Oneiroi [part eight]

[mclachland]

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

Eight.
"I dreamed a thousand new paths... I woke and walked my old one."


There is a gentle wind that sets the tall, gilded grass into motion, and as one they ripple like water, glinting sharply with sunlight that is everywhere. It makes a sound not unlike what comes of shifting a body across messy bed sheets, and he breathes in, shaky, shaking with fury and the greatest sorrow he has ever known.

It had been his. His dream, his favorite, and it had been his. He now knows what happens after Dean makes him laugh in the kitchen. He had a family, one that loved him, showed it in popsicle kisses and celebrations and story-telling, in burnt bacon and world-destroying sex. It had all been his to have and he never would have known it to be false, would have accepted it as reality and been happy, if not for that one little slip-up.

He coughs once, and his chest feels as if something is breaking inside, but he shoves it all down, forces it somewhere where he cannot look at it, where he cannot feel a little girl who does not exist, or Dean's fingers brushing over his mouth, and waits until the feeling passes. He has a job to do. Once it is done, he can go to Jodhpur and sit miles above the Blue City, and examine each shard of the dream until he can sink into it and make it real.

Wiping at his eyes, he stands at the edge of the hill and shouts, "Sam!"

There is no answer, so he calls again, hoping against hope Sam is somewhere here and has not been taken or killed. No answer.

Something sounds behind him, like the gears of a clock clicking together, and he turns, exhaling sharply at the great, weeping elm that stands behind him. Its branches are heavy with its winged fruit, which form and detach, drifting away slowly.

Rage fills him, sudden and painful, and he snatches one of those things from the air, oddly solid in his hand, and drops to his knees to smash it against the hill. It explodes and disperses like smoke, and he is up, reaching for the branches and pulling the fruit off by the handful, slamming them into the trunk of the tree.

"You took them! You took them from me!" He shouts, grabbing more and more, anything within reach, and destroying them against the tree. "Let me return the favor! Let me pay you in kind!"

He wants to kill this tree, salt the soil so nothing will ever grow there again, but he settles for ripping the leaves from their stems and breaking the branches, twisting them beyond repair, tearing the bark from the trunk, relishing the splinters and bleeding cuts on his hands from the systematic destruction of this monster. It needs to die. It needs to burn.

There is a moment where the entire golden world inhales as if waiting for something, and then there is a lighter in his hand, Dean's lighter, the silver of it scratched from use, and he flicks the flint wheel to ignite the flame. It dances, sputters once in the breeze, but burns with purpose as he brings it down to flicker against one of the mottled branches.

A great crash sounds behind him and he snaps the lid down over the flame, pocketing it as he turns, and from the grass rises a great stone structure that stretches grandly into the sky. When it finally stops, it is burnished by the sunlight, a magnificent and terrible thing with faces etched into it, images of horror and the macabre, animals being chased by man, the pantheons of a million religions, languages long lost and ones that have yet to be. He sees a carving of angels, of the world, and lets his eyes roam to the sculpture that sits at the very top of the structure, the winged creature that started all of this.

The Gate of Horn is everything he supposed it would be, and more.

Exhaling, allowing all of the rage and hatred to flow out of him, he starts down the hill toward the Gate. The grass is soft where it brushes against his hands, and he walks faster and faster until he is running for it.

He hits the bottom of the hill and stumbles for the entrance, his fingers reaching out and just brushing the stone, and there is nothing there. He skids to a stop, squinting through the overly bright grass, and finds the gate has moved yards and yards away, silhouetted by shadow and the sunlight.

Panting, he stares for a long moment, unsure of how to proceed. There is nothing for it. He waits until his breathing is under control, then starts for it once more, pushing a path through the tall grass, stumbling on broken clumps of weeds and rocks. He comes up on the gate, so very close, and then it is gone, pushed back some distance away as if it has always been where it stands.

He looks around, runs a shaking hand through his hair, and wonders at this game. What is the point? Perhaps it is a simple way to drive him slowly insane, dangling it in front of him, only to snatch it away. It's so very unfair. How much more must he endure before it is enough?

There is movement by the gate, a tall silhouette that lifts an arm and waves at him. Sam. It's Sam.

"Sam!" He calls out, voice echoing across the field, and he kicks himself into motion, the ground hard and unforgiving under Jimmy Novak's -- his -- impractical shoes. He runs as fast as he can as the grass gets thicker, as he loses sight of Sam, tripping once over a protruding dirt clod, and breaks free of his golden maze.

Except Sam is not there, and neither is the Gate. It's further back. Alone.

"Sam!" He spins in a circle, scanning the field, squinting against the brightness and hoping against all hope that he will see something. But there is nothing. "Sam!"

Nothing. The Gate stands quietly away from him, taunting without words.

He hangs his head and inhales through his nose, shoulders set. Dean and Sam are just through that portal, and he will pass through it, even if it means he must walk forever to do it.

