AN: I know it's a couple weeks late, but I still felt like posting it. This fic and its title were inspired by/ taken from the song Red Dust by James Vincent McMorrow. The poem that appears later in this fic is mine, it's chapter eleven of my fic "The Greatest Love Story Ever Told".
The rain picks up after the Impala roars to life and pulls away. It's one rumbling white noise softly bleeding into another, accompanied by the frigid and heavy wetness that has now seeped through Castiel's clothes and into his skin. It has once again returned to being more of a dull weight rather than a bone-deep chill. Since regaining his (or not his) grace, physical sensation has been altered- not lost- but blurred by the celestial energy that keeps his body from reacting to temperature. That is to say he feels the cold- but it doesn't bother him. Fitting, in some unfitting way, he thinks.
Now that he has well and truly experienced what it is to be human, Castiel feels as though he is more human now than he ever was at his most vulnerable. Dean has always been his humanity; he realised this a long time ago. But for most of the time he was human, he was without the one person who has always made him feel so; the cold only bothers him when Dean is there; beside him. He flexes his hands inside his pockets, the hands that will now strive to heal Sam, and his fingers move, warm and fluid. Interesting how in this bitter weather, the human thing to do would be to feel nothing. To be numb. But his ability to feel is just fine. How he wishes the cold bothered him; how he wishes Dean was here.
He doesn't stop staring after the Impala until the taillights disappear into the darkness. It occurs to him that Sam must be very nearly freezing. He turns to him and sees that he hasn't looked away from where Dean was standing- he's staring through Castiel and at no one. He puts a hand on the younger Winchester's arm and feels the slight shiver that would indicate his discomfort. Gently, Castiel pours some of his grace's energy into Sam's veins, warming him up. He finally comes out of his trance and looks at Cas with a tired smile on his face.
"Thanks Cas." A pause and a shaky breath, the cloud of his exhale beaten down by the rain. "We should go."
"Alright." He drops his hand from Sam's arm and they both walk towards Castiel's car, not bothering to hurry- what else can this weather do to them? There's a sudden low clamor in the mist somewhere, and Castiel glances vaguely into the distance before realising that it's merely the roll of thunder. With his hearing being back to its usual supernatural level, he should know by now the difference between thunder and the engine of a car- the difference between his imagination and the sound of Dean coming back to him. But maybe the cold is bothering him a little more than his angelic mind would have once allowed.
Up until this point, Castiel has found riding in a car to be a calming pastime. But since the call that brought him here, he hasn't been so lulled by the thrum of wheels on the road and the rush of air through an open window. When he stole the angel Theo's grace, when he surged with power and came back into himself, he could once again hear the thoughts and cries of thousands. He was back in tune with "angel radio"- or the parts if it that were still in use. After the phone call in which Castiel had warned Dean about the death of Ezekiel, he had waited.
Cas? It's me.
Castiel had almost smiled at that. After all this time, Dean still felt some compulsion to identify himself, as though his call would not be instantly known by the first angel- the first anything- he'd ever prayed too; the one he'd prayed to the most.
Cas, you'd better have your ears on. He could feel the unmistakable timbre of Dean's voice; the unique depth and resonance that only his prayers carried. Oh how he had missed being able to hear it.
I'm here, his instinct was to reply even though he knew he could not be heard. I'm here.
It's bad, man. Get your ass here. Now. I fucked up. Again. Bad. I need you. It's- I- just- please.
He'd stolen the car. There was no telling how he knew to do what he did- he would look back on it and think it was a miracle-
"Good things do happen, Dean."
"Not in my experience."
Driving, he's found, is nothing like sitting in the passenger seat. There's so much more power under your hands, under your feet, you can feel the vibrations, the pounding and the spinning of the motor. If not for the fact that his true form- when he once had one- was a burning body of celestial intent the size of the Chrysler building, he would find driving frightening. But mostly he just finds it slow. The road stretches endlessly on ahead of you, and you can never seem to put it behind you fast enough. Well that's probably the most depressing thing about driving that I've ever heard, he can imagine Dean saying.
"So why'd you pick this car anyway?" Sam suddenly asks.
"Seriously Cas, out of all the cars you coulda picked, you grabbed the most creeptastic, douche-baggiest one you could find?" Is what Dean had said. It's essentially the same question.
