Oneiroi [part six]
Oct. 7th, 2011 04:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mclachlandSix.
“Though dreams can be deceiving, they serve for sweet relieving when fantasy and reality lie too far apart.”
He wakes to the feeling of someone shaking him and, before he allows himself to open his eyes, he flexes his hand. His hand, there and whole and wonderful. He can hold a piece of fruit or someone's heart in this hand. Such a small thing in the grand scheme, a hand, but it is a beautiful marvel, not for the small number of bones, but for the fact that no one knows what it is to not have one until they no longer do.
"Cas. Cas!"
Grunting, he rolls over and blinks his eyes open. It takes a moment to adjust to the dim lighting. The first thing he sees is a cardboard box with a red logo burned into its side, and it surprises him so that he shoots up from the floor and looks around. This is not the hallway of doors. They went through the left door and --
"Sam," Cas whispers, feeling his eyes grow wider and wider with every increasingly desperate breath he takes. "Why are we in Iris's diner?"
It is the back room of the diner where they had lain on the dirty floor and placed their very lives into the hands of a goddess with a hatred for angels. At the time, he had never been so frightened; learning of Morpheus's role in the universe was nothing compared to seeing the seething rage in Iris's eyes before he entered Demos Oneiroi.
He cannot allow himself to think what being here means. Sam, however, can.
"Cas," Sam whispers, staring at something just beyond him, and Cas turns, swallowing a sound that he cannot identify.
Lying on the floor, crumbled like a written spell that has been deemed useless, is Iris. Her body is contorted terribly, arms and legs bent at unnatural angles, her neck broken and twisted until the skin creases over itself. Her eyes are open, blank. She is utterly still. Utterly dead.
"Oh God, Cas," Sam breathes wetly. "We chose the wrong door."
Unacceptable.
He is on top of her before he actually understands what is bubbling and curdling under his skin, hands around her, fingers digging in until he can feel bone. Something snaps when he shakes her hard. "Wake up, Iris! This is not what I was promised!"
She does not answer. He shakes her harder, jarring all those broken bones, all that displaced flesh. This is not Iris. This is a melted, forsaken image.
"I gave you my Grace!" He bellows, and the words drag like knives up the tender inside of his throat. "I gave you everything! Take us back! Take us back, Iris, we're not finished!"
"Cas, stop!" Sam's shout does little to stem the rage. "It's over! Cas, let her go! She's dead!"
"She is not! It's a visage! This is not Iris!"
"It's over!" Sam pulls him away from her, away from where his fingers so desperately want to curl around her already broken neck and keep breaking until there is nothing left but dust bearing his mark. "It's over! We chose the wrong door! Oh, God, we chose wrong."
No. It could not have been the wrong door. They had only three to choose from, and there is nothing that says all three doors were the ones they had been warned of. There are millions of doors in Demos Oneiroi. They chose one. Only one, and it had been the wrong choice.
"We can't get back in," Sam cries, voice rising on a shout, and he lashes out with his foot and kicks over several crates full of bagged bread. "He's going to be in there forever. We let him down. We let him down."
There is something wrong with Cas’s chest. It is too tight, too small, and his heart feels as though it is going to break through his ribs and burst out. Or it is his lungs and there is too much oxygen, too much carbon dioxide being expired and not enough being taken in, and he cannot breathe, the room is flashing, and it is hot, and he tugs at the tie around his neck and pulls at his collar, but it does not help, he is suffocating, being crushed by the walls of boxes and crates, by Sam's angry shouts, the room spins and he staggers --
"Cas," Sam shouts, grabbing at him, "Cas, breathe!"
They chose the wrong door. One misstep and they effectively sealed Dean's fate, left him trapped in a non-reality, a nightmare. A single choice made, and everything changes. There will be an Apocalypse; Lucifer will continue his slow murder of God's Earth, and every living thing will suffer incredible torment. And Cas does not care. The entire world will fall away into the fire, and it does not matter. Dean is lost to him. He has failed Dean.
The world narrows until it is made up of this reality. There are no more doors, no more chances, and he has failed Dean. Dean. The tattered soul he dragged forcefully from the depths of Hell, through fire, frost, and rock, made whole by feeding it bits of himself until a body grew around it, fingers and toes and eyes and a mouth, scars from the hundreds of bloody and brutal yesterdays smoothed down at his command, until it was only his touch skin knew. That same soul, so full of love and righteousness, willing to stand against Heaven, against their very Father, in order to save the world. That same soul, for whom Cas was willing to do the same. For whom he gave everything.
