mclachland: (SPN // Gray Areas)
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prologue | one | two | three | four | five | six | seven | eight | epilogue



Four.
“I walked beside the evening sea and dreamed a dream that could not be; the waves that plunged along the shore said only: ‘Dreamer, dream no more!’”



The sun is warm on his back where it sinks through the heavy material of his coat, the fabric itself unmarked by the glass and new blood spilled in the car accident. In fact, his injured leg is strong beneath him, healthy and without any pain. Unbroken. Cas looks at Sam, who is also free of the wounds he had gained. It is as if their experience with the dinosaurs in the empty city did not happen.

Sam's eyes, however, are locked on the other occupant of the small boat, who reels in his line and frowns at the hook.

"Fucker took my bait," Dean complains, reaching for something on the floor by his feet. It is a small plastic bag filled with what looks to be some kind of sinew. Dean holds his fishing rod between his knees and bends at the waist to cut off a bit of tendon with a compact blade. "Castiel, you been checking your bait?"

Cas's mouth fills with saliva and he swallows it down, dragging in a shuddering breath, watching as Dean takes hold of the fishing hook in one hand and expertly pierces the bait with it, winding the sinew around and over, securing it. The sun glints off the metal of the ring that hugs his thumb and Dean turns his head a little, tossing a little grin at Cas, seemingly unaware of just how the very sight of him has shaken Cas to his core.

He is beautiful, gilded by sunlight and relaxed by the cool air, the rocking of the boat. Cas wants to reach out and touch him but must content himself with watching Dean's chest rise and fall, glad for the soft, nearly silent breaths he takes instead of the punched-out wheeze of the hospital ventilator.

It astounds him, sometimes, just how green Dean's eyes are.

"Dean," Sam says, huffing a disbelieving laugh, smiling wide. "Oh, my god, Dean."

"I told you," Dean says, gesturing at Cas. "You gotta check your bait every so often. Reel it in, let's see."

There is a rod in Cas's hands.

Sam looks at him, startled and a bit hurt, then waves a hand at Dean. "Dean. Dean."

But Dean does not hear him, or see him. It is evident in the way he does not react to Sam at all, not even a twitch or breath. Sam stares, nonplussed, and shakes his head as if he cannot comprehend an instance in which Sam would be a non-entity to his brother.

"I don't understand," Sam says faintly. "Why can't he see me?"

"My guess is," Cas begins, finding subtle beauty in the way Dean's T-shirt pulls tight across his shoulders, "because it is my dream."

Sam scoffs. "You were in mine. You were chased, you were… you were right there with me. They saw you!"

Cas looks down at the rod in his hands, very hesitantly closes his hand around the handle of the reel, and begins turning it. Next to him, Dean hums his approval and casts his own line out into the water. "When you were a child and first had the dream, were you alone against the dinosaurs?"

"No, I had --" Sam stops suddenly, realization dawning, and his eyes flick to where Dean is humming something under his breath and slightly jerking his fishing rod.

Cas nods and reaches up for the hook as it lifts from the water and swings around. There is no bait on it. "I imagine I filled the role in the dream meant for your brother."

There is no role for Sam to fill here. Cas has had this particular dream perhaps twice; it is simply himself and Dean on a boat under an autumn sun, discussing music and fishing. Cas will manage to hook a large-mouth bass and Dean will jokingly accuse him of using his powers to do so.

"Aw, were you paying any attention at all? Dude, c'mon. I told you. When you cast out, keep feeding your line until it hits the bottom. That'll get the fish curious. Soon as you feel a tug, you jerk hard to hook it and then start reeling it in." Dean comes over, arm brushing against Cas as he baits his hook. "All right. Now cast it like I showed you."

Hands cover his and guide the rod up, then back slightly. Dean's mouth brushes his cheekbone -- accidental, even in his dream -- as he says, "Okay, now release the bail arm." One of Dean's hands lifts to click the hinged metal into place and then returns to its place atop Cas's knuckles. "Ready?"

His heart is pounding. Surely Dean can feel it against his arm where it presses against his chest.

"So, uh, I get this is all subconscious," Sam says slowly, trailing off as though he is going to finish the sentence, but does not. Not that he needs to. Cas can hear all sorts of implications in his tone.

"All right," Dean says, and there is a smile in his voice. "Now, let it go!"

The baited hook sails some distance away from the boat, and Dean keeps feeding the line until he makes a satisfied sound, locks the bail arm, and steps away. Cas shivers at the rush of cool air that washes over him in Dean's absence. His heart is still thudding in his chest, beating deandeandeandean against his ribs.

