Oneiroi [part seven]

[mclachland]

prologue | one | two | three | four | five | six | seven | eight | epilogue

Seven.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined."


There is a dull ache in the backs of his legs, pushed deep, and that is what wakes him. It takes a long moment before he is willing to open his eyes, but even then it is dark in the cocoon of blankets he has made for himself. He is warm, his body utterly relaxed, and save for the ache, he cannot recall a moment when he felt so comfortable, safe.

He smiles. That is a lie. Last night. Last night he'd never been so comfortable and safe, with shaking fingers tickling up behind his knee, and a soft, wet mouth sucking a kiss at the core of him, tongue pushing inside to drag him to ruin. The callused hands and wicked laughter had spun him into something so very beautiful, a kinder ending than the one Heaven had made him for, and it is with this thought he stretches until his body complains and peeks over the edge of the navy duvet acquired three years ago.

The sun streams through the window, the one that does not have curtains despite his pleas for a dark room in the mornings, illuminating the old floorboards into appearing as if they’re enchanted with some kind of glamour. He goes boneless against the sheets, closing his eyes against the sunlight and inhaling deeply of the sex, sweat, and laughter that clings to the pillowcase under his cheek. Falling back to sleep would be so easy; slumber's soft, gentle fingers brush over his eyes, his brow, and he is so close to the edge that --

A car horn blares outside and he jerks in surprise, suddenly very awake. He huffs and throws the duvet and the blankets off, shivering at the rush of cool October air over his skin. He slips into a pair of discarded sweatpants and casts about for a shirt, any shirt. He does not need to start the day with a compliment about his perky nipples.

There is a wrinkled Grateful Dead T-shirt, threadbare and soft from wear and a hundred washes, and he puts it on with a sigh, smoothing it over his stomach and running his fingers over a small, dark patch of dried something. Oil? Dirt? He will run a load of laundry later.

Yawning and stretching toward the ceiling, he relishes the burn of his calves -- he gets cramps sometimes, not enough water consumption -- and feels something pop in his shoulder. A sigh of relief escapes through his teeth on a whistle and he drops down to the floor, feet flat, arms swinging loosely. He feels wonderful. It astonishes him sometimes that he fought his slow descent into mortality so hard. There is so much to experience in the minutiae of human life. So much to feel that sometimes it all blurs together, and he can do nothing except close his eyes and immerse himself in it.

He smiles, surveys the bare, light blue walls of the room, the white trim of the windows that are a bit dusty from the ragweed and pollen of September, and rocks once on his heels before heading for the bathroom. They are just about out of hand soap. He fills the plastic bottle with water and shakes it until the lingering Dial mixes in. It will do until a run to the general store is needed.

The stairs groan beneath his bare feet, some holding his weight better than others, and he thinks it might be time to reinforce them somehow. He does not know much about how to make a piece of architecture structurally sound, but is willing to learn if it prevents him from someday falling through to the basement. Perhaps there is a way to fix them and still keep the creaks; he enjoys the reminder of the house's age. He feels a certain kinship with it, as he, too, is old.

He reaches up to the wall and brushes his fingertips over the glass frames that hang there, thumb running over a snapshot of where the Gate of Horn Club in Chicago once stood, over their smiles, over Mary's second grade photo, Olivia pressing a kiss to a deer's snout at a petting zoo. Olivia will be turning eight soon. He will have to find her something special. With any luck, she will still be in her dinosaur phase by that time, and he will call in the favor Balthazar owes him in order to obtain a fossil.

There is an explosion of sound, bacon hitting a hot pan, followed by a cheerful, "Made a meal outta me and come back for more!"

Grinning, he moves quietly to lean in the doorway of the kitchen, content to watch Dean sing under his breath, the words interspersed with expletives when the bacon spits grease at him. A particularly large spatter has Dean jumping back, cursing loudly.

"This is the result of frying bacon while shirtless," Cas says, amused, and Dean glares at him.

"Someone had to make breakfast, you lazy bastard." Dean grins. "Who else is gonna do it? Not you."

Cas rolls his eyes. "It was a small fire."

"It was a grease fire," Dean corrects, moving gracefully so the handsome cut of his hipbones is on display, and folds Cas in his arms, pressing his chest against him. "That you threw water on. Swing it any way you want, you still melted half the kitchen."

