SPN Fic: Faraway, So Close (Dean/Castiel)
Apr. 20th, 2009 08:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinityofoneOkay, FOR REALS this time.
Title: Faraway, So Close
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Dean/Castiel
Spoilers: Through 4x18
Length: 2,800 words
Summary: Castiel has seen Dean Winchester laid bare.
Author’s Note: A complete 180 from my last story (if you can call it that). With thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
siriaeve, turtlespeaks, and wychwood for their help and suggestions.
Faraway, So Close
Castiel has seen Dean Winchester laid bare.
He has seen the shape his soul took on down in the pit, twisted and cruel, anguish and fear and despair heaped on top of each other like layers of tar until the brightness beneath was entirely obscured. But Castiel could see through to it, could gather up what was left of the righteous man he had been sent to find and hold it tight. Carry it up.
Castiel has held Dean’s flesh, the meat and bone and gristle, and reshaped it into something fresh, new, whole: a body that will allow his soul to walk the earth, to fulfill its destiny. Castiel cleaned the dirt and the insects from his marrow; he filled the sunken cavity of his chest and sealed it over with soft, pink skin. It was necessary work. Necessary so that Castiel could press the shining, pulsing essence of Dean Winchester into a vessel that could draw air into its lungs, could cut and scratch its new fingers on the splintery wood of its coffin and pull itself, blinking, into the light.
Castiel was ready to guide this man, His chosen soldier, their brother-in-arms to be. He was ready for his pious thanks, his humility before the Lord and before Castiel, His agent. He was ready to bring him the Word.
Instead Castiel’s voice makes this man, this Dean Winchester, huddle like he had so long huddled in Hell; it makes blood run from the ears Castiel had so carefully reshaped, marveling at the seashell curves, the beauty of God’s design.
So the angel Castiel clothes himself in human flesh, in the body of a faithful man who could hear his true voice and see his true shape, but whose usefulness ends with being willing.
In contrast, the Dean Winchester Castiel meets—face to face instead of soul to soul—is all will: he is distrust and anger and a messy patchwork of sin. He lacks faith.
There is so little, here, to be seen through his own vessel’s narrow gaze, of the righteous man he glimpsed even in Hell, the effulgent soul it was his duty and his honor to save. Instead there is a man whose skin is made black by motor oil and graveyard dirt, who cloaks himself in dirty leather and hides behind a twisted lip, a provocative stare, a knife, a gun.
The fists of the vessel to which Castiel has bound himself tighten, and though he is ha-qodeshim, one of the holy ones, he must fight a feeling he will soon learn is called dismay.
They are not static, these feelings, he learns; they drift in and out, as if wafting through the pores of his borrowed skin. It is strange in this body, to find some things so magnified and others so reduced. The tools of perception are all so much more immediate: heartbeats racing or slowing down, flesh impacting flesh, the ground solid underneath his feet.
Perhaps, Castiel thinks at first, Dean, too, feels tied down by the constraints of his mortal body. But no: instead he seems to glory in it—gluttony and sloth and so much lust. He destroys the purity of his new form with a woman he hardly knows in Pennsylvania: he cannot love her, Castiel thinks. His soul and hers are strangers.
And yet, for all that Dean lacks, Castiel cannot deny that he does possess…something. A singular quality. Not just his loyalty to his brother—admirable, though in this case possibly foolish, potentially fatal. Not just his devotion to his task, to the people he saves—though Castiel, too, can see the pleasure in having the ability and the means to preserve any of God’s myriad, miraculous creations. Sitting side by side, not looking at each other: it is then that Castiel begins to feel the strength of Dean’s true self. Not with his vessel’s senses, but with the form—melakh elohim—one glimpse of which would burn Dean’s eyeballs from his skull. The eyes Castiel molded in his hands like beads of molten glass.
How to reach him? It is not enough to turn back time—even the sins of the past do not seem to be enough to strengthen Dean’s resolve. Or rather, not to Castiel’s—to the Lord’s—purposes; Dean’s dedication to his brother, to the tattered remains of his family, appears as strong as ever. These are not bonds Castiel wishes to break, but Dean must be made to understand he has a greater duty, just as Castiel has. He cannot afford to doubt.
