maychorian (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
maychorian) wrote2008-12-14 04:28 pm
maychorian) wrote2008-12-14 04:28 pm
Entry tags:
Entertaining Angels (15/?)
Fandom: Supernatural
Title: Entertaining Angels
Author: Maychorian
Characters: Dean, Sam, Castiel
Category: Gen, Angst, Hurt/Comfort
Rating: K+/PG
Spoilers: Through 4.10
Summary: A strange boy shows up at Dean and Sam's motel room. Maybe he needs help, or maybe he's there to help them—they can't quite tell.
Word Count: 2042
Disclaimer: Angels belong to God. The Winchesters belong to Kripke. It's a sad, sad world we live in.
Author's Note: Fanart and soundtrack (still open for suggestions). GAH, this story is making me kind of crazy, you guys. I want to finish it, like, right now. NEED MOAR HOURS IN DAY, PLZ.
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14
15
They sat on the couch again, Castiel between Sam and Dean, again clutching tissues, this time with his shirt unbuttoned and a thin glaze of medicated balm painting his small chest. (Missouri seemed to have everything remotely useful for this sickness stashed in her bathroom somewhere, including Children’s Tylenol targeted at Castiel’s exact symptoms.) The boy lay boneless and exhausted across both Winchester brothers, his head cradled in the hollow under Dean’s throat, knees flung over Sam’s thigh, Dean’s arm wrapped around his torso to hold him up, Sam’s hand resting gently on his shins.
Missouri had pushed the coffee table aside and pulled up her tweedy ottoman so she could sit in front of them, leaning forward, all of her attention concentrated on Castiel. His breathing was better, now, though his throat was obviously sore, his chest hurting, every word he spoke holding a rasp that Dean winced to hear. If only they could wait for tomorrow to do this, let the kid get a good night’s rest before subjecting him to another ordeal.
But they were all terribly aware of that…thing…pacing outside, just beyond the boundary of the wards, waiting, thirsting, slavering. It was an invisible supernatural creature, it was vicious, and it was after Castiel. Well, they did say that bad things came in threes.
“Be careful,” Sam said to Missouri, unable to hold back any longer. Dean knew this had been spinning in his brother’s head since they first started preparing, only waiting for an opportune moment to jump out of his mouth and pounce on them all. “The last psychic who tried to get a look at Castiel—her eyes burned up. It’s…just…you gotta be careful.”
Missouri tilted her head at him, and Dean waited for the snappy comeback, You telling me how to do my job, boy? But she just nodded kindly, seeing the real concern in Sam’s face. “I know, child. I heard all about it. And anyway, I’m not going to be looking this time, just listening.”
She turned back to the boy, reaching forward to pat his knee. “There’s an awful lot going on up there, mm? Trying to fit whole ages worth of memories in such a small container—no wonder you’re just spilling light all over the place, no wonder you can’t remember hardly a thing. It’s all jam-packed in there, like papers stuffed too tight in a file. You try to pull out just one, and a whole mess of others will come with it. So you’ve just been letting it be, wise little boy that you are. ‘Cept in dreams, of course, where you can’t control it.”
Castiel nodded slowly, with a minimum of movement, not wasting the energy to speak.
“All right. Well, now, I’m going to try to pull out a few pages, just a little at a time. I won’t be perceiving them directly—I’ll be on the edges, like. I don’t expect I’ll be able to understand most of it, so you’ll have to translate for us. Think you can do that?”
Dean could feel the boy sagging even more heavily against him at the thought, already exhausted, knowing that this would make it worse. But Cas nodded bravely, even so. Dean’s heart clenched like a fist in his chest. This whole thing sucked.
Missouri rubbed Castiel’s knee. “That’s a good boy. We just need to figure out how you came to be as you are, and anything about that nasty thing outside.” She said “nasty thing” as if it was a bug to be swatted, nothing more serious than that, and Dean was grateful for the levity.
Castiel wrapped both hands around Dean’s forearm, holding tight. “Dean.” A soft plea, a single word packed full of all the fear and longing and trust and love that could exist in one small child. It was enormous, that single word, full to bursting.
“I’m here.” He cinched the kid a little closer, a little tighter, giving back all he could.
