Title: therefore I will not be silent
Characters/Pairings: Jimmy/Castiel, Jimmy/Amelia, Jimmy/surprise character, Claire, OC
Rating: PG
Summary: S4/S5 AU, Clairestiel. Jimmy says no to Castiel and lives to regret it.
Word Count: 4150
Notes: Part of my Novakangst project.
Warnings: See above. Also, blasphemy, if you care about that sort of thing.
"My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle,
and they come to an end without hope.
Remember, O God, that my life is but a breath;
my eyes will never see happiness again.
The eye that now sees me will see me no longer;
you will look for me, but I will be no more.
As a cloud vanishes and is gone,
so one who goes down to the grave does not return.
He will never come to his house again;
his place will know him no more.
"Therefore I will not keep silent;
I will speak out in the anguish of my spirit,
I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.
Am I the sea, or the monster of the deep,
that you put me under guard?
When I think my bed will comfort me
and my couch will ease my complaint,
even then you frighten me with dreams
and terrify me with visions,
so that I prefer strangling and death,
rather than this body of mine.
I despise my life; I would not live forever.
Let me alone; my days have no meaning.
"What is mankind that you make so much of them,
that you give them so much attention,
that you examine them every morning
and test them every moment?
Will you never look away from me,
or let me alone even for an instant?
If I have sinned, what have I done to you,
you who see everything we do?
Why have you made me your target?
Have I become a burden to you?
Why do you not pardon my offenses
and forgive my sins?
For I will soon lie down in the dust;
you will search for me, but I will be no more."
- Job 7:6-20 (NIV)
When Jimmy opens the door, Claire is waiting, still and pale in the dust of her own tomb.
It doesn't even register at first. The whole house is filled with her ghost, but no more than here, full of her smells and her possessions, the dip in the bed where she would lie stomach down flicking through her books and magazines, the sun in her face; the scratches on the floor where she tilted her chair back dangerously low, feet on the table, but never once fell. The outdated movie posters on the wall, peeling at the edges. The note once stuck to the bulletin board and now in some police folder somewhere. During the months of absence, of silence they never once went in, sat among the tottering pile of stale memories and rifled through; too much like an eulogy, too much like farewell. There had still been hope, then.
Hope, the last fluttering fragile thing in Pandora's box, limping slowly after into a blighted world. How well it belonged with its companions, sorrow and death and war. The broken edges of it are in his heart, still, like knives probing an open wound. Jimmy had had reason to hope, more than Amelia, more than anyone else. Father, your eye is on her; bring her home safely.
Father, don't punish her in my place.
When Claire came back he thought his prayers had been answered; forgetting that what God gave with one hand, He also could also take away with the other.
Claire is staring back at him, the bloody stain slashing across her white shirt magnifying the accusation he is sure rings starkly in her eyes. Jimmy is prepared for the storm that seizes him by the throat and wrings him dry, blurring his eyes but even so the sudden blow sends him staggering, a lone whimper escaping the wreck of his larynx.
Her hand is cold on his arm as it steadies him; not just corpse-cold, but winter-cold. The shock tingles all the way to his shoulder, numbness chasing the pain of needles pricking his flesh. It wraps icy fingers around his heart, and the brief spark of joy that momentarily stirs in its grave dies another death.
"Claire?" Jimmy whispers, as though anything louder than that will sweep her away, smoke in a sudden wind. "...Castiel?"
"No," Claire says, just as soft. When she raises her head, shadows cling to the hollows of her eyes like cobwebs. "I'm the only one here."
"You're dead," he says, flatly, and flinches when she nods. Some dam breaks within him, the questions and doubts from the past year flooding out in a torrent: "Why—how could this happen, Castiel made a promise, damn him, what the hell was he doing—"
Claire leans close, shifting her freezing hand to his face. She kisses him, and when she draws away they are close enough for him to see her mouth shape, painfully, the words: "I'm so sorry."
Then she is gone, and Jimmy is bolting upright from where he'd inexplicably fallen asleep on Claire's bed, tears warm and salty on his tongue.
I should be the one who's sorry.
He has never done this before, never wanted to see Castiel ever again—Claire's body like a shell, eyes lit up by the strange animating light of a puppetmaster. But he goes ahead and kneels anyway, pressing his hands together in prayer. The pose, once so natural, grates on his nerves and it is through gritted teeth that he says Castiel's name.
