Work Text:
Somewhere Outside Lebanon, Kansas
Castiel stares into the black abyss.
Well, it’s really more of a very murky dark brown colour, and less of an abyss than a now too shallow cup of coffee after a couple sips, but Castiel finds himself enraptured by it as much as any philosopher would be when faced with the deep, bottomless questions of existence.
For instance: he remembers what coffee tasted like before—before being only a few weeks ago, and his memory is cruelly as sharp as ever. He remembers the tang on his tongue and the earthy bitterness as the hot beverage flowed down his throat, but as well as he’d come to know the taste of coffee, he’d not been prepared for the sensation of caffeine. Not an hour ago had he’d been still wrapped up in Dean’s sheets and blankets, the scent of him lingering and enveloping, and the creased warmth of the mattress pulling him under, willing his body and his muscles to stay.
The grogginess he’d felt upon waking that morning was something he’d once known years ago, but even those fleeting memories of defeat against the dragging limits of the human condition were quickly lost against the tides of even grander regrets. The dry prickling of his eyelids this morning, lazy from disuse as they opened slowly unto an empty bed, was almost entirely alien in its sensation. It took him whole minutes of blinking blankly at the wall before he’d turned to see Dean standing at the bedside.
“Welcome back to the world,” Dean had said, holding a steaming mug in his hands that Castiel couldn’t help gazing longingly after. The mug, of course, not Dean’s hands, though curled around the ceramic cup, Castiel had to concede they were a distracting sight in their own way. Sleep made him think outlandish things. Like how nice it would be to never get out of this bed and have Dean crawl back into it.
“Sam and I are heading into town to restock again,” he’d explained, setting the mug down on the bedside table. “Maybe hustle a little pool for cash, though don’t want to pull one over too many people since we’ll have to set foot back in town sooner or later. Shouldn’t be more than a couple hours,” he’d shrugged as Castiel struggled to bring himself to an upright position. Laying his head back against the pillow was just so tempting.
“I was gonna ask if you wanted to come with but—” Dean had continued, eyes flicking up at Castiel’s hairline, which Castiel assumed must have been in some kind of bed-mess disarray. Dean had smirked. “You looked really comfy in here. You wanna just—I don’t know, hold the fort ‘til we get back?”
Castiel had feltmore than heard the unsaid question weighing down the air around them. “You gonna be here when I get back?” Four weeks of doing nothing seemed too good to be true to them all.
Of course, there was only one answer to give. Castiel had pointed to the mug still sitting on the small table. “I’ll accept these conditions only if I can have your coffee.”
Dean had grinned and placed the cup in Castiel’s hands. “Brought it for you anyway, dude.”
And so a few botched attempts to get out of bed later found Castiel seated in the library, half-finished his drink, and sitting in wonder that he should feel so rejuvenated even after only a few sips. The speed at which his senses had picked up, how his limbs now moved faster, is both relieving and concerning to him in equal measure. He understands the science behind it, the chemistry at work inside his brain, but it’s only ever concerned him in an academic sense, in the same way he’s observed humanity for most of his existence—always curious, but always removed.
He stares contemplatively into his cup as he reaches the bottom and decides any true empirical study of this phenomenon will require a second dosage.
Sam and Dean had been gone into town 40 minutes, and Kevin somewhere in the depths of the building, before Castiel realises Dean had left his cellphone on one of the library tables. He realises this when all of a sudden the phone in question starts ringing incessantly. At first, Castiel elects to ignore it, thinking surely if they know Dean well enough to have this number, they’ll know sometimes he’s liable to be very busy, perhaps even running for his life. But by the third shrill sound echoing through the bunker, Castiel grabs the phone to pick it up.
He sees the screen is lit up with the words ‘Incoming call from: Her Highness,’ before he presses the button to answer.
"Finally!” a voice on the other end exclaims. “I know phoning isn’t in anymore, but I can tell you haven’t evolved to texting either based on all the replies you didn’t send me. One vague e-mail doesn’t count as catching up.”
Castiel feels the largest inclination to frown at the inanimate object in his hand. He doesn’t hold back. “Who is this?”
A pause and surprised silence ensue on the line. “… Who is this?”
"A friend of Dean’s. He’s currently unavailable.”
"No kidding, ugh,” they sigh, but their tone grows soft and concerned when the possible and plausible reasons why Dean might be unavailable start occurring to them. “He’s okay, right, though?” they ask.
"He is unharmed," he answers quickly to assuage their fears, though Castiel wonders if he should add ‘at the moment’ to that statement as a caution. He thinks bitterly that he’s been around Dean far too much in the last few weeks for his presence to not be an omen of disaster ahead.