Carefully, Dean makes his way back to where his own rod sits patiently. "Don't forget to jerk it along the bottom."

They watch as Dean picks up his rod and jerks it in example, glancing over his shoulder to grin brightly at Cas. After a moment, Sam speaks. "Do you…?"

A reluctant smile tugs at Cas's lips and he places his rod in a small, metal hold. Dean casts around for something in the boat, eyes lighting when he finds an unopened bottle of beer sitting on the floor.

"I always suspected there was… something. I mean, no one stares at another person that much without there being… something," Sam says, lifting a hand to shield his eyes from the glare of the sun. "And you pulled him out of Hell. Rebelled against Heaven for him. Died for him. There had to be something."

Cas tilts his head up to catch Sam's gaze. "There has always been 'something', as you say. For me. From the moment I first felt the brush of his soul in the Pit. I have found there is nothing I would not do for your brother, and as I have not spent very long in the company of humans, I suspect I have not made it a secret. Not that I would, if I knew how to hide it. I have given him everything there is of me; obeying societal norms at this point seems… superfluous."

Dean shouts wordlessly, dropping his beer and reeling his line in madly, but there is nothing on his hook. "Again?! Seriously?! Jesus fucking Christ."

"He has no idea, does he?"

Cas turns his head to gaze out onto the lake. The trees seem to be aflame in brilliant golds, reds, and oranges, encircling them like holy fire. It truly is a place born of a dream. "As I said, I have not made it a secret, and as he has said nothing about it -- and he has much to say about everything -- I believe I have my answer."

Sam snorts. "Cas, I love my brother to a degree that is truly stupid, so believe me when I say Dean has the observational powers of a brick. I don't think he's rejected your, uh, something. It's probably more like he just doesn't get it. He's a little slow on the uptake sometimes. Needs things spelled out. When we're out of here and we have a little time to ourselves? You should talk to him. Speak slowly, use little words. I think you'd leave that conversation pretty satisfied."

He blinks, looking back up. "Sam?"

He's rewarded with a cavalier shrug. "Like I said, no one stares at someone else that much without there being something."

Dean grumbles something under his breath, baiting his hook and casting it out again. "This might be a bust, Castiel. I'm about two seconds away from having you mojo me up a fish just so I can hook it and feel better about myself."

Sam bumps his shoulder lightly, a peculiar expression on his face. "He calls you Castiel."

"It's my name," he says.

"Yeah, but Dean doesn't call you Castiel. Not in real life."

"Dean has christened me with another name," Cas agrees, "but here… in my dreams, he calls me by my given name."

They fall into a comfortable silence, content to watch Dean mutter and glare at his fishing rod as if it is responsible for his lack of fish. He takes out his cell phone from his pocket, reads whatever is on the screen, and announces that Sam will meet them later for dinner. The sun has softened everything, somehow bleached it into a faded photograph, perfect in every way but the obvious.

Sam clears his throat, coughs once, and swallows. "This is… well."

"What?"

"Boring. This is really boring. You have all this power, all this imagination, and you're sitting in a boat with my brother, who's buzzed on cheap beer and sending me texts."

"Forgive me for the lack of velociraptors."

"No, no," Sam says on a laugh. "It's… nice. And believe me, we've had too little of that in our lives."

The tip of Cas's rod bends suddenly and Dean lets out a joyful whoop, flailing the arm not attached to the hand holding a beer. "You got a bite! Reel it in, reel it in!"

Cas moves away from Sam to take hold of the rod, hand on the handle and turning it quickly. The plastic is large and awkward against his palm, but he tries his best anyway. Dean comes up next to him and places his hands over Cas's, helping him to reel it in the correct way. Dip the rod, pull it back, reel. Dip the rod, pull it back, reel. Over and over until there is a flash of something in the water, graceful and sinuous and reflecting the sunlight.

"Man, that's a nice one," Dean whistles in his ear, hands still covering his. "It's gotta be at least twenty inches. You totally used your Jedi powers to snag this thing."

"I did not," Cas protests, dipping the road, pulling it back, and reeling. Slowly, the line lifts from the water, bringing with it a --

"Shit," Sam hissed, tripping in his haste to get close for a look. "What are these things?"

Dean grabs the line a few inches from the hook and positively beams at Cas. "Good going, Castiel! Definitely a keeper."