Castiel must never doubt.
But he can be mistaken. It is a characteristic of angelic grace, the ability to admit when one is in error and adjust one’s behavior and perceptions to fit within new parameters. Dean Winchester may flirt with sin, but he is no sinner; he might not always choose rightly, but he may still be righteous. Just as Dean must, it is for Castiel too to have faith: faith in God’s chosen warrior and in himself, in his ability to guide him. Dean has shown that he is willing to face his fears, to face down the worst of his tormentors, unasked, for Castiel’s need, for Castiel’s preservation. If Castiel is afraid to walk this road with such an unlikely savior, then that is a fear he too must face.
Besides, Castiel thinks, it is possible that he is beginning to like him.
Humans are so strange, so messy. Castiel does not agree with his poor, misguided brother Uriel: for all their oddity, they are wondrous creatures. Look at Dean Winchester—Castiel has spent a long time looking at Dean Winchester. He sees him, the complexities and contradictions: delicate eyelashes, blunt nails; full lips and firm jaw; skin that is (mostly) still uncorrupted and clean and eyes that when they catch a certain slant of light look so old that Castiel sometimes thinks that he must have made a mistake in their construction, left some imperfection behind.
(But perhaps it is imperfection that makes humanity beautiful, Castiel reflects, watching the short bristle of hairs on the back of his neck in the second before Dean’s shoulders stiffen and he turns, having sensed Castiel’s presence there.)
Castiel sees Dean. With his restless shifting, his anxious hands beating out harsh rhythms on his steering wheel, his fingers moving compulsively as he checks and rechecks the parts and pieces of his arsenal of weapons, his fists darting and grinding as he fights (and then later, just as desperately, eliciting grunts and groans almost indistinguishable to the untrained ear, clutching at himself, pulling)—with all that movement, it took Castiel a while to bring the man called Dean Winchester into focus. But now he sees, sees the bright soul shimmering beneath his skin, like heat waves on the horizon, and Castiel remembers what it was like to hold that soul tightly to him, press it to his breast, and he wishes he had a way to tell Dean that he is still here, the creature of heavenly light who raised him from perdition, and if only he had something more than this inadequate human touch, flesh against flesh, he would show him…
One night while Dean is sleeping, Castiel sheds his mortal skin and, slipping invisible to his bedside, whispers a word in his true voice into the delicate curve of Dean’s ear.
The trickle of Dean’s blood runs red against the white sheets.
When Dean prays to him, for him, Castiel feels it in his human body like a rush of warmth. He wants to give that back to Dean—give that feeling back, that sense of connection, of the two of them together, joined.
But he is conflicted, constricted; he can’t go against the Word, the Law. He can only give Dean what he can, taking advantage of human language’s twists and turns and double meanings, and of the inadequate weight of a human stare.
And yet Dean gets it, gets him. Castiel’s body feels warm with that knowledge, too.
“It’s a damn shame you didn’t pick some hot chick,” Dean says one night.
The tongue Castiel made for him forms words and patterns all its own. Castiel watches him as he speaks, aware of the slight tilt of his vessel’s head, the vaguely puzzled expression on his face. He feels and the body reacts—puppets and strings.
Though Dean may disagree, Castiel considers himself entirely straightforward. “I do not understand.”
His observation—or attempt at humor?—not given the reaction he desired, Dean’s casual grin folds itself away; his shoulders shrug defensively; he rolls his eyes. “Nothing. Never mind.”
Dean is sitting on a sunken motel bed; Castiel stands across from him. He does not want to disturb Dean, who has been mellow so far tonight—even though his brother walked out the door some hours ago, mumbling lies about his planned rendezvous, his ultimate destination. But he is curious. Dean often provokes this feeling in him, like a pleasant tickle at the back of his skull, inside his stomach.
“How is the sex of my vessel relevant?” he asks.
Dean’s lips quirk up into a brief smirk; a reaction most probably tied to the mere mention of the word “sex.” Castiel can understand why humans find the topic humorous; from what he has seen, it looks ridiculous.
“It’s not,” Dean says, drumming his fingers on his thigh; Castiel has ceased trying to search such movements for hidden meaning, traces of some secret code. “Forget it. I’m just bored.”