Years sluice from the world as he walks, his feet aching, his legs cramping, but he pushes on until he is beyond thirst, beyond sleep, beyond his own mind, walking because there is nothing else. The field stretches on for miles, for decades, never changing, still as beautiful and golden as it had been when he first sat on the hill in a dream.

His shoes have long since worn away, his bare feet scraping against the ground, probably bloody, probably infected, and his lips crack with envy for a drink of water. His clothes have rotted and left him. There is hardly a stitch or thought that holds him together. His skin is all but gone.

By the turn of eternity, his knees buckle and send him to the ground hard, and he cannot get back up. The gate stands away from him, an impossible goal, but there is no drive left in him. He closes his eyes and breathes out.

"Please." He does not recognize his voice, rough from disuse. But it is him. "This is enough. Morpheus, enough."

Someone whispers his name into his ear, or perhaps it is the wind, and when he opens his eyes it is the stone base of the gate his gaze falls upon. He pushes himself up onto his elbows, his arms clothed once more in Jimmy Novak's suit and coat, his body as it was, the fragments of his mind sealed together.

He gets to his feet and stares at the gate, and the faces contorted in horror stare back at him, their mouths open in silent screams, eyes begging for absolution. Hesitantly, he reaches out, inching his hand closer to it, so afraid it will pull away from him, but his fingers touch solid stone.

It is an invitation. A concession. Or Morpheus has finally finished toying with him.

It does not matter what it is. He pushes away from the field and passes through, the golden grass turning solid beneath his feet. The golden field is gone, replaced by an impossibly enormous, cavernous space, a place born from the dreams of children and nothing the human mind could ever dream. He has never seen anything like it, not even in the depths of Hell where Alistair attempted to keep Dean from Heaven's reach, and that lair was the most terrifying place to which he had ever borne witness. This is different; it is less harsh and more… He does not know the word. It makes his skin feel as though it is crawling off of his bones, and the hair on his arms and the back of his neck stand to attention.

The waterfall is the first thing he notices, as it is right in front of his feet, rushing through broken brick and moss, overgrown plants that have taken possession of the place this once was, water pooling in small, knolled inlets before continuing on. Walls, brick and stone and ivy, curve upward, their pattern stopped only by large, gothic windows that show nothing except gnarled trees and odd fauna, steel girders exposed by time and the pitfalls of human architecture. A large tree branch stretches up through the open sections between the steel, disappearing from sight.

This once was a place where care was taken in building it. Or that is the illusion. He looks beyond the waterfall and the trees, the eroded brick and mortar, to the grand staircase mostly covered by moss, framed by grand stone railings that have been overrun by dark flowers. The steps lead to a large platform backed by the broken façade of a basilica illuminated by golden light from an unseen source.

It is beautiful. Devastating. Unreal. Too real. And it all falls away when he sees who is at the top of the staircase.

He wants to run to them, jump over water, rock and root, but it could be a trick. A trap. Quelling the urge to call out to them across the distance, Cas walks toward them slowly, waiting for something to befall him, something that will prevent him from getting there. Nothing happens.

"Cas? Cas!" Dean is slouching, kneeling at the top step, but he straightens and the expression on his face spells relief. Cas is staggered by his own relief. Dean is unharmed, as far as he can see, unmarked, and not a little angry. "Jesus, man, you’re a sight for sore eyes."

His heart stutters and he bites down on the urge to rush up the stairs and wrap Dean in his arms. Instead, he exhales and looks from Dean to Sam, who looks equally unscathed. "Dean. Sam. Are you hurt?"

"No, no, we're good," Sam says with a shake of his head. He grins. "You look like shit."

The words are spoken with gravity despite Sam's grin, and he shakes his head at Sam's unspoken question. "I have walked a very long way. I'm glad to see you both." If his eyes flick to Dean more than once, Sam says nothing of it.

"He's right," Dean says, shifting on his knees with a wince, oddly making no move to rise. "You look awful."

He wants to tell Dean everything. All that has happened since Gabriel came and found a winged creature in his throat. The loss of his Grace. Learning of God and Morpheus's roles in existence. The venture into Demos Oneiroi. The dreams. The nightmares. The memory. The fantasy. The field. There is so much he wants to say, but before all that, he wants to explain his whereabouts in Carthage.

Instead, he says, "It has been… interesting. Come down from there. We are leaving this place."

"Wish we could," Dean snorts, then his face suddenly colors and his neck strains. After a moment, he slumps back with a scowl. "We're kind of stuck. I've been like this forever. Sam's been here for, like, ten minutes and he's beenwhining about his knees the entire time. Such a wimp."

"Oh my god, would you shut up," Sam groans, glaring at his brother. "You have no idea what we went through coming after your ungrateful ass. You have no clue what Cas has gone through."

A frown mars Dean's face and he looks down the staircase. "Cas?"

He opens his mouth to give an answer he does not have when something moves from the corner of his eye. Lifting his head to the ceiling, he starts in surprise. Hovering like tiny suns are thousands of the creatures that have pervaded this entire journey, all of them floating, buzzing faintly, and he realizes they are the source of light upon the platform.