Castiel used to come at once, back when he had still been in the delicate process of wooing Jimmy, a gentle and conscientious lover. He'd touch down bearing light and grace across the span of his wings, balancing lightly to spare Jimmy the worst of it, but enough would spill over to leave Jimmy feeling sanctified and holy for days afterwards, just an angel's breath away from God Himself. He'd been chosen. He was special, beloved.
Jimmy imagines with bitterness, with a streak of jealousy that still burns acidly in his chest, that Castiel said much the same things to Claire as well.
"Castiel," he says again, sharper than he had intended, "I need to talk to you."
A few beats later, when no angel materializes before him, "You son of a bitch, you took my daughter from me and you can't even give back a few seconds of your time?"
"There is a war going on. I have been occupied."
Jimmy shudders, resisting the impulse to look. His hands fall to his sides where they curl loosely into fists. "You came."
"You called." Castiel approaches; he can feel the distance between them close, as if Castiel is still connected to him, hands plucking at the strings of his soul. Sometimes Jimmy wakes from the memory of the wind in nonexistent wings, cold intricate lines of grace tracing patterns into the inside of his skin. "What do you want, Jimmy?"
"My daughter," he says, keeping the rest unsaid. "—I want my daughter."
"You know that isn't possible. I am needed on earth."
Jimmy finally turns around, looking Castiel squarely in the eye. He looks back, impassive as a statue; perhaps there is a faint line in the skin between Claire' brows, and he has to quash the ridiculous urge to smooth it away. "Is the world going to end in the next five minutes?"
Castiel's stare grows puzzled. "Why should it?"
"Well," Jimmy says. "Then it can't hurt for me to have that five minutes for a chat with Claire. You just pop out and pop back in again, and I'll quit interrupting your world-saving heroics. What about it?"
Castiel's lips tighten, and then uncharacteristically his eyes shift to the side. "You know," he says softly. It's not a question. "How did you know?"
He actually didn't, not really, not until now. Jimmy sits back, and the back of the sofa is in the way otherwise he might have let himself fall, and go on falling forever. "A dream," he says to the ceiling. In some way he had been expecting Castiel's answer, but even so it feels like that terrible night again, another final goodbye. No more reason to leave the porch light on at night; no more waiting for footsteps passing by the door in the small hours of the morning. Little things to make himself feel useful, feel needed and now he sees them for the empty meaningless rituals that they are.
Let go, Amelia had said just before she left. You can't blame yourself forever.
Jimmy thinks, I can and I will.
"A dream." Castiel sounds skeptical. "How could that be? You have no seer's blood, Jimmy." Unbidden, he reaches out and ghosts cool fingers across the side of Jimmy's face, ignoring the flinch that accompanies the touch. "I wonder…"
"When were you planning on telling me?" Jimmy asks quietly.
Castiel's hand pauses, then drops. "I…" Uncertainty, another crack in the angel's façade. Jimmy wonders what happened to throw Castiel off-balance, take away that smug angelic superiority. He hopes, resentfully, that it hurt like hell.
"I have caused you enough pain already." Castiel bows his head. "I did not wish to…"
"So you were going to leave us hanging just because you felt uncomfortable saying sorry," Jimmy translates. "Screw you, Castiel."
"She's in Heaven now, in return for her sacrifice," Castiel tells him, as though that would change anything, make Jimmy magically grateful for the honor. "It was quick; she did not suffer."
"Yeah, it's wonderful," Jimmy says. "She's in Heaven. I guess everything is all right now, huh?"
Even Castiel can't miss that one. "I'm sorry, Jimmy, I truly am," he says, actually sounding like he means it. "I would have done everything in my power to keep my promise."
"But you didn't." Jimmy lets that sink in. "Please, just—go away. And don't ever come back."
"Jimmy…"
He closes his eyes and does not open them again until he hears the beating of the angel's wings, taking him and Claire's dead body far far away.
Jimmy sits there for a long time.
The flowers on Claire's grave are already dried and faded—what few of them which have not been blown away by the wind, gift paper and string rotted through by the constant rain. Jimmy has a fresh bunch in his hand—pink fuchsias, their scent tickling at him as he bends and puts them down. He's not sure why he bothers, why he still sticks so closely to convention when he is a delusional madman out of a job, possibly a marriage, with a dead daughter and the fading memories of a millennia-old angel in his head. That kind of baggage tends to put things in perspective.
They are Claire's favorite; perhaps that is reason enough.