The stranger lets out a breathy sigh of relief. “Thank god. I tried to call him when that meteor shower hit—ah, maybe I should just come by?” they ask themselves more than Castiel for permission. “Um, this friend of Dean’s wouldn’t happen to have a name?”
"Castiel,” he supplies, the only possession he has to give.
The voice on the line seems to reel in shock at the revelation. “Oh. Oh—You!”
And that’s how Castiel, former angel of the Lord, becomes acquainted with the formidable force known in some circles as Charlie Bradbury.
“She’s coming here now?” Dean frowns when Castiel relays Charlie’s message, after he returns from dropping off groceries in the kitchen.
“That is what she seemed to imply, yes. She mentioned something about a mid-year jubilee you were to join her on?” Castiel raises his brow, inviting Dean to elaborate. “Apparently Kansas is on her way between her current location in Illinois, and Michigan.”
Dean starts. “Oh shit, I forgot about that.”
It’s understandable, Castiel thinks, as they’ve all had rather heavier subjects on their minds as of late. Dean drags a hand across his mouth. “It’s this LARPing thing, we promised we’d go,” he says, waving his hand as if it illustrates exactly what LARPing is.
Having been charmed by Charlie’s enthusiasm to meet him, and eager to find the excuse to get outside again—for his newfound running habit was all well and good for letting of tension in the moment—Castiel’s restless inclination forces him to suggest that they still go.
“You really have no idea what you’re getting into by saying that,” Dean laughs, and then looks at Castiel strangely. With the incomplete but vague idea of what the jubilee would entail after his earlier phone conversation, Castiel wonders what he’s picturing. It makes a strained, but warm feeling rise in his chest.
Dean casts a look back towards the kitchen, to where Sam is presumably still putting food away. “We could cancel, say Sam’s getting worse—”
But they all know full and well Sam’s feeling better now than he has been in what may be months. Castiel can sense he’s trying to placate him, ease him into the world by tentative touch. This is not what he needs.
“I’m not here to be coddled Dean,” Castiel grits out. “I’m angry and confused and I’m sure in some ways, as kind as you are being, you still are too—as well you should be with me and my mistakes. But I’m not—”
Useless?
He huffs, stealing another outburst. This isn’t what he wants, this—this feeling of barely restrained rage, bundled in his chest like a ticking bomb. He doesn’t want to unleash it on Dean, but he’s tired of being idle.
He takes a deep breath, closing his eyes as he feels Dean hover closer. “I can do this.”
Charlie arrives suddenly the next morning at the bunker’s doorstep much in the same way Castiel had himself weeks before, though taking in her bright appearance, Castiel thinks she must look considerably less bedraggled than himself, when he’d washed up on the Winchester’s shore.
She hugs everyone by way of greeting, including a slightly bewildered Castiel, and saying to whom Castiel imagines is no one in particular (but with her gaze casted in the direction where Dean stands), “Just as dreamy as I imagined.”
Her smile is warm when he offers a rough “Hello,” and her hands against his back are even warmer. He spots Dean trying to hide a smile of his own at the exchange, and the taut set of his shoulders lets go.
They drive for hours before they even think to stop for food. They’re half-way through Iowa and a whole debate about the merits of Game of Thrones versus Lord of The Rings later—at which Castiel feels unable to offer much in the way of argument to himself, but enjoys listening to Dean and Charlie’s amicable banter as a soundtrack to the passing scenery—when Castiel’s stomach starts clenching in a painful way.
Their caravan stops over at some nondescript gas station, all of them spilling out of the two cars they’d pulled up with (Sam, unwilling to squeeze five people into the Impala, offered to drive him and Kevin up separately—”And hey, I can play all the music you hate all I want,” he’d grinned) to choose out snacks and use the bathroom. Dean finds Castiel in the middle of the small chips aisle, perplexed at the selection. “You know, if you can hold out to the next town, we can get real food,” he offers.
“I don’t know if I can wait that long,” Castiel frowns, caught between one questionable looking chip flavour and the next. “I’d forgotten how persistent hunger was.”
Dean grimaced in sympathy. “I guess this is starting out to be a sort of shitty vacation, isn’t it?”
Castiel looks up at Dean, a small smile playing on his lips. “It’s the first one I’ve ever been on.”
He’s taken respites when he could get them, of course, solitary retreats to his favourite spot in heaven, calm eternal afternoons spent in peaceful seclusion, sitting in a park. But it’s been a very long time since he’s seen that place, longer still since he’s seen it unscarred, and Castiel longs for that sense of peace again. He imagines in his mind a field of grass untainted by the stains of blood and burnt grace.
Maybe he’ll find it in a park in Michigan. After all, he has no more grace left in him to burn.