And… it was for nothing.
"Cas?"
Something tickles at the skin of his cheek, the barest hum of a whisper, and he jerks back in surprise at the sensation. There is another, and then another, and he swipes at them, then appeals to Sam, because surely this experience is altogether human and therefore explainable.
"I… I'm bleeding."
"No, Cas. You're crying." Tears. There are tears in Sam's eyes. In his own eyes. That's what this is. A biological reaction to an overwhelming sense of defeat and loss. To surviving an explosion meant to kill.
There is a sound from beyond the room, a jingle of chiming metal followed by a muffled voice, and Sam releases him, turns in surprise, but Cas finds he cannot move. He cannot do anything except stand and stare at his shoes and cry.
"Cas, someone's here." Sam says it urgently, with emphasis, as if it matters. It is born of a life spent on the run, no doubt, but Cas finds he does not want to run. Dean cannot run. Dean cannot open his eyes in this plane, and nor will he ever. A machine breathes for him due to Cas's folly.
"Debbie?" The voice calls. It belongs to a man, older, lines from laughing pulling at the corners of his eyes, dressed in a white shirt and slacks. "Debbie, it's Alan. Alan Parker? Just a wellness check, Deb. Got a call from Nancy Waterston who said you didn't open when you --"
Alan Parker stops talking the moment he sees the woman Iris pretends to be, dead on the floor, and draws a weapon that languished against his back, held there by the waistband of his pants. His other hand reaches for a leather wallet, which flips down to reveal a golden blazon. "POLICE! PUT YOUR HANDS ABOVE YOUR HEADS! BOTH OF YOU! HANDS WHERE I CAN SEE THEM AND GET DOWN ON THE GROUND!"
Sam lifts his hands, somehow managing to look defenseless while towering over everyone in the room. "Sir, please, there's been a misunderstanding --"
"ON THE GROUND!"
Dimly, Cas can hear Sam do as ordered, compliant in a way a Winchester never is, bringing that hulking body to the floor just as he did under Iris's cold, calculating eyes. There is a grunt and the clank of metal against metal, and Alan Parker is talking to a voice that is distorted and followed by the sound of television snow.
"YOU! GET DOWN ON THE GROUND!"
But Cas is down. He is as low as he can possibly be. Alan Parker does not understand this and forces him down further, until Cas’s chin smacks hard off of the floor and his hands are wrenched behind his back, bound by chains he once could have crushed with a thought. They hold him fast, straining the muscles in his shoulders, and suddenly there are more men dressed in navy uniforms pouring into the room, guns drawn, all of them shouting until the air is saturated with their anger and fear and the words run together like syrup.
They move, and then they fly, a steady rumble as they pass the world by until he is sitting in a room not unlike Haniel's chamber. The chrome walls have been replaced by stone and concrete, with the addition of a long window that reflects instead of shows. The metal underneath him is unforgiving and cold, as is the table upon which he automatically rests his hands. Keeping himself from screaming until his throat is bloody and raw takes most of his concentration; an indiscernible amount of time passes before he realizes Sam is not with him.
More time passes. He closes his eyes on his reflection and tries to fall asleep. He has never consciously attempted such a thing, as angels do not sleep, but in order to truly dream a human must be deeply asleep. Perhaps then he can re-enter Demos Oneiroi. And, yes, he may pass through the Gate of Ivory, but it would take very little willpower to claw his way out and go through the Gate of Horn, back into the fray, back into the game.
But sleep does not come. His mind will not rest, too full of failure and alternate scenarios, of what lies behind the doors they did not choose, of Dean lying in the hospital bed and needing a machine to breathe for him because his brain can no longer do it.
Iris's death is odd and unexpected, but Cas doesn't care. It has no bearing on anything other than the fact that she is no longer of use. There have to be other ways into Demos Oneiroi. No matter how elusive Morpheus is, he cannot be the only one with access.
There is the matter of the Apocalypse, of course, but until Lucifer confronts them and demands Sam himself, Cas will put it out of his mind. There will be whispers in the shadows, creatures and beasts of old who will know others who will know others, and one of them will have an answer. He will make as many deals as his soul can handle until he can go back.