No one will ever know, he died the death that should have been his for a world that wouldn't ever know and would call him crazy if he ever tried to tell the truth. She deserves so much more. Not dead flowers and a broken man and a broken angel, or a Heaven with a PR he has reason to doubt.
He catches movement at the corner of his eye and pushes himself to his feet, half-expecting to find Claire again, despite Castiel's assurances still ringing in his ears. Instead it's Luke, a familiar shadow in black among the gravestones. For a moment the past overwhelms him and they are children playing hide and seek behind the stone angels and leaning crosses, much to the scandal and amazement of their parents. Then it's gone, swept away by the broad line of Luke's shoulders coming into focus, the high collar pressing against his neck.
"Jimmy," the pastor calls. "I happened to see you passing by and thought I should speak to you. It's been some time…" His voice ends in an upward lilt, a question waiting for an answer.
Jimmy listens and hears nothing but gentle compassion in his old friend's voice. Compassion comes as easily to Luke as a practiced flick of the wrist to a seasoned dart-thrower, old and comfortable like a well-worn glove. He is secure in his faith in God, the love of his family and the surety of his future and Jimmy longs for the warmth of that comfort with an intensity that closes like a choker around his throat.
"Yeah, well." Jimmy shoves his hands into the pockets of his coat; an old tan trench that a relative with a fetish for detective novels had given him some years past, claiming that he totally rocked the noir look. Jimmy has little opinion either way; he feels cold and needs a coat. He always feels cold, now, ever since an angel had shrugged him on like a goddamned suit and left the touch of its grace burned into his bones like a brand. "Things haven't been so good. You know that."
Luke's face grows somber; he'd conducted the funeral services for Roger and Susan as well. Jimmy remembers their eyes flashing open, the impenetrable blackness in them, the crazy laughter as he'd smashed a golf club against his best friend's skull. He will never forget the muted crack of breaking bone, the broad bloodstained grin of the demon. His body shivers, involuntarily, his hands curving around the memory of the grip, the heft and the fatal strike.
"I do," Luke says quietly. "That's why I want to help you. I can't do that if you hole yourself up in the house." He pauses. "It's good to see you here, Jimmy. She'd like it if you visited more often."
Jimmy barely holds back the smirk crawling around the edges of his mouth; it wouldn't be fair to Luke, safe and ignorant in the dark. Instead he gestures at the empty grave before him and says, "I don't want to see this. I want to see heragain."
Luke doesn't say, "The body was never found," which is why he is one of the few people Jimmy can stand talking to these days without turning tail to flee. He places one companionable hand on Jimmy's shoulder, standing close enough for his body heat to seep through the fabric of Jimmy's coat. "You will again, someday," he says.
Jimmy shakes his head. "Will I?" he murmurs.
The angle of Luke's brows takes on a curious slant. "You're a good man, Jimmy," he says gently, despite his surprise. "You deserve to find happiness, in the next life if not in this one."
I murdered a man in cold blood, Jimmy almost says. I said no to an angel, I renounced God a thousand times over and cursed His name. Because…
"I keep asking why," he says. Why Claire, she was just a child. Why my father, my mother, my brother, my sister. Why. The refrain of the countless and the devoted, prayers rising on wings of faith numerous enough to blot out the sun. I hear and will answer your desire to serve, Castiel had told him, back when he had still been naive enough to believe. But God's angels will not, cannot answer him now. He has sinned, he has been wronged against. Jimmy no longer knows.
"In light of this tragedy, your doubts are hardly criminal." Luke pushes a hand through his dark hair, the movement passing a shadow over his eyes. Tension hangs between them, treacherous as a minefield. 'I was very fond of Claire myself."
Please, help me. Say something to make this go away. Jimmy swallows around the words that demand to make themselves heard, holding them behind his gritted teeth like a wall.
Sometime during the conversation they have started walking, retracing the paths of their childhood antics. Jimmy sees the gates of the cemetery in the distance, turning his wandering feet to that direction and Luke falls into step with him, shoulder bumping against his. For all that physical closeness, the time and distance between them feels like an unbridgeable chasm, the man of faith and the man of slipping faith. Each sideways glance of Luke's eyes feels like an accusation.
"You should let me help you," Luke says at last, jolting Jimmy, but he's actually talking about something else. "You can't pack up everything all by yourself. Amelia…"
"She needed to get away for a while," Jimmy says. "The house…it holds too many memories."
"What about you, Jimmy?" the pastor asks.