Swallowing, he shakes his head and hurries up the stairs, dropping to his knees beside Dean. He doesn't know where to put his hands, where the bindings are. "Is it a spell? What do I have to do?"

"I don't know," Sam says

"Finally."

The voice echoes like a gunshot across the entire room, and he turns his attention to the top stair where Dean and Sam kneel. There is a man in grand, gold-trimmed robes emerging from the entrance to the ruined basilica, his steps graceful and almost a glide. Cas cannot recognize him, does not know any of the faces the man wears as they shift with every step he takes, men, women, children, creatures the Winchesters have faced, beasts found only in Hell, faces of the different choirs of angels, faces unlike anything he has ever dreamed.

Cas takes a step back, an involuntary reaction, and flinches back from the sheer power the man exudes as he passes by Dean and Sam to descend the stairs. Halfway down, the man's face shifts one last time before settling on the one face Cas has fought through an entire realm to see, and the sight of it on that body -- beautiful though it is -- makes him ill.

"You have come," the man wearing Dean's face says warmly, in Dean's voice, and Cas's stomach drops at the sound of it.

"Hey!" The real Dean is outraged from where he kneels, his face contorted with confusion and disgust. "That's fucking copyright infringement!"

The man turns his head slowly to look back at the stairs, and whatever is on his face is enough to silence Dean. He turns back with a smile, his robes shifting as if untied to gravity. The robes bleed from grey to a stark white.

Cas looks away. "Remove that face. It does not belong to you."

"Oh? I thought you would enjoy this."

"Remove it."

"Does it bother you so much? Very well." When Cas looks up, it is another face that he finds, one he does not know. Impossibly beautiful. He cannot look for very long, as his eyes burn after a few moments and a thin reed of pain stabs him at the base of his skull.

He averts his eyes once more, but a gentle hand cups his jaw, thumb lightly brushing over his eyes.

"Hands off, launch pad!" Dean shouts from somewhere far away. "Don't you fucking touch him!"

Cas can barely hear him over the silence that has descended at this soft, slight touch. He is calm, calmer than perhaps he has ever been, and the air in his lungs leaves him in a soft whoosh. The way he is touched, the way the thumb slides over his skin, drags a shudder from deep inside that expels itself in a gasp.

"The angel who dreams," Morpheus says softly, but in the quiet of Cas's mind it rings out like thunder. "Of all I have brought into being, never once did I expect you; the greatest triumph of my greatest failure. he knew not what he wrought in the heaven I gave him, making you, or else he would not have placed any of his squabbling vermin above you."

Cas sucks in a breath as the hand on his cheek shifts and the thumb brushes over his lips, a gesture so familiar in the way he has never known it outside of his mind. He jerks his head away. "You will let Dean and Sam Winchester go."

Morpheus smiles, and it is unholy in its perfection. "Of course."

It cannot be so easy. Not after everything he and Sam endured in order to find this place. "You let Dean Winchester go without a fight?"

"I do not care about Dean Winchester. Dean Winchester is nothing to me. Less than nothing. But he is not so to you. He is more than everything to you." The way Morpheus says it, the way his eyes soften with amusement, does not sit right with Cas, and he struggles to understand the importance of this gesture. In bringing Dean here, Morpheus called a halt to the Apocalypse, but Morpheus could have stopped it at anytime without going to such lengths. Then why take a mortal man who means nothing to him at all?

He is more than everything to you.

The realization burns hot.

"I have watched you for so long, before your beloved father assigned Time to the kingdom I made for him." Morpheus tilts his head and regards Cas. "A miracle among the muck and none saw it, none but I. A dreamer, sympathetic to even the lowest creatures --" a glance at Sam and Dean, " -- and possessing a mind untethered to the hive. Your attachment to this… human was, yes, unexpected, but proved useful. You would not have come of your own choice otherwise."

Cas's hands move before he can even catch the intent, his reflexes still lightning-fast, a blade in his grasp that swipes at Morpheus's throat. Before the metal edge strikes it is turned into light, and Cas has no weapon to protect himself. His attack failed, and Morpheus only hums in appreciation.

"Jesus," Sam says behind them.

Morpheus smiles widely, his teeth glinting, and he laughs, eyes only on Cas as if there is nothing else at which he would rather look. "You manipulate what only I have allowed myself. I trapped you in your darkest memory and you were able to break my thrall with the smallest twitch of intention, and the act in which you did was beautiful. You use my realm as if it were your own. You, Castiel, were made for me."

Cas steps back despite the fact that Morpheus does not seem angry about the attempt at murder. His teeth grind as he locks his jaw and forces himself to look Morpheus in the eye. How odd, that given the opportunity to stand before his Father in this way, he would never be so bold as this. Morpheus, dreamer and creator of worlds, does not affect him. He feels nothing.

"Perhaps your father knew this and made you as tribute. Perhaps it was a happy accident. It matters not how you came to be; it only matters that you stay. We will dream magnificent things together," Morpheus says with a nod. "You will fear nothing, no one, and none will dare rebuke you for your will. There will be no disobedience. It will be your realm to command as much as it is mine, seated beside me on a throne cultivated by the collective mind of the millions and millions of universes I have wrought."