But… no. He is human now. And there is human law to abide. He and Sam were found in a room with a dead woman, a woman who was murdered viciously, and no matter how vehemently they profess their innocence, the evidence is stacked against them. No one will believe the word of two strangers over the body of a beloved citizen. If they are brought to trial, they will most certainly be found guilty and imprisoned for life.
Despair claws at his throat and he stifles a sob. There is no hope here.
The door opens and Alan Parker steps inside, professional, a manila folder tucked under his arm. He takes the seat opposite Cas and regards him silently.
"You seemed a little out of it when I found you, so you may not have caught my name." The man is polite, smiling faintly, and Cas cannot trust it. "Alan Parker. Detective. Been in Kellogg damn near all my life and a customer of Debbie Cormier's since she opened shop. So, how about you? Got a name?"
A name. He has had so many. Son. Angel. Castiel. Soldier of Thursday. Cas. So many names for so many roles, and now there is only one. "Cas."
Alan Parker lifts an eyebrow, pleasantly and falsely surprised. "Oh? I have it on good authority that you have another name."
The manila folder is tossed onto the table, sliding with a shhh at him. On the front, in print he does not recognize, it reads:
520 WEST MADISON ST
PONTIAC, IL 61764
PATIENT NAME: JAMES NOVAK
PRIMARY: ROBERT HEINS, DO
DATE: 9/18/2008
DATE OF RECORDS RELEASE: 1/29/2010
Alan Parker is smiling outright now. "James Novak from Pontiac. Jimmy, according to your wife. Sorry, ex-wife. History of psychiatric issues stemming from fall of '08, beginning with the claim angels were contacting you. Left your wife -- sorry, ex-wife -- and little girl to… well, no one is quite sure about that one. Your ex-wife Amelia said you came back briefly and then left again; that was this past September. Not a peep until today."
Cas stares down at the folder, at the printed words that bear the name of a man who is no longer. He does not know how to answer without sounding guilty, without sounding crazy.
"You murdered Debbie Cormier, didn't you? You and that tall fellow."
He swallows and whispers, "No."
"You sure about that, Jimmy? Because we can stay here. We can stay as long as you like. I'm in no rush."
Cas places his hands flat on the table and says, very clearly, "No."
"No?" The pleasant façade drops like a winter sunset and is replaced with frost, sharper and colder than the best-forged Enochian steel. "No? Well, we've got a dead body and several witnesses who saw you enter the diner late this morning and never come back out. The CSI boys are dusting for prints now, and I'll give you three guesses as to whose they are -- and the first two don't count. You're done, Jimmy. Done. You and Sam Winchester."
Cas says nothing.
"Yeah, this isn't the first time your boy Sam's been in the System. There was quite an investigation a while back. Him and his brother. His brother running around town, too?"
"His brother is gone," he whispers, the black text blurring.
Alan Parker snorts. "Here's how this is gonna go: your prints are going to show up at the scene, which will be more than enough for an indictment. You're going to get some freebie lawyer, or maybe your ex-wife'll be kind enough to get you a good one. You'll plead insanity, go to some mental house, and take nice little white pills forever, and I'll make sure your boy Sam gets a needle in his arm."
"If I were an angel again," Cas says slowly, imbuing the words with all the hatred and disdain he has for this man, "I would rend your body asunder. Sam Winchester is no murderer, and neither was Dean. They were going to save you, despite how little you deserve it. If you speak their names, you will show the respect they're due."
There is a flash of surprise on Alan Parker's face, which morphs into sudden shock as the door bursts open and a single shot is fired, right between the policeman’s angry eyes.
Cas watches the body crumble onto the table, blood leaking from the smoking hole, then he looks up into the rather annoyed face of Gabriel.
"Please don't tell me you spent your time in here crying." Gabriel sneers at Alan Parker's still form. "That loser was hardly worth it."
"Alan Parker was doing his job. He may have been a horrible person, but it was his --"
"I was talking about your boy, Dean," Gabriel says, then opens his arms wide and grins. "No hug for big brother?"