The teasing is softened by an apologetic, open-mouthed kiss to the skin of his neck, Dean's arms tightening around him. He sucks in a breath, eyes sliding shut, and he brings his hands up to rest on Dean's hips, thumbs rubbing over the belt loops of his jeans. Dean grins against his jaw and tips his head forward to nose into the hair at his temple.

They stand like that, swaying slightly in the middle of the kitchen, while the bacon burns in the skillet.

"You look good in that shirt," Dean mutters into the swell of Cas's cheek, "and I'm exercising some fucking incredible willpower right now in not tearing it off you."

Cas cannot ever remember having a fascination with muscles before he Fell. Human beings looked like human beings; it was their souls that attracted his attention. He knows Dean's soul like he knows his own, but his obsession with the hardness of Dean's body, the shift of it beneath his skin, has shown no signs of tempering. He runs covetous fingers up the planes of Dean's back, the wings of his shoulder blades, down over his chest, taking care to brush Dean's nipples with his thumbs, continuing over the hills of his abdominal muscles before ending the journey at Dean's waistband. Beautiful. Human beings are still beautiful to him, with all their faults and small wonders, but Dean is truly a masterpiece of creative design.

"Remember the willpower?" Dean asks raggedly, pressing closer into the hands that dip into his jeans. "Because you're testing the fuck out of it."

"I wish I were a poet," Cas murmurs, tipping his head slightly so Dean can kiss his cheek, his jaw, the space behind his ear, his neck, his clothed shoulder. "Or an artist. A singer. I would render you immortal somehow."

It wins him a shuddering laugh. "I don't know how you make that stalkery bullshit sound hot, but you do. It's like a super power."

Cas pulls away just enough to catch Dean's grin before he captures it with his mouth. Kissing is a very underrated gesture, he feels. If more people did it, many of the world's problems would be solved in little to no time at all. Kissing Dean, however, is nothing short of a miracle. He has no basis for comparison, but he knows he does not and never will want to kiss any lips but Dean's.

Dean cups his jaw and turns his head in such a way that their mouths slot together, this wet press of flesh against flesh that never fails to make Cas’s heart pound as if it were the first time. He opens for Dean, as he has always done in one capacity or another, and concentrates on the feel of Dean's mouth dragging across his bottom lip and the way it leaves him shivering, unbalanced, drunk. The brush of Dean's stubble, like the moment he touched sandpaper in Bobby's shop and wondered at the abrasive sensation, burns hot and is as lightning pooling in his loins.

Dean walks him backward until the small of his back hits the counter. It is easier, with something to hold him up, because he cannot remember it ever being like this. It feels new, frightening, like getting exactly what he has ever wanted without knowing what to expect from this intimacy.

He shudders and twitches when Dean slides fingers into his hair, gripping lightly and moving him where Dean wants, and he can do nothing but take and take and take these deep, drugging kisses, with Dean's thigh pushing between his legs. Dean takes his weight as if he were born to do nothing else and bends him back slightly, pressing hard against him and slowly thrusting.

There is a soft tickle at his bottom lip that is followed by a slick invasion, Dean sliding his tongue inside, and he grips at Dean's arms, whining low in the bottom of his throat. His pulse flutters in his own throat and he can feel his heartbeat in every part of his body. He is throbbing with the need that builds. His body is shaking even as he presses in for more. It feels so new, so raw, and he is overwhelmed with it.

Dean breaks away and instead brings his kisses to Cas's cheek. "You're trembling."

"I --" He has no answer, no retort that would be heard over the roar of blood in his ears. He drags in a loud breath and his gaze swings to the counter. "Dean, the bacon."

"Shit!" Dean pushes off him and runs to the stove, where the bacon is little more than crumbled, charred bits floating in a lake of grease. He turns off the flame and moves the skillet onto a back burner, flushed and laughing. "You know what? I can't even be bothered. Not hungry."

The look Dean turns on him is pure heat. Cas's heart jumps with a small thrill and he smiles. "I want you to remember this the next time you bring up the fire incident."

Grinning, Dean stalks over and crowds him against the counter. "Burnt bacon really doesn't compare to a grease fire. I'm never letting go of that one. Angel of the Lord, with all that vast knowledge, and you burn down the kitchen trying to make mac and cheese."