"I have no need for this kind of power," Cas says firmly, stepping back, away from him, as far as he can without being disrespectful. He has no desire to encourage the wrath of Morpheus. "And you speak of my having free will while deciding my fate for me in the same breath. I'm not staying here. I'm taking these boys back to the mortal realm to fight a war you allow to continue."

The face Morpheus wears, whether it is a man who does exist or one he dreamed up, distorts for a moment into something that does not resemble a face at all, but a storm cloud, a tornado, an eruption in the heart of Olympus Mons, something wild and frightening. This is a glimpse of what lies beneath that handsome, glowing façade, a look at the true face of the oldest living thing.

Morpheus's face settles, its eyes -- like dreaming seas -- kind, but firm. Absolute. "You wish for incentive? It will pain me none to keep your Dean Winchester here, to lock him in a Hell of his own memory and doing, and remove all opportunity for mercy until I dream the end of all things. I can read his time spent in your father's fire pit, and it pollutes him; I should not think he would like to relive it."

Dean gasps and straightens, struggling against his invisible bonds. "Hey, fuck you, sandals! You don't get to decide that shit!"

"Shut up, Dean," Sam hisses, eyes curiously red-rimmed. "You don't have leverage here."

"There's no way Heaven's gonna let Michael's prom dress sit on the rack," Dean snaps.

"You really think Heaven's our biggest problem right now? Have you been listening at all? Do you know who that guy is?"

"Christ, Sam, what happened while I was gone?"

So many answers to that, so much that needs to be said, explained.

"You had no qualms about forcing me to relive my own Hell," Cas sneers at Morpheus, a phantom pain in his spine bursting once before disappearing altogether.

"A tainted memory," Morpheus concedes, dipping his head, "but a necessary measure. You brought an end to it yourself. You could bring an end to all of this business with Heaven. Dream a cage for the corrupted angel with impenetrable walls and lock it away in a star. Stay, and I will end your wars -- all of them. I will reopen your gates and usher in all the souls that were locked out, or create a new paradise as a reward, separate from heaven, more vast and glorious than you can possibly imagine. There is nothing I cannot not do. Will not do. If you stay."

"Cas! Cas, don't listen to that asshole! This isn't his fight, this is ours! Fuck him and his pretty little gifts! We don't need him! We'll figure out another way!" Dean shouts, gritting his teeth and fighting the weight that holds him down.

Cas turns, unable to ignore that voice when it calls him, and feels his heart constrict at the pain in those green eyes, the lines on that face that speak of hardship and perpetual disappointment, exhaustion and shadow swathing Dean, smothering him. The life he was born into has been a series of unfortunate events, with the Apocalypse just another unfair weight Dean must carry.

Humans were not meant for such suffering. Dean and Sam both deserve so much more than the fates handed to them. Sam deserves to own a house, to have a wife and children and not worry for their safety. Dean should be free to be who he wants, do what he wants, without the constant fear of failure hanging over his head.

He closes his eyes and thinks of Olivia, for whom the world held every wonder.

Sam shakes his head, eyes full, and Dean looks shocked at whatever he finds on Cas's face.

You are worth it.

"Cas, no --" Sam jerks forward.

"Conditions," Cas whispers, turning away, and feels reality settling coldly in his chest like the densest ice, like stone, and yet his head is curiously light, feeling as if it will depart his neck and float away. "I have conditions."

"Cas, no! No, fucking -- Don't you dare!" Dean screams, audibly struggling against his invisible bonds, while Sam remains curiously silent. Sam understands the necessity in this. Sam is his friend and will not stop him from doing the right thing, even when sometimes the right thing and the hardest thing are the same.

Morpheus inclines his head gracefully. "Of course."

He must gather his thoughts, put them in order, lock down on the scream that prowls around like an angry animal in his lungs, or else he will not make it through this and everything will have been for naught. Morpheus has appeared to them as a benevolent god, but Cas does not wish to test it.

What will his brothers and sisters in Heaven say when they learn of this? Or will they even know of it? God's children have never been open to anything that might contradict what was instilled in them since their inception. The truth of Morpheus's role in the universe -- the many universes to which Heaven is blind -- will no doubt never reach them. They will go through life worshipping and exalting a false deity, created by the one true maker who considers God a great failure.

It does not matter what his brothers and sisters know. He will not see them again.

"After you release the Winchesters from this realm and return them to their own, you will stop the Apocalypse," Cas says firmly, because there will be no dispute on this. This is the first and foremost. "You will do whatever you must to ensure Lucifer will never again rise. You will prevent Heaven from interfering with Humanity, but you will reopen the gates so that those who have died may rest in the fields of their Lord. They have earned such rights."

Morpheus smiles and nods. "I agree to these terms."

"I don't!" Dean's voice rings out. "Keep me here! If I'm here, there's no Apocalypse! Can't have half an Armageddon, right? Let Sam and Cas go, and I'll stay."