They cross into Michigan while Charlie is being caught up on everything that’s happened. Recounting the events of even just a few days of the disaster stretches into what feels like hours, and Castiel shifts uncomfortably in his spot in the passenger seat.
“So wait, what happened with Crowley?” Charlie asks, and Castiel blinks in surprise. To be honest, he’d forgotten all about him, and would like to know his fate as well.
“Yeah, we sort of ditched him when the light show of the century started,” Dean admits, bringing one hand off the wheel to rub at the back of his neck. “If we’re lucky he’s still tied up in that chapel, but I wouldn’t bet on it.”
“I’d be more concerned for the renewed threat Abaddon presents,” Castiel points out. Crowley is a nuisance and a devious one, but he knows well how much more powerful Abaddon can be. Crowley merely stole the throne of hell, but Abaddon and her kind belong to it.
“She seemed kinda pissed when we told her Crowley was King of Hell,” Dean chuckles. ”Maybe they’ll civil war it out, keep each other busy for us.”
It’s a dangerous gambit, and Castiel feels that without the threat of Heaven’s garrisons pressing down on them, a war in Hell could just as easily spill out onto Earth. Castiel is too familiar with that kind of collateral. “It’s possible. But it won’t last for long.”
Dean sighs. “Well, a little time is all we need right now.”
Charlie pops her head in between the divide of the two front seats .“And right now we can forget kingdom of Hell, am I right?” she tries for levity. “Moondor awaits!”
They stop for sleep in some damp, unsuspecting roadside motel that feels more familiar than most things these days. As Dean eyes the peeling stucco with a mournful sort of longing for the warmth of the bunker back in Kansas, Castiel realises suddenly that they might be out of excuses to share a bed.
They get two rooms to divide between five people, and when Sam comes back from the motel office, he throws Dean a set of keys, smirking as he says, “You and Cas might need to bunk up again.”
The brothers rib each other for awhile as they heave their bags into their respective rooms, but Castiel witnesses Dean sneak a grateful glance to his brother all the same. He knows it for what it is, because Castiel feels it too. He worries what it would feel like to have to sleep in a bed alone.
The motel mattress feels stiff beneath his back compared to the memory foam of the bed in Dean’s room, but Castiel is lulled to sleep all the same by the steady sounds of Dean’s breathing. The last thing he sees before his eyes close is the gentle curve of Dean’s back, turned away from him, but still close. It would take so little effort for Castiel to consciously close the distance, press his nose into the soft hairs at the back of Dean’s neck and breathe in, but he doesn’t. His limbs are too tired to move anyway, and though such an action may not be entirely awkward between them anymore, not with the excuse of sleep buffering their embarrassment, something in him is too shy, still.
The silhouette of Dean’s slumbering body is a perfect picture in the dim midnight light, except that Castiel finds he wishes it were turned towards him, eyes open as Castiel lined up his body with his. Saying his name in a rough whisper like he used to when he prayed at night, something he never will do again. But for the first time, in a long time, it’s not regret that follows Castiel into his dreams. He won’t need to pray to Castiel anymore because he will already be there.
Somewhere Outside Farmington Hills, Michigan.
Castiel is shepherded into a large, red and gold tent that’s already set up and waiting as soon as they arrive ot the game site around noon, having gotten an extra-early start out of the highway motel. Apparently Dean and Sam had kept their costumes from before, and both them and Charlie change before they leave. Kevin steels away from them quickly enough when they arrive to marvel at the onsite blacksmith’s selection of mock-weaponry, which only leaves Castiel unassigned—an uneasy feeling. But one Charlie is quick to remedy.
“So, Cas—can I call you Cas?” She’s practically jumping with energy as they sweep through the her tent flaps, into her Queen’s quarters. “I was thinking we might go for an elven look for you? ‘Queen’s guard could always use more elven allies. Plus, you know,” she leans in close as if to impart a valuable secret, “Aragorn out there has a thing for the elves, if you know what I mean.”
Castiel’s brow creases as he looks down at her, and can only respond honestly. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Oh, you will, you will,” she pats him on the back as she walks past him to crouch down at a chest at the base of the bed in the centre of the tent. Clearly she has some influential connection, if all her stuff has arrived before she has. “No one escapes me without a few well timed LOTR references,” she throws back, rifling through the chest for what Castiel assumes is to be a costume of his own. If he had ever imagined what falling would ever entail, it was probably never this, though having known Dean for 5 years, and what still feels like thousands from that one glorious moment of ascent, holding his soul bear, beneath his wings, Castiel wonders wryly if he really should have expected this after all.