"I needed a vehicle. It was the closest. It was running." He answers Sam. It's what he also said to Dean.
"So you just stole it from the guy?" Sam should be more incredulous, Cas notes, but then again, he's probably used to the concept of illegally obtaining transportation.
"So what, you just rolled up on the pimp who owned it and asked him if he would aid an angel of the lord on a heavenly mission by lending you his bitchin' wheels?" Dean had chuckled quietly at his own humor.
"No. I simply told him what would happen should he refuse to give it to me." Cas replied and replies.
"Huh." This time both brothers' reactions were- and are- identical, along with the thoughtful and slightly impressed nod.
"That's exactly what Dean said." He tells Sam. "It's intere- you two have a lot of the same mannerisms."
"Yeah, well," Sam sighs heavily, turning to look out the window into the hazy downpour that surrounds them, "I hope we're not that alike." It sounds like something Dean would say, but Cas doesn't point this out- he drives faster.
Dean is nowhere near drunk enough to be making stupid middle-of-the-night phone calls. But when you know you're not waking anybody up anyway, you feel a little less pathetic doing it. And when you know that the person you're calling is undoubtedly gonna answer the phone, there's a lot less chance of you leaving a stupid message (there's a lot more chance of saying something you'll regret, however, but Dean ignores this fact). He feels for his phone on the nightstand, past the motel stationary and the Gideon Bible (which he's considering lighting on fire just to take all this shit out on something).
When the screen lights up the darkness of his dingy room, he dials the number without even thinking. He'd given Cas one of the phones from the glove box earlier- pressed it into the palm of his hand with the silent promise of I'll call. I won't let us be apart so long this time. And he's not sure he can keep that promise, not sure if he can let himself go back, ever, but right now he just needs to hear another voice besides the one in his head, driving him insane.
Poison. You're poison. You think you've helped more people than you've hurt? That your reasons really matter? You really think you still have any right to believe that?
"Hello Dean." Cas answers after the first ring.
"Hey Cas." After that, Dean seems to lose his voice. There are so many things to say, the silence between them fills up with the thoughts he's sure they're both thinking. Words are strung together across his mind in sentences that sound more like nonsense the more he thinks about them. It gets to the point where the only thing he can hear is the tide of someone's breathing, and he's not sure if it's
Cas's or his own. He stares across at the wall he can't see, his mouth opening and closing as he finishes a thousand stories before he can tell them; a thousand questions, a thousand apologies.
"Where are you?" Cas suddenly asks, and Dean wonders if two minutes is really all it takes to forget someone's voice.
"Uh, Sunrise Motel, just off the highway about ten miles north of Lebanon." He'd found himself heading home, but won't admit it was out of more than just habit. "Where are you?"
"We're back at the bunker now. Sam's exhausted; I believe he's asleep in his room."
"And you?"
"I was going to call you. But you called me first." Another pause. "Perhaps this is a stupid question, but are you okay, Dean?"
"No, Cas, I'm not, I'm-" Dean isn't even put off by how desperate he sounds. He is desperate- for things to be different- for it to be over. He hasn't been this desperate in a long time, as in, 'since Michael' long time. But back then, he would have lied to everyone- oh yeah, he did. And he would now too, but he knows no one would believe him; and the sound of Cas saying nothing on the other end of the line has this affect on him that he really can't explain.
"I am the farthest thing from okay right now Cas."
"I'm on my way Dean."
Dean is dreaming. He's dreaming of hell. He's back there right now, strung up and ripped apart and alone. Completely alone. There's not another tortured soul that he can see or hear or sense anywhere- no cries, no pleas- even Alastair has seems to have disappeared. No one's cutting Dean up at the moment, but he's still on the verge of puking up his guts if they don't fall out of his torn up body first. This has happened before- this exact thing, this exact nightmare. But He was never alone. There were always others screaming bloody murder, or demons there, laughing and cackling and pouring proverbial salt in his wounds. But now he's by himself. Trapped, with not even the devil to hear him roar and shout and screech until his throat is on fire. It's not even words anymore; just guttural wails that used to be "SAM!" that devolved into "SOMEONE HELP ME, PLEASE!" and are now nothing. But he's alone this time.
Someone's in the room. He bolts upright, going for the knife under his pillow. His hand flies out of instinct, but instead of meeting with skin, the blade is stopped in midair when someone grabs his wrist.