“And a female shape would be more entertaining?” Castiel feels his vessel’s tongue come forward and press against the curve of his lips; he suspects he is having fun.
Dean looks toward the book he has not been reading, the research he has not been doing. Castiel notices that the tips of his ears are pink. “That’s one way to put it.”
Castiel is unsure how to proceed. Part of him wants to expound upon the absence of sex and the irrelevance of gender among the heavenly host and inquire about the bizarre emphasis human beings insist on placing upon those things. Part of him wants to continue on in a jocular vein, to banter with Dean—to see if he can make his blush spread from his ears down the curve of his neck.
Part of him—perhaps the largest part—feels frustration at his inability to show himself to Dean as he really is: then Dean would understand. Then Dean would not ask, even in jest, such stupid questions.
Instead he does what it seems like Dean wants—what he thinks Dean thinks he wants—and changes the subject.
Castiel cannot get used to all these tugs and pulls in so many opposite directions. Humans are so painfully multifaceted, and Castiel thinks he is beginning to understand how free will can be both a gift and a curse.
Sam Winchester has free will. He chooses. It is the wrong choice.
This is possibly the closest Castiel has ever come to falling: watching Dean Winchester in the face of his brother’s betrayal and being unable to rage along with him, to curse the heavens—curse God—for ever making this part of any plan, for allowing this to happen.
But the moment passes. Neither of them are giving up: Dean will still fight to save his brother, and Castiel will fight to save Dean, and through him, the world. For as long as those goals coincide with saving Sam from the final sweep of the blade, well, then—Castiel will fight for that, too.
He will also fight against the urge to gather the older Winchester into his arms—his own great and terrible arms—and stand with him against the coming storm. It’s an image he sees again and again in his mind—a fantasy, he understands now, a dream—and one that he knows to be impossible: Dean would burn beneath his fingertips. A single touch would consume him.
Castiel’s vessel is currently undamaged, and yet he aches.
Dean struggles with the key to his room at the Ocean’s Edge Motel (despite its name, it is edged, as far as Castiel can discern, only by a ribbon of highway and a Wal-Mart—the flexibility of human language truly is miraculous). Castiel waits beside him, despite the fact that to him the wooden door is a meaningless barrier, no more confining than the clothes on his back, the flesh and bone draped awkwardly about his grace. Castiel waits because Dean must wait.
With a final jiggle, the mechanism clicks; “I’ve picked locks more easily,” Dean mutters. He opens the door with the flat of his hand and steps inside: it is an oft-repeated motion, one Castiel has seen performed many times before. And yet this time something is different: it is as if something inside Dean shivers and comes apart. He stands, shoulders framed in the doorway, staring at the motel room: the small table and chairs, the pair of nightstands, the silent television, the single framed print, the two full beds. To Castiel, the room looks utterly ordinary and yet unique, just like the humans who have come and will come, singly and in pairs and in small clusters, to lay down their weary heads to rest here.
Whatever else Dean is seeing as he lets his duffle bag slide from his shoulder and slump to the floor, Castiel cannot see; he can only reach out a hand and lay it on Dean’s shoulder: a gesture meant to comfort, even though to Castiel it feels as muffled as what to humans he suspects it would feel like to touch someone through a thousand layers of heavy cotton and thick wool.
“Don’t know why I keep getting doubles,” Dean says finally, kicking his bag out of the way of the door. “Waste of money.”
Castiel feels his understanding as a tightening of his vessel’s throat, a constriction of the airway that forces all he wants to say out into the world as a breathy, “Oh.”
Dean’s shoulders are hunched; the line of his back looks painful underneath his heavy coat. “Well,” he says, heaving the bag up onto the nearer bed, “you’ve walked me safely to my door.” He glances over his shoulder, his eyes hidden in shadow, though it hardly matters—Castiel can remember every plane and curve of his face. “What are you waiting for? A goodnight kiss?”
Castiel has walked the earth for months. He understands this thing humans call sarcasm.
But his human mouth, his borrowed lips—he feels them form a word, a word a human writer called the most beautiful in the English language.
“Yes,” Castiel says.