Suddenly a bundle of cloth comes flying at him, and it’s a good thing his reflexes have not dulled in his descent, or else he fears he might have tripped backwards through the wall of the tent. He unfolds the clothes thrown at him and discovers it to be a dark green tunic and heavy grey cloak. The pants are a plain rusty brown colour, either some kind of breeches or hose, he assumes. Having witnessed the human age when such clothes were in style, Castiel has to give some commendations to the tailoring. It is remarkably good—especially considering all their swords are still made of wood.
“I guess you must have worn stuff like this when it was actually normal, right?” Charlie laughs as Castiel inspects the tunic out in front of him before shucking his also borrowed t-shirt and slipping it on.
“I didn’t take a vessel during the middle ages,” Castiel says as he adjust the collar of his tunic The fabric is a thick and itchy material, and Castiel finds himself rolling his shoulders at the irritation on his skin.
Charlie’s eyes widen in unbridled curiosity. “What, really? So is this, like, the first time you’ve ever looked human?”
Castiel tenses, and looks down at the other items of clothes in his hands, frowning as a dark look moves across his face. “It’s the first time I’ve ever been entirely human, certainly.”
“Oh shit, I’m sorry—”
He shakes himself. “It’s forgotten,” he says, and sucks in a large breath. He begins taking off his jeans to slip on the bottom part of the costume over his boxers.
Charlie’s face is still the picture of apology. “No, that was pretty insensitive of me. I guess—this,” she gestures at his whole body, “is different than just possessing someone.”
As she hands him the belt portion of his outfit, Castiel becomes contemplative. “Jimmy Novak, the man who once wore this skin,” he explains, though he expects, having read the gospels, she knows to whom he refers, “once likened my presence in his body as akin to being chained to a comet. I have never been the possessed, so I don’t know what it would have felt like for him, but it is… strange, being this.” He tightens the proffered belt around his waist sharply. “Hurtling through the universe for millennia, to finally fall to earth in a disaster of your own making.”
Her gaze softens, as she moves to lay a comforting hand on his shoulder. “I’m sure that’s not true. It’s not all your fault.”
The corner of his lips quirk up. “Is it not a human thing, to bear the burden of erroneous blame?” It is something he’s had to witness in Dean, and he’s never seen someone so achingly, beautifully human. “Perhaps I’m adjusting better than I thought,” he jokes darkly.
Charlie’s voice is as tender as her hands as they smooth down the creases at his shoulders. “You’re allowed to let go too, you know. Humans also have forgiveness.”
He bows his head. “Then I’ll ask your forgiveness, if we may move on from such a subject.”
“Of course,” she nods, but pauses. “But listen, Cas, if anything ever… happens, if you ever need—I don’t know—space, or just a place to stay, you’re welcome with me.”
He raises his eyes to smile kindly at her. “Thank you,” he says with every bit of sincerity. Things are getting better with Dean every day, but still. He expects she’s made the same offer to Dean himself, at some point, and he’s grateful for the friendship.
“The only caveat is that you marathon Lord of the Rings with me,” she stares pointedly. “And The Hobbit, when the rest comes out.”
“Those are terms I can accept,” he responds, straightening up his posture to properly appreciate his costume in the mirror Charlie has decorating her tent, along with all the other luxury furnishings. He looks literally out of this world, or out of time, at least, dressed in these ancient styles, though he supposes here, among the rest of the role players, he’s as ordinary as any of them. “I expect Dean will make me watch them with him at some point anyway,” he adds, mildly surprised that in all their downtime recently, he hasn’t already.
Her grin is wide and knowing. “He does understand the finer things in life.”
They’re interrupted briefly by Dean moaning about them taking too long, at which Charlie kicks him out as soon as he tries to enter, laughing and saying, “You can see him when I’m done. Don’t make me sic my guards on you, mutinous handmaiden.”
When his outfitting is complete, Castiel then learns that apparently no self-respecting elf may go without a pair of prosthetic ears. Charlie is clearly practiced with the art of fantasy prosthetic, for her work is clean and professional, and when she finishes, she can’t help but smile proudly.
“Wow, yeah, you got the whole withering, pointy face look going good. I’m surprised Peter Jackson never hired you as a Rivendell extra,” Charlie says, stepping back to admire her work. “And I’m surprised he didn’t hire me, but that’s a whole other issue,” she adds as an afterthought.
Castiel has no idea who Peter Jackson is, but as he admires Charlie’s artistry in the mirror himself, he can’t help but agree. It’s strange, seeing his own body like this, already so new and already so different again, but he’s surprised to find the ridiculousness… exciting.
It’s an exciting thought too, to wonder what Dean will think of it.
“Holy shit, she’s Spock-ed you up,” is the first thing Dean says when Castiel emerges, eyes aghast, flicking to the pointed tips of Castiel’s fake ears.
“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” Castiel wonders, amused at Dean’s deer-in-the-headlights reaction, especially when, dressed in a red tunic replete with chain-mail himself, he can’t have much higher ground to stand on.