The words bring amusement to Morpheus's face and he tilts his chin up to show it. Cas swallows, then inhales deeply, so unexpectedly angry and tired, and for the first time he can remember Cas does not want to hear Dean speak.

"Dean, I don't need you to --"

"Fuck you, Cas! I don't need you to make these kinds of decisions for --"

"And I don't need you to belittle me for the choices I make!"

Something hard and cold, forged of stone, shell, and seawater, cracks inside him, and he whirls around, breaking his eye contact with Morpheus -- turning his back on him -- and spits his rage, his exhaustion, his frustration, until he feels the words burning his throat.

"I rebelled for this! For you! I died for you! I gave up all that I am so that I could come here to find you!" His eyes sting and his vision blurs, but he presses on, unable to stop. "Everything I have done has been for you, Dean, the way all you do is in service of Sam. You love Sam enough to take his place in Hell, and I love you that I will stay here so you may go home."

Dean stares.

"So… shut up." He drags in a shuddering breath. "I can do this. I may not have been able to save Ellen and Jo Harvelle, but I can do this much. And even as I am now, as diminished and human as I've become, I still have power enough to do this for you."

The gut-punched look on Dean's face sobers Cas slightly, but he does not look away, forces himself to hold Dean's gaze until something else cracks. It is Dean who shakes his head, teeth clenched but still trying to draw air through them, his breathing loud in this broken palace.

"Cas," Dean gasps out, breath punctuating the name. "You lo -- I can't. I can't let you --"

Morpheus frowns up at the top stair and lifts a hand, index and middle fingers twitching, and whatever Dean is about to say is cut off. Cas looks up, terrified something may have happened, that Morpheus simply grew tired and rid himself of Dean, but Dean is still there. Still struggling, still shouting, but no sound comes out. Effectively silenced.

He turns away, leaving Dean to his crisis, and fixes his eyes once more on the apex of this journey. Morpheus smiles and reaches out once more, brushing a gentle thumb across the soft swell of Cas's cheek.

"Castiel --"

"I am not finished. The Winchesters will be accepted into the Kingdom when their time on Earth is finished, no matter the deeds they have done."

"I do not hold the same rigid values of your Heaven," Morpheus says, his tone indicative of his feelings on the subject. "There is no 'right' or 'wrong'; I did not dream up such restrictions. The Winchesters may go wherever they want, if this is your wish. I agree to these terms."

Cas steels his shoulders and exhales sharply, lifting his chin and dislodging Morpheus's hand. "I am not finished."

Morpheus looks intrigued. "Oh? More stipulations? I am infinitely generous, my angel. There is nothing I --"

"You will allow me to return with the Winchesters." He holds up a hand to forestall the protest that swirls on Morpheus's changing face. "For as long as they remain on Earth. When their time has ended and they are accepted into Heaven… then I will come to you."

"Cas!!" Dean's voice bellows across the space, over the walls of Morpheus's silence, echoing fiercely over the stones and broken steel girders, much in the same way as his cries of terror when Castiel lifted him from Hell. He had struggled against the angel's hold, pleading for others to be taken in his place, screamed that he was not worthy enough to be saved. That was when the angel Castiel looked at the broken, tattered soul in his arms and saw not the Righteous Man, but Dean Winchester, and knew he would never know another like him.

"Dean, stop it," Sam shouts, the words breaking. "You have no idea --"

"I am Fallen, Dean," Cas interrupts Sam, unable to find any sort of victory at the misery in Dean's eyes, when the gravity of the sacrifices made in Dean's name are finally realized. "I cannot go back to Heaven. By staying, Morpheus will spare me Hell."

Morpheus gives him a long, searching look, eyes shifting color and shape, the irises blue, green, brown, black, white, smoke, thunder, chaos. For the first time since Morpheus's grand arrival, Cas feels as though he really is making demands of the dreamer of worlds. His heart thuds in his chest, each one like a punch, beating runrunrunrunrun into his ribs. He does not run. There is nowhere he could go that Morpheus could not follow.

Finally, Morpheus's lips twitch with amusement and his eyes settle to a warm amber. "I agree to all terms."

For a moment in time, he is Castiel and he has just taken a vessel, a man named James Novak who so earnestly wants to serve his Lord. He goes to a barn where he has been summoned, opens the doors and walks inside, the bulbs in the metal light fixtures exploding, the walls covered in sigils meant for demons. There are two men brandishing weapons, and they fire upon him. He does not feel it. He places his fingers upon the second human man and wills him into slumber before finally, finally turning to face the one he has come back to see. Through Hell and rock and ruin they have come, and now they are reunited.

And then he is simply Cas. He has come such a long way from that evening in Pontiac, Illinois. There are days when he cannot fathom that it actually happened. There are days when it feels as though it has all been a dream.

"Cas." Dean stares at him, eyes wet, wide, and Cas cannot name a single regret in having known this man.