The ball of light bats its wings, jerking against the metal hook that has somehow managed to penetrate it. It buzzes faintly like television snow in a thousand motel rooms late at night, louder when Cas reaches for it, dislodging it from the hook and holding it tightly in his hand. It is strangely solid despite being made of light, and hums against his fingers, pure energy, almost like Grace in a way.

"Think it's spying on us?"

Cas shakes his head. "I don't know… what its purpose is."

"You gonna name it or something?" Dean snorts, nudging Cas with an elbow. "C'mon, let's throw it on ice. They have those grills in the picnic area -- I'll call Sam and have him meet us. We'll cook this baby up real nice."

Sam reaches over Cas's shoulder and plucks the thing from his hand. He brings it close to his face, peering at it curiously. Then he shakes it a bit. "Hey. You listening, Morpheus? Cute trick, dragging out the dinosaur dream, but that was nothing. We can take whatever you dish out. We're coming for you. We're coming for Dean. So you'd better be ready, because when we find you? We're gonna tear you apart."

Cas swallows. "Sam."

The wings beat once against Sam's fingers, then stop. The humming and buzzing ceases, and it seems to hold as still as it can before collapsing into itself, disappearing with a soft whisper.

Sam purses his lips and stares down at his empty hand. "So, we'll probably end up regretting that."

"Hey, I'm texting Sam again," Dean says, already thumbing the keys on his phone, sitting down on one of the two wooden benches. "Looks like a storm's coming in. We'll introduce you to the finer points of grilled food another day."

This is not part of the dream.

Spilling from the ledge of the horizon and over the lake are black clouds, churning like smoke with the promise of something sinister, casting shadows and effectively putting out the flame of the trees. The wind picks up and turns the air from comfortable to frigid. It is not a weather pattern like Cas has ever seen.

"Unless, you know, you want to stay."

Cas's breath catches in his throat.

Dean smiles up at him with too-brilliant green eyes, lowering the phone. "We could stay here as long as you want."

"Cas," Sam says loudly, pointing at the growing clouds, which are now flashing with light. "That's not lightning."

Sam is right. Above them, the skies open and hundreds of balls of light drift down like snow, their wings outstretched to soften their descent. They dissipate upon hitting the water but pile up at their feet, rolling around the bottom of the boat. Sam begins grabbing handfuls of them and tossing them over the side of the boat into the water.

"Cas!" The boat rocks as the wind blows large waves across the surface of the lake, and Sam barely manages to avoid falling overboard. "Cas, we need to get off the lake."

Dean just looks up at the sky, seemingly unmoved by the commotion, and pockets his phone. Cas pushes past him to reach for one of the oars half-buried under a pile of light and wings, but is suddenly knocked off his feet and over the side.

He hears Sam's shout as his back hits the water, but whatever Sam says is lost as his trench coat soaks up as much as it can take, dragging him down. He thrashes, tries to shimmy out of the coat, but it's too clingy, too heavy, billowing around as if it wants to swaddle him. The surface of the lake is a faint shimmer that reflects the rain of those light-creatures, and he can just make out the dark outline of the boat.

His lungs protest loudly, demanding to be allowed to exhale, but he cannot breathe in the water. Humans die if they breathe in water. Humans die if they do not breathe, if they do not know how to swim. There is not a way out of this he can find.

Dizzily, he turns his back to the surface and gasps in surprise at the solid, familiar form of a door fixed in the water as if it were natural to be there, water rushing in to fill his lungs. His body begins dropping past it, below it, and he reaches up to grab the very edge of it, but misses.

It is so cold down here, so far beyond the reach of the sun, it feels like how ice must: sharp and painful, without hope for any kind of reprieve. He has not yet had the opportunity to feel cold the way a human does, but dimly he thinks of cutting through swathes of Hell in search of Dean and flying through a part so deep, so dark, that it was the opposite of the Fire. It was cold, or some parody of it, but only served to make him fly faster, fight harder, because somewhere there was a soul torturing and being tortured that needed to be lifted from Perdition. This cold makes him want to sleep, possibly forever, because he is too heavy to do anything else.

He closes his eyes, suddenly comfortable and just so tired, and drifts.

A hand suddenly curls around his wrist, pulling him painfully up, cutting through the ice that has coated his insides. His eyes slide open, stinging in the frigid water, and Sam frowns at him with puffed out cheeks.

Holding onto his wrist, Sam drags him up to the door. Despite the clouds darkening his vision, he sees the large hand close over the knob, turning, and he hits carpeted floor, landing hard on his side and shocking his system so suddenly that the impact expels the water still sloshing in his lungs. He rolls over onto his stomach and pushes up with his hands, holding himself up as he coughs and coughs, dislodging the lake and the false storm. It burns all the way up and he watches it soak into the tessellation pattern of the carpet.