Dean’s expression twists. It is more wrath than lust: “Not funny, angel. I know with Uriel gone there’s a gap to be filled, but I don’t think you’re likely to replace him as your garrison’s source of comic relief.”
“I would not joke about this,” Castiel says. They are hard to find, the words. He feels…he believes the term is “light-headed”—like his skull is filled with air. Or perhaps he should say: he feels like he is falling.
Purely in the human sense.
“Cas,” Dean says. His body is a tapestry of involuntary muscle spasms, of indecision. “I don’t, I can’t—”
Castiel cannot. He cannot touch Dean the way he needs to be touched, the way he wants to touch him—the way he once did. He cannot hold Dean against his true body, whisper in his ear words in his own language, his own voice. He is holy, ha-qodeshim, and Dean Winchester is messy and human and beautiful, and he can never see Castiel’s true face. Not as Castiel has seen Dean’s—all of them, in all their variations.
Human life is so fleeting. So fragile. Just like this moment, the two of them looking at each other through eyes not their own. And so Castiel lets fall his vessel’s lashes and reaches out, reaches for the burning brightness of what he can still see in afterimage against the black of his eyelids. They come together, borrowed flesh against flesh reborn, and Castiel tries not to feel the weight of his body as so much meat. He tries to feel the rough and the smooth of Dean’s bare skin and not remember him as a thing hollowed out or think how inadequate this is, to hold Dean’s trembling body, when he could be cradling his shimmering, shining soul.
He was wrong about one thing, anyway. There is nothing funny about this.
Dean lies beside him, half under, half over, their bodies entwined like a snake around a tree. Castiel can feel his rapidly beating heart and from the heart that is not his, that never will be, the echoing answer.
They are together. In one form if not another, they are one.
It’s almost, almost enough.
NOTES:
1. The words ha-qodeshim (the holy ones) and melakh elohim (warrior of god) are both Hebrew terms for angels. I am hopefully using them correctly, but please feel free to correct me if you know better!
2. The human writer who called “Yes” the most beautiful word in the English language was James Joyce.
3. Title from the Wim Wenders movie of the same name (and the U2 song that shares it).
Title: Faraway, So Close
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Dean/Castiel
Spoilers: Through 4x18
Length: 2,800 words
Summary: Castiel has seen Dean Winchester laid bare.
Author’s Note: A complete 180 from my last story (if you can call it that). With thanks to
siriaeve, turtlespeaks, and wychwood for their help and suggestions.Faraway, So Close
Castiel has seen Dean Winchester laid bare.
He has seen the shape his soul took on down in the pit, twisted and cruel, anguish and fear and despair heaped on top of each other like layers of tar until the brightness beneath was entirely obscured. But Castiel could see through to it, could gather up what was left of the righteous man he had been sent to find and hold it tight. Carry it up.
Castiel has held Dean’s flesh, the meat and bone and gristle, and reshaped it into something fresh, new, whole: a body that will allow his soul to walk the earth, to fulfill its destiny. Castiel cleaned the dirt and the insects from his marrow; he filled the sunken cavity of his chest and sealed it over with soft, pink skin. It was necessary work. Necessary so that Castiel could press the shining, pulsing essence of Dean Winchester into a vessel that could draw air into its lungs, could cut and scratch its new fingers on the splintery wood of its coffin and pull itself, blinking, into the light.
Castiel was ready to guide this man, His chosen soldier, their brother-in-arms to be. He was ready for his pious thanks, his humility before the Lord and before Castiel, His agent. He was ready to bring him the Word.
Instead Castiel’s voice makes this man, this Dean Winchester, huddle like he had so long huddled in Hell; it makes blood run from the ears Castiel had so carefully reshaped, marveling at the seashell curves, the beauty of God’s design.
So the angel Castiel clothes himself in human flesh, in the body of a faithful man who could hear his true voice and see his true shape, but whose usefulness ends with being willing.
In contrast, the Dean Winchester Castiel meets—face to face instead of soul to soul—is all will: he is distrust and anger and a messy patchwork of sin. He lacks faith.