“Good—uh,” he stutters, and swallows. Castiel’s own eyes follow Dean’s tongue as it sticks out to wet his lips. “Yeah. Definitely good.”
“I think you mean, ‘great,’” Charlie says, coming up behind them, just as Castiel can spot Sam returning to their group at a hurried pace, wearing an ominous frown.
“We got a problem, guys,” he says when he arrives, serious expression sobering the rest of their smiles.
As their luck usually went, they’d embarked on a vacation, only to find themselves on a case.
Sam’s news, gleaned from a few nervous and excitable fellow LARPers, reveals that for weeks now animals have been turning up dead in the adjacent forest. Hunting being banned in these parts, it is curious, though perhaps not that strange of an event to indicate the supernatural.
“No, but get this,” Sam goes on to say. “Those warriors of yesteryear or whatever that I overheard? They say they saw this massive shadow in the forest.”
“Maybe it was just yours,” Dean comments, unimpressed and eager to get back to fighting imaginary shadow orcs instead of real monsters.
A hollow “Ha ha,” is all Sam indulges Dean with. “No, I mean massive. The way they were describing it made it seem like it was at least 20 feet tall.”
Dean nods in the feigned indication of understanding. “So just a bit shorter than you then.”
Sam rolls his eyes in exasperation, but before he can bite back a retort, Kevin returns from his distraction at the blacksmith’s.
Castiel takes a moment to note that the boy seems to have also been accosted by some spontaneous sartorial time travel, having changed into a loose crimson tunic a few sizes too large, as if it had been passed down from someone a lot bigger.
Slightly out of breath from running to catch them, he recounts his own findings. “Hey guys, we might have a problem.”
Sam takes the opportunity to glare at Dean, who then rolls his eyes and says, “Yeah, yeah, we heard. Sam’s lost his shadow in Neverland.”
Kevin looks at him like he’s spoken an alien language. “No… but someone is missing. Your blacksmith back there? His apprentice is gone. Just—didn’t show up this morning, but he was here for set-up yesterday. Guy sounded kinda relieved because his friend was kind of a dick, apparently, but he also said he was like, really into this stuff. Wouldn’t just abandon it.”
Charlie glances at Dean’s falling expression in sympathy. “Well, looks like this Queen and her court might have themselves a quest after all.”
The forest beside the park being a relatively small place, and somewhere both Charlie and the Winchesters have enough memory and experience of, means that the evidence is quick to gather. They must look a sight, the five of them traipsing through the woods on a mission, as if they were a veritable 12th century expedition in search of some holy prize.
"There aren’t any R.O.U.S.’s hiding around here too, are there?" Charlie asks to break the silence as they trudge through the lines of trees surrounding the game encampment.
Castiel raises his brow in question. “R.O.U.S.’s?”
"Rodents Of Unusual Size," Charlie and Dean supply at the same time.
"Dude!” Sam gapes at his brother. “You swore to me when I was 13 that you’d never be caught dead watching The Princess Bride.”
Dean licks his lips, and it is now getting almost too dark to tell, but Castiel suspects he’s evading a blush right now. “Maybe I only read the book,” he defends, though everyone in their company knows full well that it is entirely likely he did both.
They follow the blacksmith’s apprentice’s blundering trail a little while longer, on an obvious path weaving through the bushes and trees, until it grows cold all of a sudden at a clearing.
“Well, that was anti-climatic,” Charlie says, as they all stand around in the middle of the forest somewhat awkwardly.
“Wait a minute,” Dean holds up his hand, and then points to a spot behind Sam. “I found the ‘massive shadow’.”
Everyone, including Castiel, lets out a collective groan. “Seriously, Dean, that joke got old when I was 16,” Sam chastises, which only feeds on Dean’s delight.
“That joke gets old when I stop finding it funny, and that’s never gonna happen.”
Castiel ignores their continued sibling bickering to step around Dean to walk around the edge of the clearing, eye having caught on the colour on a strangely blackened bush, as if it had been burnt by a large, quick burst of fire. The charred smell of the residue in the air pierces his nose in an unpleasant, but telling way. He interrupts the brothers’ asinine argument to crouch down next to it and say, squinting, “I think I know what this is.”
"Wait, hold up! Dragons exist?" Kevin’s eyes widen, but then he shakes his head. "I can’t believe I just asked that. Of course dragons exist. Naturally.”
“How do we kill it?” Charlie asks the vital question. “Assuming we might need to, if it is going after people. There was never much info online about that when I made my database.”
Castiel stands rigid with his arms crossed over his chest when he supplies sombrely “A sword bathed in dragon’s blood.” His wary tone earns him the concerned gaze of Dean, but he doesn’t respond to it.