"Cas, you- shit, you scared me." Dean lets out a shaky breath, hurriedly brushing the residual tears out of his eyes while Cas drops the knife on the nightstand. He must've mojo'd the door open, Dean surmises.
"I was going to knock," Cas tells him as some sort of apology, "but I heard you calling for help, so I-"
"I was yelling?"
Cas shakes his head. "You were praying in your sleep." Dean is a little stunned by the way Cas looks at him, then; with nothing but empathy- and he wonders how many times Cas has looked at him like that before, and how many times he hasn't noticed.
"What were you dreaming about, Dean?" It isn't a question at all. It's a request; tell me the truth- talk to me.
"You know what." Dean gets to his feet, nearly stumbling at first, as if he hasn't walked before; Cas moves to his side, but Dean shakes him off. "What else do I dream about?" That's a rhetorical question; but rhetorical is sometimes lost on Cas.
"Sometimes you dream about your father. Mostly about the times when you let him down, but occasionally you remember that he was proud of you, in his own way."
"He's dead because of me." Dean mutters. Cas ignores him.
It is an acid; guilt.
Burns and eats and tears away
all the pieces of you that were already broken;
shrivels your skin and builds up mold in your lungs,
keeping you from breathing the air
and knowing the truth – that you are precious.
Your bones, carved from stone, once strong,
beaten to dust and reformed,
but beaten into dust once more.
Guilt is a hard rot.
"You dream about Lisa and Ben, and the year you got to spend with them. You miss it, even though you know you can never go back, even though you blame yourself for what happened to them."
"They almost died because of me." He reminds Cas. Cas doesn't stop.
I want to reform you yet again,
to find the crack in your soul
and pour my love into it.
To melt the wax that has hardened around
all of your mangled insides;
to reach in
and stop the bleeding.
Bury your pain in the unending tomb of my heart
where it will wither and die
so you can finally rest.
"They're alive because of you." Cas reminds him sternly. "But you forget that. You ignore it. You dream about your mother, about your earliest memories, but you always leave out the part where she used to call you her precious boy. Precious, Dean. You refuse to believe that you are what she said you were."
"Cas, just- just stop it."
Cas grabs onto his shoulder and whips him around and pins him with one of those looks that Dean can't help but return.
I want to save you, as many times as I have
and will have to,
until you can stand well enough to see that
you
are
worth
saving.
You are so far, so far from being poison. You are precious.
"Listen to me, Dean Winchester. Do you know what it felt like? To hear you on that bridge, to listen to you call yourself poison? I pulled you out of hell, out of one of its darkest places, because I was sent there, by God, to save you. It has since become something that I would not hesitate to do again, orders or not- your soul, even at its most mangled and tarnished, shone brighter than any soul I have ever seen- I saved you, because you deserved it. To hear you call yourself poison- it is so far from the truth. You are precious, Dean. And I will say it again and again- I will save you as many times as I have to until you believe that you deserve it."
"Cas, I-" Dean wants to protest. But Cas knows. Cas knows everything Dean can possibly say about himself. And he can't convince Cas of any of it.
"I have seen you fail, Dean. I have seen you fight and fall and lose. But I have never seen you give up, in all the time I have known you, I have never seen you stop moving forward, even if everything- everyone around you is trying to force you back. I have seen you succeed. I have seen you fight and get up again and win. I have seen you love. And of everything I have seen- none of it is poison."
Dean feels weak. At the knees maybe, but also just fragile, unsteady, unstable. He's exhausted, and he can't remember the last time he actually let himself realise how tired he was. He notices that he's crying- there are tears, anyway- and then Cas's hands move from Dean's shoulders to his face, holding their foreheads together, and his thumbs take the tears from the corner of his eyes and Dean doesn't think he's ever been touched so gently. He closes his eyes as Cas closes the space between them, and reverence suddenly makes sense to him, because the way Cas is kissing him is holy and devoted and clean. But he can't understand why, because it's still not in him to believe that he is precious.
I can tell you this-
press it into the palms of your hands like a secret gift,
curl your fingers around it,
force you to hold tight and adhere to it,
leave it all across your skin like a mark,
whisper it into your ear like the most holy truth that it is;
but I know you will not believe me.