Damn, this was going to be awful, digging into Castiel’s memories of the attack that had nearly destroyed him and had somehow, miraculously, made him into a human instead. He remembered Cas shaking and sweating in the grip of that first nightmare, moaning and murmuring, and the way each subsequent flashback had him almost blacking out, reaching out blindly for anything to hold onto. Dean was here, yeah, he was offering all the support he could, but how could it possibly be enough?
Sam reached over to cover Castiel’s hands with one of his, therefore also touching Dean’s arm. He would never, never admit it, not for any amount of money or pie or hot, willing babes, but Dean calmed at that, the stuttered racing of his heart slowing down a bit. Sam was here, too. That could only make things better, easier for all of them.
Missouri drew a deep breath, steadying herself for the plunge, and rested her hands on Sam’s big one, fingers slipping through to touch Dean and Castiel. They were all connected, now, just a big mass of weirdness and desperate, reaching hope. The psychic closed her eyes, and Castiel went limp against Dean’s chest.
Dean looked at Sam, saw that Sammy was already looking back at him, eyes wide as he wrestled back the touch of panic. A long time ago—such a long time—they had thought that Sam was a natural-born psychic, like Missouri, thought that he could learn to do these sorts of things. Now they knew…now they knew differently. It hurt, having that taken away from his little brother, replaced with this twisted mess of power, bestowed by a demon.
Castiel moaned, shaking under Dean’s arm, and he brought up his other hand to cup the boy’s face, holding him close, hoping that it made some sort of difference. Missouri sat statue-still, deep in psychic territory. Dean desperately wished there was some way he could know what was going on in there. Sam’s eyes, staring unblinking at the boy, told him that his brother was wishing the same. Sitting still, unable to do anything, unable to help, while someone in his protection was struggling, fighting, possibly suffering… It was the worst thing on earth. Not the worst thing in the universe—Dean knew very intimately what that was—but definitely the worst thing on earth. Dean wanted to be there, somehow, on the inside, not here on the sidelines useless and aching with worry.
And then, somehow, suddenly, impossibly, he was.
X
Castiel was back in the nightmare, the maelstrom of black and gray, watching the shimmering threads of his spirit unraveling, torn away by teeth and claws. The agony of it was intense, overwhelming, far deeper than physical—this was his soul being burnt, shredded, destroyed. He was being unmade. On every side eyes, yellow, red, black and white, demons and demonic vassals, creatures both petty and powerful, all mauling and ripping, taking him to pieces.
Somewhere beyond was a woman’s voice, firm and commanding, her force pushing and pulling, trying to press past this to something else. He shuddered uncontrollably, his mind unable to comprehend, unable to respond. There was no escape from this. He would be trapped here forever and ever, enduring this torture, unable to push it away, unable to move on.
A spark of power tore through the vision, lightning not white but gold and blue, the woman’s power reacting with something else, different in essence and effect but somehow similar. There was a quake, the entire world being jolted as something foundational, something fundamental, twisted and changed, not perverted but…transformed.
Sam. He recognized the gold in a flash of clarity, and just as suddenly knew that the blue belong to a woman named Missouri. The sky was changing, like a sunrise not on the horizon but everywhere, yellow and blue leaking through corded clouds of black and gray. Sam and Missouri.
And somehow, incredibly, there was another presence riding in through this new rift, too, a familiar one, strong and good. Gentle arms folded around Castiel, holding him, protecting him. Remembered pain was fading, replaced with present warmth. Dean.
“Just a dream, Cas,” said the deep voice in his ear, a reminder of what he should have known on his own. “Not really happening. Not really here. This stuff has no power, not anymore. What happened to you was bad, and there’s nothing wrong with being scared and hurt, but it’s done now. This is just a memory.”
“Dean,” he sobbed, pressing himself into this kindness, this sheltering. “Dean.”
“I’m here. Toldja, didn’t I?” Dean wrapped him a little tighter, a little closer. “Now, listen, kiddo, we hate to do this, we gotta know. These guys, all these things attacking you, they’re just demons. It can’t be one of them outside Missouri’s house, because Ruby’s bag is keeping those from knowing where you are. This is something else. So is there anything here that isn’t a demon? Some kind of creature that might have got your scent, tracked you down physically instead of magically? That’s the only thing I can figure might have happened.”
Castiel stilled, though he trembled in Dean’s grip. The images swirled around them, flashing with the speed of thought. So many eyes…
“Hey, hey. Don’t get caught up. Look at it like…just pictures. Not here. Just pictures. They’re flat and empty, and they can’t do anything to you. Don’t let them hurt you. Pictures can’t hurt you.”