Charlie laughs at the irony and begins pacing as she thinks. “So you have to kill a dragon… To kill a dragon. Does that seem a little impossible to anyone else?”
"Tell me about it,” Dean rolls his eyes as he steps forth. “Alright, last time Sam and I faced one down, um—" he glances at Castiel again. "Dr. Visyak told us there are only like, six of those swords still left in existence, and they’re next to impossible to find. You, uh—” he turns to Cas. “Is there any other way to slay them that you know of?”
Castiel’s answer is as tightly bitten out as the guilt in his chest feels, bundled up and constricting. “Being a dragon herself, she would have had better knowledge of their weaknesses than me.”
Dean’s face softens at his tone. “Cas—”
He ignores him. “Barring access to any kind of greater power that would be even more difficult to obtain, I don’t know of any other way, no.”
"Okay then!” Charlie interrupts. “Sounds to me like we have the method but not the tools. So maybe we just have to… Make the tools?"
Castiel turns to her, considering. “What are you suggesting?”
"Ah, what are you suggesting, your Highness,” she jokes, before beginning seriously again. “We only have to get close enough to cut it and anoint the blade ourselves, right? Like Sam did with the hell hound you told me about. Assuming we don’t die in the endeavour, it’ll then be baptised in blood.”
Kevin crosses his arms across his chest as well, impressed. “So now we just need a sword.”
"Museum break in?" Charlie suggests, entirely too innocently.
But they’ll have no need for felony tonight. “I have one,” Castiel says, thinking back to the short, silver sword still tucked away in his old trenchcoat, laying in wait in the trunk of the Impala.
Dean’s expression turns to one of surprise. “Didn’t know you still had that.”
Castiel smiles at him sadly. “Of course.” The blade might feel less charged in his hands now, heavier and dimmer in its shimmering when he grasps it in his grounded palms, but he was at least entitled to some bittersweet souvenirs.
Any further discussion of the matter however is interrupted by a sharp, loud wail, and a booming thud. They all turn in the direction of the sound, alert and ready to run. The thudding sound gets faster, and they all realise at once it must be someone running. Or something.
“Why do I get the feeling I’ve suddenly left Lothlórien for Jurassic Park,” Dean murmurs.
Kevin turns around, appropriately terrified by now. “Can we run yet?”
But before anyone can suggest flight as the prefered option, Castiel holds up a hand. “Wait,” he says, as the running gets closer. Its paces are too short to be a dragon of even the smallest size, and his hypothesis is proved correct when a man bursts through trees. Hair muddy, clothes ripped, and arms and face scraped as if he’d been whipped by passing branches, he looks just as surprised to see them there, as they are of him.
Any exchange of warnings or explanations is cut short, however, by the same loud cry as before, but far closer. Castiel looks expectantly to the sky. It could only have approached this fast by air.
It comes swooping down with the dusk, wingspan dark and wide, eyes gleaming and fixed on its prey of the escaped prisoner. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” the nameless man begs up to it, falling to his knees. The beast’s answering call is ferocious, beating its wings as the human below it cowers. But it doesn’t attack immediately, and Castiel thinks by its tentative hovering above them, whooshing air down from the treetops without diving in, it might even be afraid.
Before he can voice this curiosity though, the man in question seems to realise the dragon’s reticence, too, and smirks as he gets up again. A fatal mistake.
The dragon rears back at the movement, and Castiel only has seconds to cast his eye to Dean’s location to jump in front of him before the dragon unleashes its first burst of fiery inferno. A dragon’s fire is more magic than element, Castiel knows, and therefore twice as dangerous.
When the air clears, the man has disappeared, leaving only the scorched earth behind him. It seems he has been incinerated immediately. Thankfully, the rest of them had backed away from the centre of the enclosure, too scared by shock and astonishment, to be within residual range. The dragon caws one last time before retreating back into the trees.
Sam is the one among them to speak first. “Well, that was climactic,” he croaks.
“I don’t think the dragon is the one disturbing the forest,” Castiel says as soon as the initial shock is shaken from them. He doesn’t move from his place close at Dean’s side though, wary of the creature’s return nonetheless.
Dean’s confusion rears on him. “Look around you, Cas, that guy was burnt to a crisp right in front of us!” he snaps.
He’s still too on edge himself to appreciate Dean’s fear for what it is. “Look around you, Dean,” he grinds back. “it cowered back first before rearing to the attack. It was scared, what does that tell you?”
“It’s chicken?” Dean laughs mirthlessly waving his hand wildly. “Oh no wait, it’s a fucking dragon!”