Cas reaches up and places his hands on either side of Dean's jaw, thumbing the upturned corners of his swollen mouth. The man is beautiful, inside and out, and that knowledge was gained personally. He knows. He held that soul in his until it could survive on its own, just as he holds Dean now. With love.

"Christ," Dean breathes, resting his forehead against Cas's own. "Sometimes you look at me like I'm not even real."

"Sometimes I can't believe my good fortune," he whispers back, tilting his head to brush a kiss across Dean's closed eyelids, wanting those eyes open so he can see them. "And then you start singing in the shower --"

"Shut up!" Dean interrupts loudly, laughing, pressing his smiling mouth to Cas's. "Like you know what constitutes good singing. You like Elton. You wouldn't know good music from a Coke machine if you got hit in the face with both of them."

He slings his arms loosely around Dean's hips and presses their noses together. "Remind me again who sang 'Your Song' when I was ill this past Spring and pretending to be asleep?"

The outraged mortification on Dean's face punches the laughter right out of him, and he continues laughing as Dean drags him by the arm out of the kitchen and toward the stairs. "Yep, and that's the game, folks. You're delusional. Absolutely batshit crazy. Time to quarantine your psycho ass, let's go."

They stumble into their bedroom, the old floorboards complaining under their feet, laughing and tangled up in each other while Dean pulls the Grateful Dead T-shirt from Cas's body, still announcing Cas's supposed psychosis to the entire world.

"What do you want?" Dean gasps, allowing himself to be pulled down onto the bed, the duvet twisted and mussed from the previous night and Cas's cocoon. Their hips rub, denim against jersey cotton, and Cas feels it as if it were his own skin, giving a stuttering groan. Dean chuckles and it sounds deliciously filthy, thrusting hard and slow against him, graceful, rolling motions that leave Cas gasping for air and gripping the duvet. "Yeah, let me hear you. You were wild last night, absolutely goddamn out of it. Like you were possessed. God, it was incredible. I'll be getting off to last night for the rest of my life, watching you lose it like that."

Cas arches back, rocking into Dean, and dimly hears his own breath leave him in staccato huffs. He is so many things in this bed, lying and moving with Dean; wet, leaking, sweat and ejaculate and saliva, and Dean takes all of it, the filth and fire and beauty of this. Dean's mouth devours him, teeth biting at skin and tongue bathing him as though he is something to cherish, to worship.

"Gorgeous, fuck, you're gorgeous," Dean grits out, slipping a hand into the loose sweatpants Cas wears, dragging the callused pads of his fingers over the thin, sensitive skin of his pelvis before dipping deeper.

The gasp that punches its way out of him when Dean curls a hand around him is a surprise, and he groans, breathless, as Dean's thumb fits right against the plume of his cock and rubs. He feels so wet under Dean's hand, can feel it leaking onto Dean's fingers, and he cannot stop from whining when it slides further down, dragging trails of him along his skin. The fingers part him and glide over the puckered skin there, setting him on fire from the inside.

"How sore are you from last night? Can you take me again?"

"Yes," he says, mouth dropping open at the spikes of pleasure wrought from Dean's ministrations. He is too open, too everywhere, vulnerable and hot, and it feels as though the entire world is watching. "Yes, always."

His skin shivers when the sweatpants are dragged down, discarded, and his legs rest on Dean's arms as he is taken apart with fingers and mouth and breath. He closes his eyes and concentrates on breathing as Dean touches him, slick and probing and stroking, lighting him up like the night sky over Abu Simbel, like the sun, like a nova, until all he feels is the shock of pleasure, open and hot, left panting.

"Look at you," Dean murmurs, but it sounds like the crash of waves, distant and beautiful and the best song the natural world has to offer. "Just look at you. God, look at you."

He reaches out with shaking arms and wraps them around Dean, dragging him down, needing something to anchor him before he is washed away. There is no barrier between them, not a stitch to separate them, and the fingers leave for a moment before Dean slides inside, seated deep and pulsing with heat and blood, slotted together as if they had been one body split into two, and were just now coming home again.

Each thrust is devastating, every drag against his insides like the twinkling lights on houses at Christmas time, every gasp from Dean heavy with intent. Through heavy-lidded eyes, half-mad with pleasure, Cas watches Dean watch him and simply feels the strike of sharp pleasure as it hits continuously, only closing his eyes when Dean leans down, slides in further, bending him in order to take his mouth.