His feet leave the ground in a way that he has missed, a slow rise as if he were allowing himself the luxury of putting his wings at the mercy of thermal pockets, and one of the winged creatures drifts down from the ceiling and begins a slow orbit around him. Another descends and takes a different path around him. Another, and another, and another, his entire world a vortex of stars, revolving faster and faster, spinning him until he collides with sound and everything bleeds to white.


Wake up.


The floor is hard beneath his cheek. He opens his eyes, catching sight of a box labeled "Wonder Bread", and winces at the sore muscles in his back. Breathing out, he rolls over and pushes himself up. The backroom of Iris's diner looks the same as it did when he first entered; not much time has passed, then. He lived an eternity a dozen times over, and it is only just now the evening.

"So."

Cas turns his head and finds Iris leaning in the doorway, the bustle of customers faint behind her, the clink of forks against plates, of laughter and gossip. He does not know what to say to her, and so says nothing. She accepts it with a bitter nod and turns her back on him to go take dinner orders.

"Ah, crap," Gabriel sighs, pushing away from the wall where he had been standing. There is a moment where Cas thinks Gabriel will extinguish him like an insect, but perhaps that is simply the instinctual feeling a human has when faced with an angel, because Gabriel does nothing except place his hands on Cas's shoulders and squeeze.

"It's… stopped," Cas says slowly, and it is a question and a nameless fear both.

Releasing him, Gabriel takes a step back, then another, and purses his lips around a smile.

Cas sighs heavily and runs his palms over the tan coat that once belonged to Jimmy, and thinks it may be time to find some new clothes. He does not like what he wears now. Perhaps he will find a Grateful Dead T-shirt and wash it until it is soft and thin enough for his tastes.

"Cas?"

Sam Winchester, the boy with the demon blood, the best friend of an ex-angel, who has spent his entire life in the search for peace. He turns to where Sam stands, eyes heavy and wet, in between boxes of what look to be ice cream toppings, and knows even if God is not the true creator of the universe, His blessings are still wonderful. And having the privilege of knowing and fighting beside Sam has been nothing but a blessing.

"Sam."

Wordlessly, Sam enfolds him into his arms, embracing him tightly. Cas can hear the hitch in Sam's breath, the stuttering beat of his heart.

"When does it end, Cas?" Sam whispers hoarsely, and it is a moment before Cas reaches up to hold Sam back.

He smiles. "When you do."

The laugh that bursts out of Sam sounds suspiciously involuntary, but Cas considers it a small victory. He knows Sam will dissect his deal with Morpheus for years to come, may even try to find a loophole, but there is no need. He has no regrets. He will have time with Dean and Sam both, a lifetime for them, shared, and he really cannot ask for anything else.

"All right, you two, break it up," Gabriel says loudly, amused, and they pull away from each other. "Not that the cuddly puppy routine isn't adorable and total blackmail fodder, but I have it on good authority that Michael's little black dress just woke up."

He looks at Sam and smiles. "I do believe this is when we face the music. Which is an expression I have never understood."

"We'll teach you."

Gabriel walks over, presses his fingers to Sam's forehead, and Sam disappears. He then turns to Cas and smiles, a sad thing, and places a hand on his shoulder. "I just wanted to say… good job, bro. Too bad it had to come to this." He looks somewhere behind Cas and makes a face. "Those shnucks better take care of you."

Cas looks down, smiles, and lifts his head. "Or perhaps I'll do with my time what I will. Perhaps I'll take care of myself."

"I'll make sure they know," Gabriel says, and he does not have to tell Cas who he means by 'they'. Heaven will be in an uproar.

There is a brush of fingers against his brow, and before he is thrust away from the Garnet Diner in Kellogg, Idaho, he hears, "I'll tell 'em everything. Just imagine their faces…"



He sips at the coffee Sam purchased from a small concession kiosk in the lobby before departing for the third floor, left behind to nurse his drink in an old, but comfortable chair in a sea of them. He does not like the taste of his coffee, but it is warm and it keeps him awake. For all he slept in Iris's back room, he is surprisingly tired.

The lobby of the Blake building is quiet, as he had been under the impression, from Dean's favorite television show, that the main stays of hospitals are quite busy. And full of doctors telling patients' loved ones of complications or death. Or full of doctors kissing under stairways. There is a woman in a white coat with laugh lines pulling at the corners of her eyes standing toward the entrance to the hallway, speaking with a group of people. Once, Cas would have known this woman's entire life, but now she is just as much of a stranger as anyone else in the world.

Dean had been moved to an observation room upon waking from his deep slumber -- coma -- and is being kept overnight, like the rest of the others who had fallen into the same category. Bait. Attention-getters. Sam has been up there with him for an hour.

He sighs and finishes off his coffee. It is bitter even with the cream Sam added to it, but it is warm and it feels nice as it sluices down into his stomach. This is the kind of drink he will need to learn to love; it is the Winchester drink of choice in keeping awake. Caffeine. His body will adjust to it, then crave it, and perhaps his hands will tremble without it like Sam and Dean's do.