Cas stands, unsteady, still reeling with loss. "Gabriel, where have you --"
"I got word," Gabriel says, dropping his arms, suddenly grave in a way Gabriel has never been, not even as an archangel trapped in holy fire. "The docs in charge of the coma patients have been given permission to pull the plug. If you want your veggie-bear to stay alive, we have to get to the hospital five minutes ago."
Gabriel lingers in the doorway, leaning out slightly, gauging their escape route while brandishing his gun like the heroes in Dean's favorite films. He jerks his head and then darts out, leaving Cas to follow. He cannot help but look back at the slumped form of Alan Parker, who may have been a cruel man, but he was doing his job. He was someone's son, maybe someone's lover or father. He was someone.
Cas sucks in a breath and shakes his head, shakes the guilt away. There are always casualties. That is what life is.
The hallway is bustling with people, police officers and criminals and families and lawyers, but all of them -- even the bravest -- cower at the sight of Sam Winchester brandishing a sleek-looking shotgun. He cannot reconcile this Sam with the one he has come to know and call a friend. A best friend. The rage and desperation on his face suggests he is in a dark place, one where Cas will travel if it means the Sam he knows will come back.
"Cas, you okay?" Sam asks loudly, and Gabriel tsks at a woman who is reaching for the gun at her hip, his own gun pointed at her forehead.
"I'm fine," he says, unable to tear his eyes from the tableau of pandemonium. "Sam, Gabriel has discovered --"
Sam nods grimly. "Yeah. We're going now." To the room full of terrified people he shouts, "And there will be Hell to pay if you try to stop us!"
"Easy there, McClane," Gabriel says with an eye-roll, strolling easily for the exit, twirling his gun like a toy around his finger. "Don't ruin my dreams of a high-octane car chase before they're even born."
"I've had it up to here with dreams," Sam mutters, and runs for the door. Cas follows and is almost shot by a young officer with very quick reflexes, but not quick enough to dodge Sam's answering shot to the shoulder. The officer goes down with a cry and Cas is outside before he knows of his fate. They are the only two on the top step of the police station. "Where the hell is Gabriel?"
The cheerful honking of a horn does not get their attention, but the blaring sirens do. Gabriel pulls up to the curb in a police car, playing a loud and obnoxious tune on the horn. "Let's go, ladies! I give us three minutes before they're riding our asses."
Sam jumps and slides across the hood of the car with grace and immediately gets into the passenger side. Cas nearly rips the rear door off its hinges in order to get into the car. Had he still retained even a drop of Grace, he would have. And thrown it into another police vehicle, just to make a point.
The tires squeal as Gabriel forces the accelerator down to the floor, and Cas barely gets the door shut before they are flying out of the police parking lot and onto the adjacent street. Several cars are forced to brake hard to avoid collision and Gabriel acknowledges them all with a wave and a honk of the horn. From what Cas has experienced riding with the Winchesters in the Impala, Dean enjoys speed, although Cas could not feel it as an angel.
He feels it now.
"Gabriel!" he shouts, his hand automatically searching for something above the window. It is a small, plastic bar, and he fits his hand around it and grips it hard. It makes him feel a bit safer, which is stupid. "Gabriel, you'll kill us all if you keep driving like this!"
"If I went any slower, we'd be too late to save everybody's favorite dipshit, and then you'd do the eyes and I'd never hear the end of it," Gabriel calls back, cavalier, punctuated by the sounds of sirens that do not belong to their car. Cas turns in his seat to see four police cars coming up from behind, speeding to match them.
Gabriel grins and turns to Sam. "Andre, if you would?"
Sam unbuckles his belt and rolls down the window. He turns until he hangs out of the window, braces his foot against the floor, and brings up his shotgun. He aims with barely a thought and fires two shots. One of them misses the cars. One of them punctures a tire and one of the four cars is forced to stop.
Cackling, Gabriel rolls down his own window and fires a few shots from his gun at the cars behind them, still managing to drive in a somewhat straight path.
Cas grips the bar and squints against the wind that bursts in the back seats, swallowing his anxiousness and attempting to make heads or tails of where they are going. The crack of Sam's shotgun does nothing to deter his concentration on the buildings and landmarks that whip past them as Gabriel speeds faster and faster toward the hospital.
"Incoming!" Sam shouts over the wind as two more police cars spill onto the street from a side road. He fires three shots at the new arrivals, twisting to fire six more rounds. The driver of one of the new cars slumps back with a red spatter against his windshield, and the car swerves until it hits a pole. Two more cars lose windshields.