In the one lucid moment he has before Dean strokes him in time to the piston of his hips and right over the edge, Cas thinks of his former brothers and sisters and pities them horribly. They will sing of peace and happiness and joy in the Kingdom of Heaven and never, ever understand it is all found here. Right here. He could stay here forever.

White explodes suddenly behind his eyes and obliterates every thought, all his awareness of the world, and he is made entirely of light and gossamer.

He comes back to the sensation of rough fingers dragging across his hypersensitive, swollen lips, and he darts his tongue out to taste them.

Dean groans appreciatively. "Do the two thousand-year old virgins up there know what an enormous slut you are for my cock?"

Smiling, he stretches out beneath Dean and twists his wrists until they pop. "I don't know… I am sure they have heard you begging for mine on the occasions they listen in. Gabriel has made recordings of it, no doubt."

"Dick," Dean murmurs fondly, running sticky fingers over Cas's bare stomach. He presses a lingering kiss to the corner of his mouth, slides out from Cas's body with great care, and drapes himself over him like he owns him. "I liked you better when you were totally clueless about everything."

"Liar."

They lie in a comfortable silence, Cas slowly walking his fingers up and down Dean's spine, feeling every vertebra, while Dean rumbles wordlessly into Cas's shoulder. The muscles tense suddenly under his touch and Dean lifts his head, the corners of his eyes crinkled not with laughter, but vague unease.

"Hey, so, I've been meaning to ask you something."

Cas waits for Dean to continue, but when nothing more is forthcoming, he ventures, "… Are you going to ask me?"

Dean snorts and hangs his head, dropping it onto Cas's chest. "It's… I'm trying to think of the best way to ask."

There is nothing Dean cannot ask of him, and he says as much, but his response is a sharp headshake. "Perhaps if you asked me after we return from Sam's?"

"Giving me a deadline?" But Dean is smiling again. "All right. After Sam's."

His curiosity has been piqued, and he wants to know just what it is Dean needs of him, but since becoming human he has learned the value of patience, especially where Dean is concerned. Rushing Dean into anything has only ever yielded disastrous results.

"Okay, get your lazy ass up," Dean says with a grin, pushing himself up to sit on the edge of the bed. "Shower, then Sam's. Let's go."

Cas pulls back on the hand that Dean has around his wrist. "You said you wanted to shower."

"I do," another playful tug, "but you gotta come with me. I might slip and fall and die, and then what? You can protect me."

"Oh, yes," Cas says, amused, letting himself be led out into the hall and into the bathroom. "The pitfalls of human hygiene."

The ride to Sam's is quiet if the playing of The Lemon Song is not counted. Dean drums his fingers on the steering wheel, singing along to the music under his breath. Cas had been lying when he teased Dean for his vocal ability; he has a very pleasant voice.

He rests his head against the window and watches the world pass them by, street after street after street flying past, allowing him only a glimpse of the large, looming Gate that punctuates each of them. Exhaling softly, he closes his eyes, smiling when a hand covers his knee and squeezes.

Sam lives the next state over in a big, gray house with white shutters, a large, weeping elm tree in his backyard his daughters are always climbing. Ever since bringing a halt to the Apocalypse, Sam has held an annual 'Bet Lucifer Didn't See That One Coming' party, and all those who had a hand in putting Lucifer back into his cage attend. Cas is looking forward to seeing Bobby or, more specifically, Bobby's barbeque chicken wings.

Dean pulls the Impala into Sam's driveway and grins, pointing to where a little girl in a green dress is sitting on the front steps. She sees the car and jumps onto the walkway, cutting across the grass of the yard and running for them, brown hair flowing behind her. "Your girlfriend's here."

Cas cannot help but smile wide, getting out of the car just in time to catch her as she throws herself into his stomach. Getting his arms underneath to support her weight, he holds her up and presses their noses together. "My Olivia."

Olivia's mouth is smeared with blue and red and tastes of artificial sweetness when she presses a noisy kiss to his lips. "Momma bought popsicles! I'm not s'posed to have any before dinner, but Grandpa gave me some."

Bobby cannot deny Sam's girls anything. "You taste like…"

"Blue raspberry and strawberry!" She peaks over his shoulder and leans forward to wave enthusiastically. "Hi, Uncle Dean! Can I drive your car?"