Across the lobby, an old man is walking with the aid of a younger woman, perhaps his daughter, or his wife -- according to the television, this is not uncommon, nor was it a thousand years ago. She cups the man's elbow, her arm wrapped securely around his back, and he leans trustingly into her as they move slowly past the front desk. Cas wonders if he will one day reach that age, or if he will meet his end during a hunt, wonders if Morpheus would arrange for a young death so as to get him sooner.

No. Morpheus agreed to all terms.

Nearly another hour passes before he hears Sam's familiar gait. He looks up from his now-empty coffee cup.

"Hey," Sam says quietly, dropping into the chair across from him. Cas takes note of how red and glassy his eyes are. "Dean wants to see you, but, uh, give him a few minutes, yeah?"

Cas frowns. "Is he -- Are you both all right?"

"We're fine, Cas," Sam says, blunt, and sprawls out in his seat with a long sigh. "Just… pissed. He's mad because we went after him, I'm mad he's being a hypocrite, because he totally would've done the same thing if it were me, and we're both mad that you…"

They sit in silence for a long moment, during which Cas watches the young woman lead the old man down the main hallway. His steps are slow, but the grip the man has on her hands is sure.

"When we got separated, where did you go?" Sam tips his head back and closes his eyes, sinking a bit lower in the chair until he looks for all the world as if he has never been so comfortable. "What happened after we went through the door?"

The man and woman disappear from sight. "I went to… a dream of mine. My favorite. I think I was meant to stay there, never knowing it wasn't real, and I truly believe I would have."

Sam drops his head to his chest, curious. "What changed?"

Castiel.

"I realized it was a dream," he says quietly, closing his eyes at the phantom feel of Dean's lips on his, the smell of the countryside at night warm and earthy in his nostrils. "And you? Where did you go?"

Sam says nothing, but there is something broken and festering there, and Cas wants to burn down all of Demos Oneiroi as retribution for the sheer sorrow on Sam's face. Whatever was dredged up from Sam's mind, or his past, should have been left alone. What could Morpheus have gained from this?

"I was back at Stanford. Back… before Dean came for me. Nothing had changed; my classes were all the same, my friends, the places I went, the books I read. My apartment. God, I had this shitty apartment. It was so small, but we did the best we could, you know? Made it a home. So, I wake up one morning in the bed we got from my friend Derek's aunt, and I roll over, and there she is. Jess." Sam smiles, but it trembles and dips and he lifts a hand to cover it. "And she's… burned. All over. No skin, no clothes. Just… black. Completely charred. Her side of the bed's covered in blood and ashes, but she smiles at me, this skeleton grin, and asks if I want chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast. Like nothing was wrong. And I… to me, there was nothing wrong either. I mean, I know it's wrong now, but then… it was just normal. And we went through the day, went out with friends for dinner. We had fun. Me, Chris, Nadine, and Jess… and she's still this walking corpse, right? Christ, she lost an arm when we were crossing the street to get to the car. And I just -- I just picked it up and handed it to her. She laughed, put it in her purse."

Sam sniffs and blinks rapidly.

"Sam --"

"It was… the best time I've ever had. It was amazing. She was amazing."

Cas drags in a breath that feels like broken glass in his throat, then leans forward slightly. "How did you --"

"Know?" Sam finishes the question with a wry smile, huffing wetly with amusement into his hand. "I'd asked Jess to marry me and she said yes. And I was going to call my brother to tell him… when Jess said I didn't have a brother. And I knew."

There are no words to comfort Sam for his losses, for any of it, so he says nothing. It feels heartless to not find some platitude and it makes the silence that follows suffocating, but after a moment Sam jerks his head toward the ceiling.

"You can probably go up now, Cas. He wants to see you."

"How is he… Will he…?" Cas inquires softly, getting to his feet and handing Sam his empty coffee cup.

Sam shrugs and gives him a small smile, clapping him on the shoulder briefly. "Go up and find out. Room 7A. I'm gonna go give Bobby a call and let him know we all… made it out okay. Pay the parking fees for the car. Take your time."

Cas rides the elevator to the third floor and checks in with the nurse's station. The man behind the desk points him down the hall where he hesitates outside room 7A, a private space that could only be the work of Gabriel. He closes his eyes and breathes out, a voluntary reaction to the stress of the day -- the eternities he has walked through -- that somehow calms him, and walks inside.

Dean is propped up in a bed very much like the one he had lain in previously, but he is awake, flipping through channels on a mounted television set, a blank expression on his face. Cas takes a few steps toward him, then stops.

"Hello, Dean."

Dean does not look at him, nor does his thumb cease its pressing of the channel button. "So, I hear the Apocalypse's officially been canceled."

It is not what Cas had expected. He cannot read Dean's tone; it is jocular, but it does not match his face.

"Yes."

"And all for the price of you." It is anger, then. Dean's tone is deliberately misleading. Why humans play these games he does not understand. Perhaps before long he too will play them. "Sit down, Cas. It's time we have a chat."

Petulant, irritated words born of exhaustion and stress bloom on his tongue, and Cas nearly unleashes it upon Dean, demands respect for the aforementioned sacrifice, rails against Dean for being the angry one when clearly it is Cas who was wronged.