“Do you see it coming back for us?” Castiel asks sharply. “It can probably hear us, smell us, and yet here we are, still horribly alive, Dean!” he shouts, the edge in his voice making Dean stop in his anxious pacing. Castiel was still talking about the hunt at hand, he was sure. He gulps, shaking his head to rid himself of such sour thoughts.
He raises it again at the sound of Dean’s resigned sigh. “So we’re just gonna let it go?” Sam asks. That doesn’t seem like a very safe option to any of them.
“No,” Castiel clarifies. “I’ll talk to it, my mind did not burn away along with my wings. I can speak to it.”
It’s Charlie’s turn to be impressed. “You speak dragon?”
“It killed that guy, Cas,” Dean reiterates before Castiel can confirm his multilingual abilities, but Castiel can also sense his friend’s resolve waning. He doesn’t want to slay innocents any more than him.
"That man only died because he obviously threatened them,” Castiel growls, fists clenched. He holds the gaze of his friend when he puts all the meaning he can behind his name. “Dean.”
Dean shifts, eyes flicking to Sam who nods his head. “I—Yeah. Cas is right.”
Castiel lets out a heavy breath as Charlie chooses that moment to step in. “Okay, so, Cas parseltongues the dragon—” she pauses. “That came out weird. Cas, you don’t have to make out with the fire-breathing dragon.”
“I wasn’t intending to,” Castiel affirms dryly as he catches Dean giving Charlie an odd sort of wounded look.
Castiel spends the better part of an hour trying to coax the creature back down from its roost among the trees. Sam, Kevin, and Charlie elect to wait the event out from the cover of the leafy canopy at the other side of the clearing, at a safe enough distance. Dean remains alert and upright by Castiel’s side.
“Ask him what the fuck it was doing with that dude,” Dean suggests. When Castiel relays the question he indulges in some choice editing, but the firmness of the sentiment remains. The dragon’s reply comes in clicks and caws, only guttural sounds to the others, so Castiel dutifully translates.
“It’s trapped in this form,” Castiel says back, not moving its eyes from the dragon, lest it make any sudden movement, or be terrified that Castiel himself does. “The man—the blacksmith apprentice—forced it into this state, and kept it here in the forest. He brings it dead animals he kills for food, but it doesn’t want to eat its tainted offerings. Those are what are worrying your game mates, I assume.”
“Wait, dragons can look like us?” Charlie asks, skeptical.
He doesn’t know why that sounds ludicrous above all other facts that have been revealed to her. After all, he is walking proof of the absurd, that an angel should look like a man. Humans and their visual traditions are erratic and unreliable, he guesses, but nods all the same.
“When they so choose. It’s an easier existence,” he explains, as his stomach twists. “Though one this one has been denied.”
“So it’s some fantasy zealot’s magical experiment?” Kevin summarises with no short amount of disgust, and Castiel imagines his face is the picture of the unease Castiel too feels.
“Where do you find these guys, Charlie? This is literally the second time someone in your kingdom’s tried to go all Neverending Story with the collapsing fantasy and reality business,” Dean gestures around them.
Charlie sighs wistfully. “I should’ve followed Gilda back to the Forests of Arkmoore.”
“The fairy realm?” Castiel frowns. He’d not heard that name spoken in literal ages.
Charlie lights up. “You heard of it?”
“I’ve heard of many places.”
“Yeah, yeah, okay, enigmatic sharing hour is great and cool and all,” Dean butts in, “but it’s not gonna get us anywhere. As nice a dragon as Smaug turned out to be, it can’t stay here.”
“No,” Castiel concedes. “Though, if it cannot return to human form due to the work of a spell, it might do well to simply leave the human plane altogether. The fairy realm is not a bad suggestion.”
Sam unwinds himself from his seat against the trunk of a tree to stand up with them. “And how would we do that? Are you still in contact with Gilda?” he asks Charlie as he dusts his pants off.
When Charlie shakes her head regretfully, Castiel offers a similar solution. “It’s simply a matter of the right spell of our own.”
Charlie grins at Dean.
“So dreamy.”
After the ordeal is over and the spell cast—the dragon acquiescing to their plan eagerly when Castiel explained it—the calm walk back through the dark to the camp is a welcome respite. Dean and Charlie continue to make references to mythical creatures that Castiel is sure only exist in literature he remains unfamiliar with, but like in the car ride earlier, the sound is a soothing buzz in his ear.
If the day had progressed uninterrupted by your casual encounter with winged reptilians, Castiel expects their whole afternoon and evening would have been like this, Dean relaxing into an light banter with his brother and friends, and Castiel watching on, a fish out of water so to speak. As dangerous as the evening’s events were, he wonders if he doesn’t prefer the real adventure to the frivolous facsimile, where he is at least somewhat in his element. The energy of the creature’s archaic language still tingles on his tongue.