A hand rubs his back. "That's it. Get it all out."

He coughs twice more, throat raw, then sits back against Sam's legs. "That was… unpleasant."

Sam snorts. "I don't think anyone's ever thrown up and been, like, 'yay!'"

Cas sucks in a breath, reveling in the way the cool pull of air briefly sooths his throat, and looks around. They are back in the hallway of doors. Which door they even came through, he does not know. They are all closed, identical, and refuse to give answers. He does not know what happened to Dean, if he is still on the boat and trapped on stormy water, or if the tempest simply ceased when they left and Dean finishes out the dream as if Cas were still there.

He closes his eyes and sighs, tipping his head back and resting it against Sam's knees. "I would apologize for the abrupt change in my dream, but I'm very certain it was your fault."

"I'll take the blame," Sam says easily, although his voice is hard. When Cas opens his eyes, he sees the firm jut of Sam's chin as Sam takes stock of the doors. "I'm almost afraid to open another one. God knows what he'll drag out next."

Cas exhales and allows Sam to help him to his feet, dizzy and unsteady, his lungs feeling as though they still hold a lake in them. He glances to where the wall breaks and then moves to the railing, peering down and counting the floors. Or the single floor. It is all connected. "What if we walked all the way down?"

Sam stares down as well. "Does it end?"

"I don't know."

By unspoken agreement, they walk down the incline of the hallway, Cas's steps still a bit unsteady, whereas Sam's are strong and confident. It sometimes amazes him how the Winchesters can be hit with responsibilities that border on absurd and simply take it in stride. He hopes he will someday be able to "roll with the punches", that things will bounce off him as he walks through them without fear or doubt.

They continue their descent, Sam running his fingertips over the wall and doors like he did in the beginning, the sound of his skin against plaster and glossy wood the only sound. Their footsteps are tempered by the carpet, soft and plush beneath them.

"How much time do you think's passed up there?" Sam suddenly asks, not looking at him, not looking anywhere except forward.

"I… don't know. I can't imagine much," Cas says. "I read in a google that the dream cycle is very short, even if a dream seems long. Twenty minutes at the most. If we were to believe that, perhaps… an hour?"

Sam is chuckling.

"What?"

"You said ‘a google’. That's not -- it was an article or something that you read. You Googled an article about the dream cycle." Sam grins. "Google is the search engine you used."

He frowns, frustration welling up inside him, and his feet slow their pace until he comes to a stop. "What does it matter? You knew what I meant."

Sam looks over his shoulder at him and stops. "Cas, it's not a big deal. I was just --"

"You and Dean do this. Correct me, even when you know exactly what I am talking about. You both take great pleasure in it, my… lack of understanding. I know I am uneducated in all the ways that count. I do not need or appreciate the reminder, Sam. Not now." He swallows the anger that clogs his throat. "There will be plenty of time to revel in the fact that I am not like you, and I would like you to keep all your comments about it to yourself until then."

Sam stares, mouth moving soundlessly, and suddenly Cas is ashamed of his outburst. Somewhere in this place, perhaps behind the door they stand in front of, Dean is waiting for a rescue. He does not know what Morpheus is doing, if he is torturing him, breaking him and readying him against them, but nothing will be achieved if Cas takes offense to every thrown-away comment.

"I -- I apologize, Sam --"

"No," Sam says faintly, as if he cannot believe that Cas would ever rebuke him. "I… You're right. It's shitty. I didn't mean for it to sound like I was… rubbing your face in it. I'm sorry."

The words that had risen in anger die a quick death on his tongue, and Cas looks down at his shoes. They are scuffed, even more so now than when Jimmy had worn them, and it makes Cas think of all he has been through since coming to Earth and finding the soft soles of his vessel's feet needed to be protected. The physical battles alone were enough to wear them out, but simply walking beside Dean and Sam, scraping them against pavement and Bobby's dusty front yard, has also taken its toll.

That he even wears shoes, that he needs to now, says so much. He is human. He does not want to be angry with Sam. Sam is his friend.

"Sam, I'm sorry."

"Let's keep walking," Sam suggests, and there is nothing in his tone to suggest he is upset with Cas. There is lingering guilt and remorse, but little else. It is astonishing how humans say so much with so few words. The Winchesters sometimes say nothing and the silence speaks volumes, entire conversations all punctuated with forgiveness and familial love.