There is so little, here, to be seen through his own vessel’s narrow gaze, of the righteous man he glimpsed even in Hell, the effulgent soul it was his duty and his honor to save. Instead there is a man whose skin is made black by motor oil and graveyard dirt, who cloaks himself in dirty leather and hides behind a twisted lip, a provocative stare, a knife, a gun.
The fists of the vessel to which Castiel has bound himself tighten, and though he is ha-qodeshim, one of the holy ones, he must fight a feeling he will soon learn is called dismay.
They are not static, these feelings, he learns; they drift in and out, as if wafting through the pores of his borrowed skin. It is strange in this body, to find some things so magnified and others so reduced. The tools of perception are all so much more immediate: heartbeats racing or slowing down, flesh impacting flesh, the ground solid underneath his feet.
Perhaps, Castiel thinks at first, Dean, too, feels tied down by the constraints of his mortal body. But no: instead he seems to glory in it—gluttony and sloth and so much lust. He destroys the purity of his new form with a woman he hardly knows in Pennsylvania: he cannot love her, Castiel thinks. His soul and hers are strangers.
And yet, for all that Dean lacks, Castiel cannot deny that he does possess…something. A singular quality. Not just his loyalty to his brother—admirable, though in this case possibly foolish, potentially fatal. Not just his devotion to his task, to the people he saves—though Castiel, too, can see the pleasure in having the ability and the means to preserve any of God’s myriad, miraculous creations. Sitting side by side, not looking at each other: it is then that Castiel begins to feel the strength of Dean’s true self. Not with his vessel’s senses, but with the form—melakh elohim—one glimpse of which would burn Dean’s eyeballs from his skull. The eyes Castiel molded in his hands like beads of molten glass.
How to reach him? It is not enough to turn back time—even the sins of the past do not seem to be enough to strengthen Dean’s resolve. Or rather, not to Castiel’s—to the Lord’s—purposes; Dean’s dedication to his brother, to the tattered remains of his family, appears as strong as ever. These are not bonds Castiel wishes to break, but Dean must be made to understand he has a greater duty, just as Castiel has. He cannot afford to doubt.
Castiel must never doubt.
But he can be mistaken. It is a characteristic of angelic grace, the ability to admit when one is in error and adjust one’s behavior and perceptions to fit within new parameters. Dean Winchester may flirt with sin, but he is no sinner; he might not always choose rightly, but he may still be righteous. Just as Dean must, it is for Castiel too to have faith: faith in God’s chosen warrior and in himself, in his ability to guide him. Dean has shown that he is willing to face his fears, to face down the worst of his tormentors, unasked, for Castiel’s need, for Castiel’s preservation. If Castiel is afraid to walk this road with such an unlikely savior, then that is a fear he too must face.
Besides, Castiel thinks, it is possible that he is beginning to like him.
Humans are so strange, so messy. Castiel does not agree with his poor, misguided brother Uriel: for all their oddity, they are wondrous creatures. Look at Dean Winchester—Castiel has spent a long time looking at Dean Winchester. He sees him, the complexities and contradictions: delicate eyelashes, blunt nails; full lips and firm jaw; skin that is (mostly) still uncorrupted and clean and eyes that when they catch a certain slant of light look so old that Castiel sometimes thinks that he must have made a mistake in their construction, left some imperfection behind.
(But perhaps it is imperfection that makes humanity beautiful, Castiel reflects, watching the short bristle of hairs on the back of his neck in the second before Dean’s shoulders stiffen and he turns, having sensed Castiel’s presence there.)
Castiel sees Dean. With his restless shifting, his anxious hands beating out harsh rhythms on his steering wheel, his fingers moving compulsively as he checks and rechecks the parts and pieces of his arsenal of weapons, his fists darting and grinding as he fights (and then later, just as desperately, eliciting grunts and groans almost indistinguishable to the untrained ear, clutching at himself, pulling)—with all that movement, it took Castiel a while to bring the man called Dean Winchester into focus. But now he sees, sees the bright soul shimmering beneath his skin, like heat waves on the horizon, and Castiel remembers what it was like to hold that soul tightly to him, press it to his breast, and he wishes he had a way to tell Dean that he is still here, the creature of heavenly light who raised him from perdition, and if only he had something more than this inadequate human touch, flesh against flesh, he would show him…
One night while Dean is sleeping, Castiel sheds his mortal skin and, slipping invisible to his bedside, whispers a word in his true voice into the delicate curve of Dean’s ear.