Castiel nodded. He couldn’t close his eyes in this non-physical place, couldn’t shut it out, but he could exert an influence. Papers, Missouri had said. Pages from a file. Dean was right—pictures, papers couldn’t hurt you.
The blue and gold flared around them in the bowl of the sky, deep and powerful, holding everything still.
He reached out one trembling finger, all of the eyes flat and still, images on a page. A gentle push, and he sent them scattering, a pack of those cards Dean had been trying to teach him to shuffle back at the motel. Powerless. Just memories.
With Dean at his back and Sam and Missouri surrounding them all, Castiel figured out how to leaf through the images, discarding demon after demon. Couldn’t touch him, couldn’t reach him, couldn’t hurt him. In the end there were three, three creatures that had taken part in his attempted destruction, three that might have somehow found their way to earth and decided to finish the task.
“All right, all right, that’s good.” Dean was still with him, studying the images. Castiel relaxed and let them float away, knowing that the man could handle it from here.
He was so tired.
“Just one more thing, kiddo.” Dean sounded regretful, but firm. “We need to know how you ended up as a kid. If you…if you fell. Or if it was something else. We just need to know how to protect you. Who we need to protect you from.”
Castiel shuddered, but nodded. One more page from the file. Sam and Missouri steadied his hand, helped him find the right one, and he pulled it out…
Blackness, pure and absolute. No eyes, just him, holding one final spark of his essence. And a voice, sweet and resounding, power incarnate.
Castiel. Your survival was a near thing. You must recover.
His own voice, weak and failing, near feverish, at the faint and raveling extent of his abilities. I must complete my mission.
You have the energy to transport yourself anywhere in the universe, if only that. Come home. Rest until you are able to battle again.
Dean Winchester needs me.
Stubborn child. You don’t have the strength to find a willing vessel. You have nothing left.
I must go to Dean.
If you go to earth, it will not be as a warrior. You will be weak and fragile, easy to overpower, at the whim of every creature.
I must find Dean Winchester.
Silence for a time, heavy and foreboding. Then the pronouncement of doom. Very well. Live as you have chosen.
The pain of being made was very like the pain of being unmade. When next Castiel awoke, he remembered only one thing.
I must find Dean Winchester.
Part 16
Title: Entertaining Angels
Author: Maychorian
Characters: Dean, Sam, Castiel
Category: Gen, Angst, Hurt/Comfort
Rating: K+/PG
Spoilers: Through 4.10
Summary: A strange boy shows up at Dean and Sam's motel room. Maybe he needs help, or maybe he's there to help them—they can't quite tell.
Word Count: 2042
Disclaimer: Angels belong to God. The Winchesters belong to Kripke. It's a sad, sad world we live in.
Author's Note: Fanart and soundtrack (still open for suggestions). GAH, this story is making me kind of crazy, you guys. I want to finish it, like, right now. NEED MOAR HOURS IN DAY, PLZ.
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14
15They sat on the couch again, Castiel between Sam and Dean, again clutching tissues, this time with his shirt unbuttoned and a thin glaze of medicated balm painting his small chest. (Missouri seemed to have everything remotely useful for this sickness stashed in her bathroom somewhere, including Children’s Tylenol targeted at Castiel’s exact symptoms.) The boy lay boneless and exhausted across both Winchester brothers, his head cradled in the hollow under Dean’s throat, knees flung over Sam’s thigh, Dean’s arm wrapped around his torso to hold him up, Sam’s hand resting gently on his shins.
Missouri had pushed the coffee table aside and pulled up her tweedy ottoman so she could sit in front of them, leaning forward, all of her attention concentrated on Castiel. His breathing was better, now, though his throat was obviously sore, his chest hurting, every word he spoke holding a rasp that Dean winced to hear. If only they could wait for tomorrow to do this, let the kid get a good night’s rest before subjecting him to another ordeal.
But they were all terribly aware of that…thing…pacing outside, just beyond the boundary of the wards, waiting, thirsting, slavering. It was an invisible supernatural creature, it was vicious, and it was after Castiel. Well, they did say that bad things came in threes.
“Be careful,” Sam said to Missouri, unable to hold back any longer. Dean knew this had been spinning in his brother’s head since they first started preparing, only waiting for an opportune moment to jump out of his mouth and pounce on them all. “The last psychic who tried to get a look at Castiel—her eyes burned up. It’s…just…you gotta be careful.”