"Yes," Cas agrees, and relaxes at the answering half-smile. He will get better at not being an angel. He can adapt. And when they have returned Dean to the right reality, he will ask what is the right way to use the 'search engine' called Google.

They walk in a silence that rides just the edge of comfortable, Sam too afraid to say something that may be construed as offensive, and Cas worried of trying to hold on to something no longer his. He steps on the carpet and cannot trace the origins of the fibers decades back, know to whom all the fingers which handled them belonged, feel the very planet tilt under his feet. It is simply a carpet meant to soften impact to the feet and look nice.

He is so lost in his thoughts about what carpeting means to a human that he nearly misses the naked man that staggers into view.

"Cas." Sam reaches out and stops him from continuing with a hand. He peers distrustfully at the unsteady gait, the protruding rib cage, the sallow skin and dead eyes. The man does not even acknowledge them with a glance in their direction; his empty gaze is fixed on some point beyond them, and Cas does not need to turn around to know there is nothing there. "Excuse us."

The man stops suddenly and sways hard enough that it looks as though he will fall over with his next breath. He does not look at them, but there is something about the way he holds his body that suggests they have his attention.

Sam exchanges a glance with Cas, communicating his confusion and wariness. Cas pities the poor man; if he had his Grace, he would have put him out of his very obvious misery.

"You okay, buddy?"

The man opens his mouth and a string of words Sam clearly does not understand ekes out, and Cas swallows at the hollow, somewhat sad creature that stands unsteadily before them.

"Jesus," Sam whispers, eyes wide. "What the hell did he just say?"

The man spoke Slavic. Dialect from the West.

"I think I am lost."

Iris had mentioned something about a human or two -- a person, he reminds himself, a person just like you -- who stumbled into Demos Oneiroi and were trapped, doomed to wander the "First Realm" until Morpheus deemed their sentence complete. Cas had a sinking feeling it would never finish for these poor souls.

"Come, Sam, let us continue," Cas says quietly, eyes still on the man who does not look at them.

Sam shakes his head. "No, we can't just leave him like this! Look at him!"

The man's head tilts.

"His troubles are not ours to worry about right now. We must find --"

"Is there a way out? I believe I have passed the exit."

Cas's heart aches for this man, who could have been wandering these halls for decades upon decades, who was perhaps someone's father, brother, husband, lover, friend. But he is none of these things to Cas and Sam. Right now, he is a means to an end. "Where is Morpheus?"

The man blinks and slowly, agonizingly, lifts his head to meet Cas's gaze. What Cas finds there he cannot -- and will never -- describe.

"Cas, you speak… is that Russian? You speak Russian?"

"I speak all languages. I lack my Grace, not my knowledge." To the man, he says, "Morpheus. Where is the ruler of Demos Oneiroi?"

A smile breaks over the man's face, revealing crooked teeth. "Marowit is everywhere."

In a sudden, jaunty burst of motion, the man starts sauntering toward them, eyes dark and wild, his very visible hipbones doing an oddly mechanical twist. Sam immediately drops into a defensive position, arm out and bent into a sort of buffer, ready to throw the man back should there be an attack. But the man does not run for them. He instead opts for the door nearest Cas.

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


The man opens it, and disappears into whatever dream awaits, the door slamming shut on the last word of the rhyme.

Sam's shoulders slump and he stares at the door. "The hell was that about?"

Marowit is everywhere. Such an old name, nearly forgotten, but makes a terrible amount of sense now. The man has been here for such a very long time.

"We are not safe here," Cas murmurs, eyeing the door. "Not anywhere."

"What did that guy say? He was… kind of not all there, if you get my meaning."

Sam has always been the more tactful of the Winchester brothers. Dean would have said the man was "batshit crazy". Cas can appreciate tact, but he feels the absence of Dean's incredulity as he would a missing limb.

What is he supposed to say to Sam now? That the man who just disappeared into a dream spoke a language that was assimilated into the Germanic tribes centuries ago, that he has been trapped here for so long he still believes in a Wendish god? That this sorry attempt at a rescue will either result in their deaths or their own entrapment in this hallway of doors? Iris had warned them, had said bluntly they would fail, but Cas refused to believe it was possible. Seeing that man, seeing how centuries of dreaming had warped him into a vacant, mindless thing.

And Dean is in Morpheus's very grasp.

"He said nothing we don't already know," Cas says after a moment, and wonders where the other humans are who have been held in this realm. If they encounter them, what terrible, unhappy endings to this story will he glean from them?