The trickle of Dean’s blood runs red against the white sheets.
When Dean prays to him, for him, Castiel feels it in his human body like a rush of warmth. He wants to give that back to Dean—give that feeling back, that sense of connection, of the two of them together, joined.
But he is conflicted, constricted; he can’t go against the Word, the Law. He can only give Dean what he can, taking advantage of human language’s twists and turns and double meanings, and of the inadequate weight of a human stare.
And yet Dean gets it, gets him. Castiel’s body feels warm with that knowledge, too.
“It’s a damn shame you didn’t pick some hot chick,” Dean says one night.
The tongue Castiel made for him forms words and patterns all its own. Castiel watches him as he speaks, aware of the slight tilt of his vessel’s head, the vaguely puzzled expression on his face. He feels and the body reacts—puppets and strings.
Though Dean may disagree, Castiel considers himself entirely straightforward. “I do not understand.”
His observation—or attempt at humor?—not given the reaction he desired, Dean’s casual grin folds itself away; his shoulders shrug defensively; he rolls his eyes. “Nothing. Never mind.”
Dean is sitting on a sunken motel bed; Castiel stands across from him. He does not want to disturb Dean, who has been mellow so far tonight—even though his brother walked out the door some hours ago, mumbling lies about his planned rendezvous, his ultimate destination. But he is curious. Dean often provokes this feeling in him, like a pleasant tickle at the back of his skull, inside his stomach.
“How is the sex of my vessel relevant?” he asks.
Dean’s lips quirk up into a brief smirk; a reaction most probably tied to the mere mention of the word “sex.” Castiel can understand why humans find the topic humorous; from what he has seen, it looks ridiculous.
“It’s not,” Dean says, drumming his fingers on his thigh; Castiel has ceased trying to search such movements for hidden meaning, traces of some secret code. “Forget it. I’m just bored.”
“And a female shape would be more entertaining?” Castiel feels his vessel’s tongue come forward and press against the curve of his lips; he suspects he is having fun.
Dean looks toward the book he has not been reading, the research he has not been doing. Castiel notices that the tips of his ears are pink. “That’s one way to put it.”
Castiel is unsure how to proceed. Part of him wants to expound upon the absence of sex and the irrelevance of gender among the heavenly host and inquire about the bizarre emphasis human beings insist on placing upon those things. Part of him wants to continue on in a jocular vein, to banter with Dean—to see if he can make his blush spread from his ears down the curve of his neck.
Part of him—perhaps the largest part—feels frustration at his inability to show himself to Dean as he really is: then Dean would understand. Then Dean would not ask, even in jest, such stupid questions.
Instead he does what it seems like Dean wants—what he thinks Dean thinks he wants—and changes the subject.
Castiel cannot get used to all these tugs and pulls in so many opposite directions. Humans are so painfully multifaceted, and Castiel thinks he is beginning to understand how free will can be both a gift and a curse.
Sam Winchester has free will. He chooses. It is the wrong choice.
This is possibly the closest Castiel has ever come to falling: watching Dean Winchester in the face of his brother’s betrayal and being unable to rage along with him, to curse the heavens—curse God—for ever making this part of any plan, for allowing this to happen.
But the moment passes. Neither of them are giving up: Dean will still fight to save his brother, and Castiel will fight to save Dean, and through him, the world. For as long as those goals coincide with saving Sam from the final sweep of the blade, well, then—Castiel will fight for that, too.
He will also fight against the urge to gather the older Winchester into his arms—his own great and terrible arms—and stand with him against the coming storm. It’s an image he sees again and again in his mind—a fantasy, he understands now, a dream—and one that he knows to be impossible: Dean would burn beneath his fingertips. A single touch would consume him.
Castiel’s vessel is currently undamaged, and yet he aches.