Instead, he drags a plastic chair with a built-in cushion over to the side of Dean's bed and sits. After a moment, Dean turns the television off and drops the remote next to him on the bed.

"Sam told me everything," Dean says quietly, hands fisting the blankets, which do not look very warm or comfortable. "Or at least everything he knows, since apparently you guys got split up for a while."

"We did."

"You traded your Grace for a way in."

"I did," Cas murmurs, thinking of the way it clinked against the walls of the glass vial, now at the mercy of a vengeful goddess. "I would have traded anything."

Dean inhales sharply, exhales, inhales. "How long were you in there?"

There will never be a way to know. The years blurred together into one stream that neither began nor ended. "I don't -- a long time, Dean. I was in there for a very long time."

"You were hurt."

"Yes."

"Were you scared?"

"I'm human now, Dean. So, yes. I was. For you, for Sam, for myself. There were plenty of things to fear in there."

There's a flash of tongue in the dark of the room, illuminated by the soft light from the television, and Dean traces the outline of his lips the way he does when he needs a moment to gather his thoughts. It is one of a million tics Cas has catalogued in the time he has known Dean, one of a million that makes Dean who he is. It warms him to see it; it was hours ago Cas truly thought he would never see it again.

"I never asked you to come after me --"

"You didn't have to," Cas says, annoyed. "There was no question about it. Of course we went after you."

"You could have died. You could've been trapped. Hell, you are trapped. Don't sit there and expect me to thank you for --"

Enough of this. "If it had been Sam, what would you have done?"

Dean stops short and blinks. "What?"

"If it had been Sam. If Sam were the one taken into Demos Oneiroi, would you have left him there?"

"Of course not!" Dean barks it out like a law, a foregone conclusion. "How can you even --"

"Then why is this different?" Cas knows that, had he himself been the one, he would still be in the Dream Realm. But Sam is another story. There is no reality in which Dean would leave his brother there. "There was no other option. Sam would never have left you, and neither would I."

Dean laughs, a broken, pitiful thing, and hangs his head. "God, I'm so fucking mad. At you, at Sam, at that smug fuck, Morpheus, at myself… The things I said to you, Cas. About Ellen and Jo… I didn't mean any of it. It wasn't your fault. It was fucked from the start."

Cas says nothing in response. He does not know how to reply.

"But this…" Dean trails off and lifts his head, eyes wide and wet, and something has shattered there. "Why. I keep thinking about everything Sam said you went through, everything I've done up to this point, and I just don't get it. I don't understand why. I get why Sam came for me. I get it. I know, because I would have done the same, yeah, but you? Why did you? After what I said? After the shit way I've treated you? You’d just give up everything and trade yourself for me? I'm not worth any of that, Cas. You saw what I did in Hell. You've seen what I've done since. What I've done to you, trying to keep you on a leash. Christ, I only call you when I need something, and you just -- I'm not a good guy. I'm not good enough for this. I know you said you lo -- I know you said what you said in there, but I can't wrap my head around it, and I can't live with it. You gotta tell me. I can't do this unless you give me something I can understand."

There are a million answers he could give and a million more right behind them, but in the end he is too exhausted to tell Dean anything but the truth.

"I found I simply could not be awake in a world where you aren't."

Dean stares at him, mouth slack, eyes wet, and Cas remembers a world where that mouth was his to claim, remembers a very long walk where the only goal was to find this man.

You are worth it.

After a moment, Dean looks away and surreptitiously wipes at his eyes. He shifts to the left side of the bed with a grunt, tearing the intravenous needle from his hand, and pats the free space next to him. He turns red-rimmed eyes onto Cas. "You look like you're about to keel over."

There will be time to say what really lies behind those words, for Dean to truly accept what Cas will give him, what Cas has given for him, but not yet. For now, he slides his coat and suit jacket from his shoulders and drapes them over the back of his chair, then clumsily climbs onto the bed, on top of the blankets. A long moment passes and then Dean curls an arm around him, pressing him close.

It is better than anything he could ever dream.

"So," Dean says, sounding half-way to sleep, fading, brushing his mouth against Cas's hair when he speaks. "You going to give me your side of this thing?"

He yawns and rests his head on Dean's shoulder, feeling sleep calling for him, real sleep, but manages to stave off its advances in favor of the fingers that stroke lightly over his neck.

"I would like to tell you about grease fires, and a house with dusty windows, and a little girl named Olivia… but perhaps I should start with the first one. With the dinosaurs."

Dean starts against him, the fingers pausing before moving up to run through his hair, dragging over his scalp until all Cas's awareness of the world is focused on those five points. "Dinosaurs? No shit. Well? Don't fall asleep on me, Cas. Stay with me."

He will stay. He will stay as long as he is able.

"It began when Sam and I came into Demos Oneiroi, and it was a hall of doors. We didn't know which to choose, which would bring us to you, so we picked at random. Sam opened a door, and we found ourselves on an empty street…"


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