But he also doesn’t dislike this, seeing Dean so at ease in his movement again, the way he wears his costume as a familiar skin. He is a man who likes the charade of being other people in order to feel more like himself, but Castiel wishes to give that sense of comfort to him in the venue of the every day. He wishes it for himself too. Perhaps they will discover exactly how together.
Dean had moved most of their bags into a tent next to Charlie’s when they had first arrived, but he leaves Castiel alone there for a moment to retrieve something he says that he forgot in the Impala. With Sam and Kevin begging off to enjoy some bonfire activity down by the closest river, and Charlie retiring too with a tight hug, Castiel experiences one of the few moments of complete silence he’s heard in days.
Thankfully, Dean returns soon enough for the feeling to become too uncanny. “That was—without a doubt—the easiest hunt we’ve ever been on,” he laughs, walking into the tent with one hand hidden behind his back. “So vacation number one, what’s the verdict?”
In his head, Castiel tries to guess what Dean might be hiding, but he replies instead with, “Can it really be called a vacation if it is like any other day for you and Sam?”
“It is if we’re dressed up like we’re having dinner at Medieval Times,” he smiles, practically bouncing on his heels now with a rejuvenated glow. Castiel wonders if the day’s excitement has satisfied Dean’s restlessness as much as his.
An electric lamp hangs from the centre of the tent—their one modern day indulgence—casting them both in a hazy, orange light. “This is fun for you,” Castiel more states rather than asks, and has to think it is a good look on him.
“Well… yeah,” he grins wider, and steps further into the tent. “But what’d you think? Gonna come back with me for the Spring Fling?”
“I doubt I’ll have very much choice in the matter,” he deadpans. A little too convincingly, for Dean’s smile falters.
“Of course you do, man.”
Castiel smiles back. “Well, then, I’ll choose to come all the same.” It seems to do the trick in the way of assurances, and renewed with his earlier, brimming sentiment, Dean pulls his hidden hand out from behind his back.
In it, lies Castiel’s sword.
“I was rifling around in the Impala and found this,” he explains casually, as if he hadn’t gone out just to find it. “I know you probably left it there for safekeeping but… it kinda completes your ensemble,” he says and then moves right into Castiel’s personal space to slip the sword under Castiel’s belt, in a make-shift hilt.
Castiel quirks an eyebrow in question, and raises his gaze only to find Dean’s face only inches from his own
“Yeah, that’s—yeah,” Dean breathes out. Castiel is suddenly aware of exactly how close their bodies are, and every point in which they do not touch.
They have been this close while sharing a bed, to be sure—closer even, when they end up sprawled across each other accidentally in sleep. But they have exhaustion to blame on those transgressions, and they never talk about it. To talk about it would be to shatter illusion that nothing’s changed between them, that they’ve not already shattered themselves and been hastily thrown back together. To talk about it would be to admit that they’re in the middle of changing, at as fast a pace as Castiel’s hurtling down from the heavens, and neither is sure what will be the end result.
But this right now, this is different to all those sleepy stolen touches. This is awake, senses alight and alive and electrified, blood pumping with an adrenaline rush that’s more powerful than any caffeine infusion Castiel can imagine.
“I don’t believe that was a sentence,” he says, voice low and rough.
Dean’s face, warm and open, hovers tantalisingly nearer still, both of them mutually compelled by an unknown gravity to be closer. Castiel now lacks certain senses he once knew, but he can still feel more than he knows how to register, heat coming off the both of them in waves he can’t see but can almost taste as his mouth grows salty with saliva. He thinks of Dean’s fingers, those mending, diligent hands curled around a steaming mug every morning, around the curve of Castiel’s shoulder as a gesture of comfort. He thinks of his lips, lush and inviting. He stares into the abyss of Dean’s green eyes, and the abyss, as they say, stares back.
They come together like the collapsing of a star. Knowing who moves first is inconsequential in the face of Dean’s lips on his, Dean’s hand on his head, fingers in his hair, and Castiel gripping Dean’s shoulder tight as he looses language in his mouth, but gains something else. He thinks he knows now what it is to feel cosmic with two feet firmly planted upon the ground.
The soft give of Dean’s lips is matched by the enthusiasm in which Castiel’s own mouth opens to him. Dean tastes like sweat and pine, though Castiel muses that must be more from spending all day in a forest. The flavours blend together to taste like summer, and as if on cue, a blooming, blossoming feeling bubbles up in Castiel’s chest, so overwhelming that he has to pull away to catch his breath.
He can’t help but smile into their next kiss. Perhaps he’s found his garden of respite after all, or maybe it always had to be something he grew himself. And in it, the weeds of doubt are slowly dying out with every touch of skin against skin.