Missouri tilted her head at him, and Dean waited for the snappy comeback, You telling me how to do my job, boy? But she just nodded kindly, seeing the real concern in Sam’s face. “I know, child. I heard all about it. And anyway, I’m not going to be looking this time, just listening.”
She turned back to the boy, reaching forward to pat his knee. “There’s an awful lot going on up there, mm? Trying to fit whole ages worth of memories in such a small container—no wonder you’re just spilling light all over the place, no wonder you can’t remember hardly a thing. It’s all jam-packed in there, like papers stuffed too tight in a file. You try to pull out just one, and a whole mess of others will come with it. So you’ve just been letting it be, wise little boy that you are. ‘Cept in dreams, of course, where you can’t control it.”
Castiel nodded slowly, with a minimum of movement, not wasting the energy to speak.
“All right. Well, now, I’m going to try to pull out a few pages, just a little at a time. I won’t be perceiving them directly—I’ll be on the edges, like. I don’t expect I’ll be able to understand most of it, so you’ll have to translate for us. Think you can do that?”
Dean could feel the boy sagging even more heavily against him at the thought, already exhausted, knowing that this would make it worse. But Cas nodded bravely, even so. Dean’s heart clenched like a fist in his chest. This whole thing sucked.
Missouri rubbed Castiel’s knee. “That’s a good boy. We just need to figure out how you came to be as you are, and anything about that nasty thing outside.” She said “nasty thing” as if it was a bug to be swatted, nothing more serious than that, and Dean was grateful for the levity.
Castiel wrapped both hands around Dean’s forearm, holding tight. “Dean.” A soft plea, a single word packed full of all the fear and longing and trust and love that could exist in one small child. It was enormous, that single word, full to bursting.
“I’m here.” He cinched the kid a little closer, a little tighter, giving back all he could.
Damn, this was going to be awful, digging into Castiel’s memories of the attack that had nearly destroyed him and had somehow, miraculously, made him into a human instead. He remembered Cas shaking and sweating in the grip of that first nightmare, moaning and murmuring, and the way each subsequent flashback had him almost blacking out, reaching out blindly for anything to hold onto. Dean was here, yeah, he was offering all the support he could, but how could it possibly be enough?
Sam reached over to cover Castiel’s hands with one of his, therefore also touching Dean’s arm. He would never, never admit it, not for any amount of money or pie or hot, willing babes, but Dean calmed at that, the stuttered racing of his heart slowing down a bit. Sam was here, too. That could only make things better, easier for all of them.
Missouri drew a deep breath, steadying herself for the plunge, and rested her hands on Sam’s big one, fingers slipping through to touch Dean and Castiel. They were all connected, now, just a big mass of weirdness and desperate, reaching hope. The psychic closed her eyes, and Castiel went limp against Dean’s chest.
Dean looked at Sam, saw that Sammy was already looking back at him, eyes wide as he wrestled back the touch of panic. A long time ago—such a long time—they had thought that Sam was a natural-born psychic, like Missouri, thought that he could learn to do these sorts of things. Now they knew…now they knew differently. It hurt, having that taken away from his little brother, replaced with this twisted mess of power, bestowed by a demon.
Castiel moaned, shaking under Dean’s arm, and he brought up his other hand to cup the boy’s face, holding him close, hoping that it made some sort of difference. Missouri sat statue-still, deep in psychic territory. Dean desperately wished there was some way he could know what was going on in there. Sam’s eyes, staring unblinking at the boy, told him that his brother was wishing the same. Sitting still, unable to do anything, unable to help, while someone in his protection was struggling, fighting, possibly suffering… It was the worst thing on earth. Not the worst thing in the universe—Dean knew very intimately what that was—but definitely the worst thing on earth. Dean wanted to be there, somehow, on the inside, not here on the sidelines useless and aching with worry.
And then, somehow, suddenly, impossibly, he was.
X
Castiel was back in the nightmare, the maelstrom of black and gray, watching the shimmering threads of his spirit unraveling, torn away by teeth and claws. The agony of it was intense, overwhelming, far deeper than physical—this was his soul being burnt, shredded, destroyed. He was being unmade. On every side eyes, yellow, red, black and white, demons and demonic vassals, creatures both petty and powerful, all mauling and ripping, taking him to pieces.