"I don't know what we'll find down there if we keep going," Sam says. "Maybe we should walk back up a ways and pick a door?"

Something moves in the shadows, down where the hallway curves into another floor, and for a moment he fears it will be another winged node come to mock them. But the light of the hallway glints off a silver ring that sits snug on a thumb, off a horned pendant, and Cas is moving before he even registers Sam shouting his name.

He runs and runs, the tail-end of a worn green jacket the only thing visible before it finally disappears into shadow, gone from sight, gone as though it was never there to begin with.

"Cas!" Sam pulls him back by the shoulder, swinging him around and holding him firm.

"Did you see him?!"

Sam stops and squints into the darkness, shaking his head. "No, I -- see who?"

"Dean," Cas says frantically, struggling in Sam's grasp. Every moment they stand here talking puts more and more distance between him and Dean. Surely Sam can understand the urgency. "I saw Dean. It was him, Sam. He had the amulet."

Sam stares at him with something like sorrow, but not once does a flicker of hope enter his eyes. "Cas… you have his amulet, remember?"

The brass is heavy where it hangs over his pounding heart, and he slowly lifts a hand, curling his fingers around it. The points of the horns bite into his palm.

Ghosts. He is chasing ghosts.

He closes his eyes. The world seems to close in on him from all sides, crushing him between the emotions firing all at once throughout his entire being and the crushing reality that this is a fool's errand. How could it have come to this? Why have they been fighting for so long, when all Morpheus could have done was dream an end to Lucifer? What does taking Dean away from the fight -- away from them -- serve?

The array of human emotions is a frightening paradox, in which one can identify the feeling that plagues them, and take proper measures to amplify the good and cure the bad, but does the exact opposite. Cas feels rage and hopelessness, has labeled them as such, and can now take the steps to make them stop. But he does not. Instead, they fill him up and cloud his mind, growing murky and thick until he is practically choking on them. How do people live like this? How is it possible for him to feel so much?

But he packs it all away on an inhale, and once he has exhaled completely he is ready to continue. This moment of misery, of utter futility, is all he will allow himself. It is all he can spare.

"Let's go," he says quietly, firmly, the gnawing animal called despair locked in a cage from which it will never escape.

"Cas."

He shakes his head, releasing the amulet. It will not burn here. It is tethered to a false god. "Pick a door, Sam. Pick any door. I do not care if we must enter all of them -- we will find Dean. Even if we must drag ourselves through a thousand nightmares, I will not stop until I drag him out."

Sam stares as if he doesn't recognize him. As he shouldn't. Sam has only known Castiel the angel, or Cas the angel. He has never known Cas the human like this. But he must like -- or at least recognize -- what he finds on Cas's face, because Sam squares his shoulders and nods once, decisively.

"This is all based on random chance," Sam glances over the doors with obvious distrust.

Cas nods and keeps hold of the cage door when despair rises to snap at the bars. "Dreams are random. We have no choice. One of these doors will --"

Sam lifts a hand to silence him, eyes fixed over Cas's shoulder, and Cas feels something jerk hard in his chest at the expression he finds on Sam's face. It is the same expression, that immediate reaction of rage and fear and distrust Sam wore upon first finding Castiel in Dean's motel room.

He turns and inhales sharply.

The dark wood three doors down the hall from them glows an intensely bright white, standing firm as a node of light lolls against it, its wings whispering over the grain like a promise. A need to name it, to label it as something that he can quantify, rises up inside him, an entirely human reaction to the unknown. Dean and Sam both do it, even if they know what it is. Naming is authority. He wants to name whatever these creatures are, shift the balance of power from Morpheus to him.

"Looks like an invitation," Sam says quietly behind him and Castiel nods.

"It does," he agrees. "And we would not want to be rude."


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

Date: 2011-10-16 03:09 pm (UTC)
ext_3277: I made this (Misha)
From: [identity profile] laura-trekkie.livejournal.com
Well that answers that question: no, it wasn't the real Dean. That would've been too easy!

I liked how Sam inferred Cas' feelings from his dream and seemed perfectly accepting of them, going so far as to tell him to talk to Dean. Poor Cas doesn't have quite the same handle on his feelings and emotions yet and I like how he has the moments of being overwhelmed, before he pushes it all down in typical Winchester fashion.

That poor old Slavic soul was a real wake up call. Just how long will they be roaming the hall before they find Dean? Maybe this invitation is Morpheus deciding to step things up. After all, if he does have an interest in Cas, he won't want to waste too much time...

Laura.

January 2013

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