Dean laughs hysterically and Cas turns to see him watching them, his arms crossed over the roof of the Impala. "Sorry, kiddo, but you're a princess, and princesses don't drive cars."

"I'm not a princess," Olivia says patiently, as if she is explaining things to a particularly slow child. "I'm a dinosaur. I'm a T-rex! Look!"

He cranes his neck to see the arm she proudly displays, which is covered in wrinkled images of Tyrannosaurs. There is no reason why the sight of them should make him uneasy, but his heart gives a hard thud. Olivia settles back and is fully seated on his arm. She reaches up with sticky hands and buries them into his hair. "It's messy."

"It's always messy," Cas reminds her, wincing as she detangles her fingers from him, tearing a few strands out as she does. "And where is Mary?"

Olivia rolls her eyes. "She brought a booooy today."

Dean chokes. "A what? Who?!"

"I don't know, someone she knows from school." Olivia shimmies out of Cas's hold and fixes the frills on her dress -- a dress that has a pointed tail attached to the back. "He's got a big nose and Daddy's gonna bury him under the tree later on tonight."

"Really?" Dean tries to sound as if the idea does not interest him and fails. "Says who?"

"Daddy. Momma told him he can't," Olivia says, then lowers her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "But he took out the shovels and the plastic stuff anyway."

There is a chortle from Dean, who comes around to take Olivia from Cas’s arms, but she throws her own around Cas's hips and glares. Dean backs off, hands raised, and laughs. "Right, forgot. My own niece, abandoning me for some creep with electroshock hair."

"Uncle Cas is my favorite," she says emphatically. "He reads The Witches and takes me to the museum and buys me and Mary ice cream and lets me stay up to watch meteor showers."

Dean stares at him. "Oh my God, you goddamn hippie."

Olivia slips her little hand into his and pulls him toward the sounds of music and laughter, Dean following sedately behind carrying two packs of beer. When they enter the yard, they are met with cheerful greetings, hugs and backslaps, as if they were the celebrities Mary had photos of on her walls.

"There you are!" Sam calls, waving a bottle of beer at them from the deck. "I thought you guys got lost."

"Nope," Dean says with a lascivious grin, putting down his cargo to go hug his brother.

Sam pulls away, laughing. "Gross. Hey, I see Liv found you. She's been waiting all day."

"Hello, Sam." He smiles at him, accepts Sam's hug, and feels a wash of familial love over his insides, the likes of which he never felt for his own brethren. For a moment it is like the days when the three of them traveled together, gathering allies and forces, working side-by-side to end what Heaven started.

Olivia tugs on his hand and then points out into the yard. "Uncle Cas, there he is! Mary's booooyfriend."

Sam growls under his breath and Dean echoes it.

"So, where is the little punk?" Dean inquires, resting his hand on Olivia's head as he scans the backyard. She points to where Mary and a blond boy are sitting on the old swing set, talking and laughing. The boy seems nice enough, dressed in a pair of khakis and a button-down shirt.

Cas hums. "He seems harmless --"

The boy reaches over and takes Mary's hand.

" -- and I am quite sure my brother Balthazar owes me a favor," he finishes, because this boy obviously cannot be trusted. "He can be discreet."

"You idjits plotting murder?"

Dean turns, the frown on his face turning up, and he clasps Bobby on the shoulder tightly. "Hey, old man. How you holding up?"

"I'd be better if I didn't have to worry about posting bail," Bobby says, amused, and he nods at Cas. "Feathers, you look like you just got fu --"

"-- and that would be my seven-year old kid standing right there," Sam cuts in loudly.

Olivia frowns and shakes her head. "No, daddy, I'm eight!"

"Not quite there yet, baby."

"Close enough, sweetheart," Bobby says, eyes soft, and Olivia beams up at him. Dean mimes using a whip and then pops a tab on his can of beer.

Tugging on his hand, Olivia pulls Cas down until he is bent at the waist. "I want to get up on your shoulders, Uncle Cas."

Bobby is the one to lift her up, and she wiggles around, her legs squeezing his neck until she is settled. He reaches up and holds her shins with his hands, securing her, because he would never forgive himself if he let her fall. She is a precious thing, more so than the other children he saw in the park after Dean and Sam stopped the Samhain ritual. She is beauty and innocence incarnate, both her and Mary, and he would kill for them without a thought.