Somewhere beyond was a woman’s voice, firm and commanding, her force pushing and pulling, trying to press past this to something else. He shuddered uncontrollably, his mind unable to comprehend, unable to respond. There was no escape from this. He would be trapped here forever and ever, enduring this torture, unable to push it away, unable to move on.
A spark of power tore through the vision, lightning not white but gold and blue, the woman’s power reacting with something else, different in essence and effect but somehow similar. There was a quake, the entire world being jolted as something foundational, something fundamental, twisted and changed, not perverted but…transformed.
Sam. He recognized the gold in a flash of clarity, and just as suddenly knew that the blue belong to a woman named Missouri. The sky was changing, like a sunrise not on the horizon but everywhere, yellow and blue leaking through corded clouds of black and gray. Sam and Missouri.
And somehow, incredibly, there was another presence riding in through this new rift, too, a familiar one, strong and good. Gentle arms folded around Castiel, holding him, protecting him. Remembered pain was fading, replaced with present warmth. Dean.
“Just a dream, Cas,” said the deep voice in his ear, a reminder of what he should have known on his own. “Not really happening. Not really here. This stuff has no power, not anymore. What happened to you was bad, and there’s nothing wrong with being scared and hurt, but it’s done now. This is just a memory.”
“Dean,” he sobbed, pressing himself into this kindness, this sheltering. “Dean.”
“I’m here. Toldja, didn’t I?” Dean wrapped him a little tighter, a little closer. “Now, listen, kiddo, we hate to do this, we gotta know. These guys, all these things attacking you, they’re just demons. It can’t be one of them outside Missouri’s house, because Ruby’s bag is keeping those from knowing where you are. This is something else. So is there anything here that isn’t a demon? Some kind of creature that might have got your scent, tracked you down physically instead of magically? That’s the only thing I can figure might have happened.”
Castiel stilled, though he trembled in Dean’s grip. The images swirled around them, flashing with the speed of thought. So many eyes…
“Hey, hey. Don’t get caught up. Look at it like…just pictures. Not here. Just pictures. They’re flat and empty, and they can’t do anything to you. Don’t let them hurt you. Pictures can’t hurt you.”
Castiel nodded. He couldn’t close his eyes in this non-physical place, couldn’t shut it out, but he could exert an influence. Papers, Missouri had said. Pages from a file. Dean was right—pictures, papers couldn’t hurt you.
The blue and gold flared around them in the bowl of the sky, deep and powerful, holding everything still.
He reached out one trembling finger, all of the eyes flat and still, images on a page. A gentle push, and he sent them scattering, a pack of those cards Dean had been trying to teach him to shuffle back at the motel. Powerless. Just memories.
With Dean at his back and Sam and Missouri surrounding them all, Castiel figured out how to leaf through the images, discarding demon after demon. Couldn’t touch him, couldn’t reach him, couldn’t hurt him. In the end there were three, three creatures that had taken part in his attempted destruction, three that might have somehow found their way to earth and decided to finish the task.
“All right, all right, that’s good.” Dean was still with him, studying the images. Castiel relaxed and let them float away, knowing that the man could handle it from here.
He was so tired.
“Just one more thing, kiddo.” Dean sounded regretful, but firm. “We need to know how you ended up as a kid. If you…if you fell. Or if it was something else. We just need to know how to protect you. Who we need to protect you from.”
Castiel shuddered, but nodded. One more page from the file. Sam and Missouri steadied his hand, helped him find the right one, and he pulled it out…
Blackness, pure and absolute. No eyes, just him, holding one final spark of his essence. And a voice, sweet and resounding, power incarnate.
Castiel. Your survival was a near thing. You must recover.
His own voice, weak and failing, near feverish, at the faint and raveling extent of his abilities. I must complete my mission.
You have the energy to transport yourself anywhere in the universe, if only that. Come home. Rest until you are able to battle again.
Dean Winchester needs me.
Stubborn child. You don’t have the strength to find a willing vessel. You have nothing left.
I must go to Dean.
If you go to earth, it will not be as a warrior. You will be weak and fragile, easy to overpower, at the whim of every creature.
I must find Dean Winchester.
Silence for a time, heavy and foreboding. Then the pronouncement of doom. Very well. Live as you have chosen.
The pain of being made was very like the pain of being unmade. When next Castiel awoke, he remembered only one thing.
I must find Dean Winchester.
Part 16