Jimmy had walked into and out of Claire's room for two weeks, barely touching anything. To box up the debris and clutter of her life, to dismantle piece by piece the ghost of her and stuff it away into some dusty attic…feels too much like sacrilege. She had left everything as it was for a reason; she had wanted to come home.
"I have to do this," he says. It's my penance.
That night Jimmy dreams of Claire again, sitting on the mattress by his side, her hand on his forehead like a benediction.
Jimmy says to her, "I owe you an apology, baby girl."
Mutely, she shakes her head.
"It should have been me in your place," Jimmy argues, desperate for some reaction, some spark even if it's hatred to give life to her shadowed face. He wants her to blame him. He wants to drown in his guilt, breathe it through into his lungs until it's part of him, like his flesh, his blood. "You're the one who should have lived."
"Don't," she interrupts, covering his mouth briefly. Every word is slow and pitched oddly soft as though she is speaking through a mouthful of molasses. "I won't blame you. Cass fooled both of us, Dad."
Jimmy looks her in the eye. "He said that I was the only one for him."
She smiles back, tiredly. In the light coming through the part in the curtains he can see the vivid red stain of blood in her teeth. "Sounds familiar."
Jimmy reaches up and rests one hand on hers. The cold radiating from her blazes the lines of her fingers against his. "How did you die, Claire? Was Castiel telling the truth?"
"Yes," she says. "He would know. We died together; one flash of light and then goodbye, world." She smiles sadly. "Worse ways to go."
"Castiel isn't dead," Jimmy corrects. "I just spoke to him."
"He was. God brought him back."
Jimmy is stunned, breath leaving him as surely as he'd been punched in the gut. "But not you?"
She shrugs, examining their joined hands with excessive interest.
"He could have done it," Jimmy says. He repeats it, feeling dull anger pool in his stomach, the stirring of something dark and ugly as molten tar. "Nothing is beyond the power of God."
"Dad," Claire whispers, fear forming over her face like a mask. "What are you saying? What are you doing?"
"I…"
And he wakes up to the sound of the front door slamming open, hand still stretched before him, reaching for a ghost.
There is a familiar figure in the living room, gathering hair away from her face where the wind had tossed it in long, messy curls. Jimmy stays on the stairs for a long moment, looking at the light picking out the yellow of her hair, gilding the graceful curve of her neck. He loves her, he knows this as well as the beat of his own heart. But the words they have said and the deeds they have done have given that love its own shadow like a dividing line between them. Sometimes it feels easier to simply walk away, and pick up the shards of his life somewhere else.
I said no to an angel. For you.
"Amelia." Jimmy descends the rest of the way. "You're back early." There's supposed to be a couple more days before her return; a couple more days of breathing space to figure out where they stand with each other. "Is there something wrong?"
"You're shaking," Amelia observes, running one hand down his arm. Her eyes are filled with concern. "Should I be asking you that question?"
"I…" Jimmy shudders, rolling his shoulders as if he can actually shrug off his many burdens. There's a lead weight in the back of his head, the pulsing beginnings of a truly bad headache. "It's nothing. Just a bad dream."
"It doesn't look like just a dream." Amelia pulls him forward, one cool palm pressing against his forehead. Jimmy closes his eyes and revels in the touch, dropped so casually, as if there is still something in the broken mess of their marriage worth salvaging. They have to talk, sooner or later. But for now he will take what he can get.
"I should have come back sooner," Amelia says, warm breath welling against the hollow of his neck. "There's something I need to tell you. Something important." He tenses, and she notices immediately, pulling away with a reassuring smile. "Don't worry, it's good news."
"What is it?"
Her smile widens. "You first."
"Me?" Without quite meaning to, a bitter laugh slips out of him. "Nothing worth mentioning."
"Liar," she says gently, to take the sting out of her words. "You realized something significant, didn't you? Just now?"
He stares at her.
She leans forward, taking his head in both hands and touching her temple against his. "Jimmy," she says, confidingly, as though sharing a secret, "You're still dreaming."
Darkness falls over them like a shroud. Disoriented, he wrenches out of his wife's grip, watching with wariness the color of her eyes. "What are you?" he gasps.
Amelia lowers her eyes demurely. "I'm yours."
Jimmy, backing away, sits down as something hard hits the back of his legs. His hands sink into something soft. A bed. Claire's bed, Claire's room, her relics and mementos scattered around them. He fights for his breathing to steady as Amelia clicks over to the window and throws open the curtain, allowing the morning to invade the room. Dust motes glitter gold in the air.