Their own back window explodes into a million glistening shards, and Cas covers his head with his arms. "GABRIEL!"
"Nice shooting, Rex!" Gabriel snarks at Sam, firing what's left in his gun, which he tosses back at Cas. "Reload!"
"Where is the ammunition?!" He casts about, finding a small cache of what looks like magazine clips. He slides the spent one out and shoves in a new one, practiced, muscle memory holding onto its lessons from Dean. He shoves it back to Gabriel, who takes it with a slight fumble and begins firing anew. Two cars are forced to stop, both of them falling back and pulling over. There is one car left, and it pulls over, clearly outmatched.
Hancock Place looms over the old brick and stone buildings. Massachusetts General Hospital is not far away.
"Probably calling for backup," Gabriel shouts, laughing, "so predictable!"
The car comes to a screeching stop at the curb outside a building named 'Blake'. Cas throws the door open and slides out, bits of glass falling from his hair and shoulders as he steps onto the sidewalk. He turns, expecting Sam to do the same, but Sam is loading a clip into his gun.
"Sam --"
"Gabriel and I'll keep them busy," Sam says, eyes hard and mouth fixed in a thin line. "You get up there and stop them from pulling the plug. Fourth floor, room 449A. You do whatever it takes, Cas."
Gabriel salutes him with his gun, grinning wildly. There are sirens in the distance, growing louder. "Don't worry about us, kiddo. You stay in there as long as you like."
"Go!" Sam says, reaching through the open window to push at him, and Cas spins on his heels and takes off running.
The Blake lobby is teeming with people, all of whom stare at him as he runs inside. He stops, casting around for a sign, for a way upstairs. He spies the elevator and is about to go over, but there are several people waiting. He has no time. There is a door marked 'Stairs' and he swallows a gasp of relief, feet already hurrying to it.
There are eight flights of stairs, two for each floor, and by the time he reaches the third floor his legs are screaming for him to slow down. He ignores the burn in his calves and thighs, using the railing to propel him up the final two flights. When he reaches the door, he allows himself two seconds to breathe, then pushes himself through on shaking legs.
Carolyn Staubinger is at the nurse's station, talking on the telephone, her eyes exhausted but a smile curving her lips. Perhaps she is speaking to her lover, or a family member, or a friend, someone who can make her long day seem much shorter. She glances up and recognizes him, smile widening, but she looks confused when he runs past her and down the hall.
"Don't take Dean Winchester off the support machines!" He shouts, voice echoing, mingling with the pounding of his footsteps against the linoleum. 449A comes up on his right side very quickly. The door is closed and the window blocked, but he curls his hand around the handle and wrenches it open. "You can't --"
There is no doctor. There is no Dean. There is no room.
There is only an endless parade of stars across a vast, black expanse, galaxies whirling around each other, some devouring the smaller ones, forcing them to assimilate, while suns blaze for the pleasure of the planets within their thrall. This is not God's realm, but Morpheus's -- Morpheus, dreamer of space and time, all here, all for him to stare at and shed tears over its terribleness.
A comet goes winging by, blaring a trail of color and pure energy as it goes. Above him, beyond the doorframe, a nebula shifts its glorious frock at him as solar winds from the nearby binary system make it dance.
He and Sam had been wrong. They did not choose the wrong door. They were not expelled; they never left.
One will trick your mind.
He turns back to the hospital hallway, but there is nothing there except the stretch of space, leaving a tiny doorway hanging in the balance of perpetual expansion. There is nowhere to go.
Except.
If he steps off the frame, he will fall, and it will be further down than the drop from the broken street in Sam's dream. There is no end to space and time. He will not just fall; he will never stop.
Using the hand not gripping the door handle, he reaches up and wipes at his eyes, sucking in great, heaving gulps of air, unable to stop the flood of tears that will not be dammed, not even by force of will. His heart beats furiously.
You know what? If you were to wave that time-traveling wand of yours and we'd do it all over again, I'd make the same call. All I know is… this. Here. All of it. It's worth it.
His hand falls from the handle.
"Dean," he gasps out, staring into the monstrous curve of stars and galaxies and worlds upon worlds upon worlds. "You're worth it."
He jumps.