"Uncle Cas, let's go to the tree!"

Smiling and accepting Dean's wink, Cas carefully walks down the stairs and into the yard, stopping every time Olivia wants to talk to someone. He recognizes a few people, some hunters he teamed with during the last legs of the Apocalypse before they ended things in Detroit, and he acknowledges them with a wave or small talk, learning of new happenings in their lives since the last cookout. Wanda Miller, the expert in aerodynamic weaponry, is pregnant, and her husband -- a hunter -- stands proudly and protectively at her side. Cas bends at the knees and obligingly leans forward so Olivia can touch Wanda's protruding belly.

They continue on their slow trek through the yard, stopping once more so Olivia can hug Lenore, the vampire who allied with them early on. Her coven had been most useful, and their "vegetarianism" did not hurt trust relations with the hunters. She smiles at him, touches Olivia's cheek, then departs to greet a group of women warmly.

"Hi, momma!" Olivia shouts, waving, and Cas turns his head to see the woman waving from where she stands next to Sam on the deck. She has no face, but he sees her dark hair, and lifts his hand in greeting.

By the time they have spoken to everyone they wish to speak to, the day is coming to an end and the sky is pink and purple.

"Uncle Cas, I'm hungry."

"I thought you wanted to go to the tree."

Olivia rests her chin on his head. "Yeah, but I'm hungry, and grandpa said he'd make me a hotdog. We could get food and then go to the tree?"

He tilts his head back to look into her eyes. She giggles at him. "Perhaps we ought to ask if Mary and her friend would like food."

"Mary can get her own food," Olivia says. "She wouldn't come out of the bathroom today and I really had to go and I kept knocking on the door but she wouldn't let me in! I don't know why she's going so crazy. He's just a boy. Boys are gross. I don't ever want a boyfriend."

And won't all the father figures in her life be glad to hear it. "Olivia, you are a very wise girl."

They end up taking their food -- Olivia's hotdog and his plate of Bobby's barbeque chicken -- and sit under the elm tree, sheltered in its weeping branches, which are in the process of finishing their color change, the bright yellow fading. Olivia cuddles close as the air becomes cooler, slipping into night. She tells him about her current favorite dinosaur, the plesiosaur, which lived in the water and swam slowly and some of them looked like Giraffatitan and did he know there is a plesiosaur in a Scottish lake? Cas curls his arm around her and tells her of the creatures in Loch Ness, how they evolved from her favorite dinosaur into something new, something magnificent. He whispers into her hair, which smells of autumn and bubblegum shampoo, that these creatures sing to each other, and the lake is never still.

She listens and asks many questions, which he gladly answers, and finds himself seeking out Dean among the hunters and creatures they have fought alongside, just to keep track. Just to make sure. It is a habit of which he will never be broken.

"Uncle Cas!" Olivia exclaims suddenly, in a whisper, her eyes wide and shining. "Look!"

Weaving in between the leaves of the elm are balls of light, their bodies glowing brightly as their gossamer wings beat soundlessly. Olivia reaches out and one of them drifts into her palm, hovering, faintly buzzing, and she blows it away like a dandelion clock. It rocks upwards, ascending slowly, as more drift down, lighting their world beneath the tree.

Olivia sighs and burrows her face into his chest, then sits up with a bright smile as she gets her second wind. "Uncle Cas, can I show you something?"

He winces as she squirms so that she is sitting on his outstretched legs, facing him, and she holds up her palms to him, making a face until he does the same.

"We learned a song at school! When I hit your hand, you hit my other one, and it's a pattern! Ready?"

There are no words to describe his confusion. Children are such confounding creatures.

"Three little angels all dressed in white
Try'n to get to Heaven on the end of a kite
But the kite string broke and down they all fell
Instead of going to Heaven, they all went to --

"Two little angels all dressed in white
Try'n to get to Heaven on the end of a kite
But the kite string broke and down they all fell
Instead of going to Heaven, they all went to --

"One little angel all dressed in blue
Try'n to figure out where his human got to
But the ground rose up, from which two were born
One was made of ivory, the other made of --"

A hand parts the curtain of leaves and Dean pokes his head in. "Hey. Sorry to interrupt, but I think it's time we start heading back."