Dean struggles with the key to his room at the Ocean’s Edge Motel (despite its name, it is edged, as far as Castiel can discern, only by a ribbon of highway and a Wal-Mart—the flexibility of human language truly is miraculous). Castiel waits beside him, despite the fact that to him the wooden door is a meaningless barrier, no more confining than the clothes on his back, the flesh and bone draped awkwardly about his grace. Castiel waits because Dean must wait.
With a final jiggle, the mechanism clicks; “I’ve picked locks more easily,” Dean mutters. He opens the door with the flat of his hand and steps inside: it is an oft-repeated motion, one Castiel has seen performed many times before. And yet this time something is different: it is as if something inside Dean shivers and comes apart. He stands, shoulders framed in the doorway, staring at the motel room: the small table and chairs, the pair of nightstands, the silent television, the single framed print, the two full beds. To Castiel, the room looks utterly ordinary and yet unique, just like the humans who have come and will come, singly and in pairs and in small clusters, to lay down their weary heads to rest here.
Whatever else Dean is seeing as he lets his duffle bag slide from his shoulder and slump to the floor, Castiel cannot see; he can only reach out a hand and lay it on Dean’s shoulder: a gesture meant to comfort, even though to Castiel it feels as muffled as what to humans he suspects it would feel like to touch someone through a thousand layers of heavy cotton and thick wool.
“Don’t know why I keep getting doubles,” Dean says finally, kicking his bag out of the way of the door. “Waste of money.”
Castiel feels his understanding as a tightening of his vessel’s throat, a constriction of the airway that forces all he wants to say out into the world as a breathy, “Oh.”
Dean’s shoulders are hunched; the line of his back looks painful underneath his heavy coat. “Well,” he says, heaving the bag up onto the nearer bed, “you’ve walked me safely to my door.” He glances over his shoulder, his eyes hidden in shadow, though it hardly matters—Castiel can remember every plane and curve of his face. “What are you waiting for? A goodnight kiss?”
Castiel has walked the earth for months. He understands this thing humans call sarcasm.
But his human mouth, his borrowed lips—he feels them form a word, a word a human writer called the most beautiful in the English language.
“Yes,” Castiel says.
Dean’s expression twists. It is more wrath than lust: “Not funny, angel. I know with Uriel gone there’s a gap to be filled, but I don’t think you’re likely to replace him as your garrison’s source of comic relief.”
“I would not joke about this,” Castiel says. They are hard to find, the words. He feels…he believes the term is “light-headed”—like his skull is filled with air. Or perhaps he should say: he feels like he is falling.
Purely in the human sense.
“Cas,” Dean says. His body is a tapestry of involuntary muscle spasms, of indecision. “I don’t, I can’t—”
Castiel cannot. He cannot touch Dean the way he needs to be touched, the way he wants to touch him—the way he once did. He cannot hold Dean against his true body, whisper in his ear words in his own language, his own voice. He is holy, ha-qodeshim, and Dean Winchester is messy and human and beautiful, and he can never see Castiel’s true face. Not as Castiel has seen Dean’s—all of them, in all their variations.
Human life is so fleeting. So fragile. Just like this moment, the two of them looking at each other through eyes not their own. And so Castiel lets fall his vessel’s lashes and reaches out, reaches for the burning brightness of what he can still see in afterimage against the black of his eyelids. They come together, borrowed flesh against flesh reborn, and Castiel tries not to feel the weight of his body as so much meat. He tries to feel the rough and the smooth of Dean’s bare skin and not remember him as a thing hollowed out or think how inadequate this is, to hold Dean’s trembling body, when he could be cradling his shimmering, shining soul.
He was wrong about one thing, anyway. There is nothing funny about this.
Dean lies beside him, half under, half over, their bodies entwined like a snake around a tree. Castiel can feel his rapidly beating heart and from the heart that is not his, that never will be, the echoing answer.
They are together. In one form if not another, they are one.
It’s almost, almost enough.
NOTES:
1. The words ha-qodeshim (the holy ones) and melakh elohim (warrior of god) are both Hebrew terms for angels. I am hopefully using them correctly, but please feel free to correct me if you know better!
2. The human writer who called “Yes” the most beautiful word in the English language was James Joyce.
3. Title from the Wim Wenders movie of the same name (and the U2 song that shares it).
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Date: 2009-04-21 02:32 pm (UTC)