn before disappearing to sulk. He’d run off to a lake nestled in between two mountains. It was frozen over and the ice tinkled like lightly struck chimes. The water underneath set a steady beat that kept the snow and dead flora in line with their sluggish horns. The wind was a lightness on top of everything, leaning sharp from the cold, but complementing the weak sunlight in smooth legato motions.
Castiel hated it.
None of it sounded right. Rather than the sweet aria it should have been, everything came together in dull elegy. It was missing a key element. It was missing Dean.
Castiel spent a week flying off to different lakes. Lake Como. Lake Nakuru. Natron. Ohrid. Vaihiria. Superior. Eacham. Tanganyika. Small lakes that had no real name and spanned no more than a half mile across. Each he found lacking in the same way.
During his travels, Castiel kept an ear out for his name. Even if he and Dean weren’t speaking, the angel would always come when called. But the longer Castiel spent away from Dean’s presence, the more he disliked the sounds of the lake. Had he always been content with this? The wind in the trees fell flat. The fish and aquatic grasses were in the wrong key. A songbird raced ahead on a choppy time signature, while the water moved at a sluggish cut time. His angelic ego recoiled at the thought that a mere human could have such an impact on his view and experience of life. His very existence.
Castiel attempted to hum a low note, but that proved a pale imitation to Dean’s soul. It did nothing to set the world right.
It took a week for Castiel to accept that he couldn’t stand a world without Dean. Another week to boil that down to the fact that Castiel couldn’t stand himself without Dean.
He returned to Dean unbidden. He’d heard Sam and Dean say his name in passing the past month, but nothing like a call for help. They were mearley saying his name in conversation. Likely Sam was wondering where he was and Dean was complaining.
When Castiel appeared in front of Dean, he was sitting on the edge of a motel bed, bent over with his head in his hands. His shoulders were taut, made from hard lines of stress and frustration. His elbows dug into his thighs and one leg shook up and down in a steady beat. At the telltale sound of wings that always announced the angel’s arrival, Dean looked up.
Castiel’s heart fluttered at the way the pinched skin around Dean’s eyes smoothed and some of the lines in his shoulders disappeared at the sight of Castiel. The angel now knew what the feeling was, no longer concerned that his vessel may be failing him. Dean got to his feet without a word and took long strides to cross the room quickly. He hesitated for a moment before sweeping Castiel into a tight embrace. Castiel’s head was tucked into the space between Dean’s neck and shoulder; not on purpose but because that is simply where he fit best. Castiel didn’t make a move to return the hug, content to enjoy the physical contact from a man that was wary of giving it out freely.
Dean patted his back twice with an open palm. He said something— not an apology because Dean is rarely one for verbal 'I’m sorry's if he can avoid it— but Castiel found it hard to hear over the symphony he bore witness to. The hum of the AC. The clicking of faulty lights and wiring somewhere in the room. The old bed. The stained carpet. The peeling wallpaper. The family of mice in the back wall.
With Dean at the center of it all, it was Castiel’s favorite song.