"What are you doing, Jimmy?" Amelia asks, the same question as Claire had asked—if she was ever real, or more likely some conjured illusion designed to mess with his mind. "What are you living for?"
"That's…" Jimmy swallows, doesn't look at her—it, whatever. "That's none of your business."
"You're mine." Amelia leans on the windowsill and smiles. "It's every bit my business."
Jimmy looks up sharply from where he's been digging his nails into his palm, trying to wake himself without too much success. "I've heard that before."
"Yes. I'll save you the spiel—how you're special, so on and so forth. Though you are, there's no shame in it." His face lights up in horrified comprehension and she nods. "That's right, Jimmy. I'm an angel."
"But not just any angel," she adds. "My name is Lucifer. I'm sure you've heard of me."
"…What?" Jimmy says weakly, the conversation having just taken a turn for the surreal. He feels suddenly disconnected, unmoored from the safe harbor of reality. "Okay, now I know I'm really dreaming."
"I'm afraid not." Amelia—Lucifer?—hops off the sill and approaches, and Jimmy shrinks back, pressing his back into the wall. "I've been freed, Jimmy, I'm in this world. My war against God will soon begin in earnest. Unfortunately, I first need a vessel. That happens to be…you."
A hundred responses run through Jimmy's mind, starting with punching Lucifer in the eye to calling for Castiel. Unfortunately, he is pretty sure that any of those reactions would end up with someone getting squashed like a bug. "Why tell me all this?" he asks. "It's not as if I can stop you." Unbidden, the memory unfolds; silence and stillness, Castiel's wings enfolding him, the movement of grace like gentle hands over him. The last moments of peace he would ever enjoy for a long time to come.
"I am an angel, still," Lucifer reminds him. "I need your permission."
"Are you serious?" Jimmy can't help a startled laugh. "In that case, what on earth makes you think I'll ever say yes?"
"I asked you before," Lucifer says. "What you were living for."
He sits down beside Jimmy, their knees touching. Jimmy wishes that Lucifer had chosen anything other than Amelia's appearance. His body reacts to hers, her familiar shape and scent. It's been too long since they were last physically close.
"I don't know," Jimmy is driven to admit. "But angels and demons…this stupid war…I don't want anything to do with it anymore. That's what I do know."
"Really?" Lucifer arches a brow. "If that's true, I'm disappointed in you, Jimmy. I thought you a better father…far more worthy than mine, at any rate." He smiles as he says this, a dangerous light in his eyes. "You're trying to forget about your daughter."
"That's not true!" Jimmy shouts, anger almost overcoming his reason. "Everything I did…was for her. I can't even go through one day without…" He shudders.
"You've been asking questions," Lucifer says. "And you have an answer: God doesn't care. You know it's true, Jimmy. That's why He brought Castiel back and left Claire dead, because she wasn't needed anymore." He whispers into Jimmy's ear, "If you want to remember your daughter, remember this truth. And if it's what you want…if you say yes…I can give you justice."
The rage slips away from Jimmy, slowly, the wind leaving his sails to leave him stranded and alone in the water. "What about Claire? Can you give her back to me?" he asks, his voice sounding small and plaintive in the silence of the empty house.
"I'm sorry. That's not within my power." Lucifer sounds genuinely sympathetic. "But we can face God together, Jimmy, we can have the answers you want. The next best thing."
Jimmy's hands clench around the soft fabric of Claire's comforter. He remembers the empty grave, the flowers, the cardboard boxes downstairs, Castiel in Claire's body, thief and invader both. I am not your daughter. The light pouring into her, burying her by degrees, until there is nothing left and she walks away, leaving him behind.
Amelia, doing the same thing just days later, walking out of the house. Let go. You can't blame yourself forever.
And she is right. I can't.
"Then yes," Jimmy says. "Come right in."
Lucifer smiles brilliantly—bright white light shining from his eyes and mouth. "Thank you, Jimmy."
The light explodes outwards, taking on the shape of vast wings. Jimmy falls back, shielding his eyes. The air he sucks in is cold as the heart of winter, burning the tissue of his lungs with frost. He coughs once, twice, as hands thread through his hair with surprising gentleness and tilt his head back, Amelia's lips soft against his.
Then Lucifer's wings snap shut, and everything goes white.
-end-
Ending Notes: Amazingly against the odds I got this story done. It's been some time since I managed that achievement and I hope it's a good omen for my other writing projects. I know I've been bending the angel/vessel rules a lot but this probably takes the cake, heh. What's next? Jimmy/Raphael? =P