"But Uncle Dean --"

"I will come by this week and take you and Mary out for hot cider," Cas promises as they crawl out from behind the branches. "Come, my Olivia, so we can say our goodbyes."

Dean takes the long way home, weaving the Impala expertly down winding back roads, the radio playing on low. Cas is slumped comfortably in his seat, tired from good company and Bobby's special barbeque, from Olivia's weight on his shoulders. He does not know how Sam and his wife can raise two of them; children are such beautiful but exhausting things.

On a stretch of dark road, Dean rolls the Impala to a slow stop, puts it into park, and shuts it off.

"Dean?"

Dean opens the door wordlessly and gets out of the car, and Cas scrambles to follow, suddenly inexplicably worried. This is such odd behavior. The conversation from the morning surfaces and he has to wonder if Dean will finally ask him whatever it is that troubles him.

He moves around the front of the Impala, a bit surprised when Dean meets him there and pulls him into a swift, devouring kiss.

"D-Dean, stop." He breaks away and places a hand on Dean's chest, stilling him. "What is this, Dean? Why are you --"

"I couldn't think of a fancy way of doing this. I'm a Winchester; we don't do fancy. And you know me: I'm a firm believer in just throwing it all out there, so…" Dean reaches into his jacket pocket and withdraws a small box.

All his breath leaves him in a single exhale and his heart pounds a steel fist against his ribs. "Dean…"

"I never thought we'd live to see the day after the big showdown, let alone have an actual life. Christ, Sammy's a dad and I'm a homeowner… and you've got the rest of your days to do whatever you want now. I know you've been through the wringer -- hell, we all have -- but that doesn't mean I've got a right to keep you here if you don't --"

"Dean --"

"I'm shit at words, you know that. This was never gonna be anything out of the movies, but it's all I've got." Dean opens the box, spilling light between them, and the ball of light resting on the velvet inside unfurls its wings lazily. "Stay. I want you to stay with me, Castiel. Forever."

Had Dean never done anything like this, it never would have crossed his mind, but that the gesture was made… it is something solid, concrete, tangible.

Grinning so hard his cheeks strain, he reaches out for it, laughing wetly when Dean presses their temples together, and then the words catch up with him. He freezes. His hand stops.

"What… What did you just call me?"

Dean blinks, glances down at the parcel in his hands, and then gives him a confused look. "I called you by your name. Hey, don't leave me hanging here. Is… is this a yes or no?"

The burning in his eyes is unexpected, as is the blurring of his vision, and the sudden heavy feeling in his gut feels as though he swallowed a lead weight. He takes a step closer to Dean and curls his hand over the lid of the box, bringing it down and sealing in the light, throwing them into complete darkness, leaving them to the mercy of the night and this small misstep.

He presses his nose to Dean's jaw and closes his eyes, allowing himself one last moment. "My answer would have been yes."

Gentle hands come up, fingers calloused from years of handling weapons and hardship, to cup his jaw, to tilt his face up. "Would have b --"

"Dean Winchester only calls me 'Castiel' in my dreams."

Dean stiffens, and Cas steps back.

"This is a dream. I am dreaming."

The world fills up with golden light, coming like a fire, like a wave, a dissolution. He forces himself to watch Dean crumble like ash and blow away into nothing, to watch as it takes the Impala, the street, starry sky, ripping it away until he is standing on a very familiar hill in a field of burnished gold.

He closes his eyes and tries to conquer the suddenly impossible task of breathing.

"I am dreaming."


prologue | one | two | three | four | five | six | seven | eight | epilogue

Comments

[laura-trekkie.livejournal.com]

Oh Cas, I wish he could have that for real, or that he'd realised it was a dream earlier, at a less poignant moment.

That was such a lovely dream, it was good to see them all happy, Sam with his (faceless?) wife and daughters, Dean and Cas in the creaky old house with their burnt bacon and well-used bed (that was hot by the way!).

No sign of Sam, so is he stuck in the previous dream still, or will he catch up? Regardless of Sam, what will Cas do next?

Laura.

[ilfirin-estel.livejournal.com]

Oh my God. Oh my God. This chapter is just-- gutwrenchingly gorgeous. Oh my God...

-rushes off to read the rest-

[orange-8-hands.livejournal.com]

I've been re-reading this (such a great fic) and this part just breaks my heart so much.