A S9-Au where Cas remained human for a longer period of time and struggles to find something to give him comfort. So he turns to daydreaming...
DayDream
The first thing Castiel learns about himself as a human is that he can survive.
He scrapes by when Dean asks him to leave, trying to ignore that weight of betrayal. Everything he's done for him and Sam, and Dean won't explain why suddenly he is a liability to the bunker. He lets the ex-angel go and lends him five hundred dollars, with a promise to forward him any cash he needs. It doesn't help the way it is done. Castiel can't ignore how much that hurts when he had looked forward to being near his friends. To having at least two people in this world who won't want him dead.
He settles a few cities over, not having much money to get further away from them all. He finds a job, nothing complicated, at an old antique store so he can hide. He wanted to do something more complex, but at least with books and antiques he can hide himself. The older man he works for is arthritic but kindhearted, and Castiel's knowledge of dead languages endears him immediately.
It's when he finally has enough to move into his own apartment, when he starts to indulge in this human lifestyle, that he learns something else about himself.
He likes to day dream.
Silly really. Angels weren't created for imagination but for purpose. But God, how he likes these moments of respite from the boring everyday life of being a mundane human.
He thinks he sees her when he's bored after dinner, when he is sitting out back in the fire-escape leading from his ratty apartment and pretending for a second he could fly wherever he wants. A blonde woman walks underneath with a friend, dressed in leather and denim, and he stares. He pictures her looking up and a smirk parting a wide mouth when she sees him.
It isn't hard to pretend he can even hear her voice yelling out, "Clarence!"
He has to shake himself because the blonde looks nothing like her when she does look up and he's sure she was yelling at him to mind his own business. But it's such a strong reminder that Castiel quickly shuffles back in to his apartment and christens it with his first full bottle of cheap vodka.
After downing the full bottle and more than a few nightmares about falling, he wakes up with a hangover that reminds him why that much alcohol is now a poor choice. Lying face down on the couch, stomach rolling around and his head killing him, this latest hangover has Castiel cursing everything it is to be human. His vision hurts, hell everything hurts right now, and he's angry. Angry that he has nothing to give him the slightest comfort now and he prays for just fragment of that old life back. Even as an angel he had never felt this worn out.
This empty inside.
That's when he thinks of something and thinks he hears breathing besides his own. His head lifts a little and though he knows its probably the pillow under his head he pictures something warmer cradling his head now. Something more inviting than shabby material that smells of alcohol and must. Strong fingers pull through his hair, nails trace in slow scratches on his scalp, so that his body relaxes on its own. Castiel groans and turns around so he can feel the warm softness of a stomach against his cheek. He can hear, so clearly, a low laugh rumbling in his ears.
"Oh, Clarence. This human thing isn't working out for you, huh?"
It's her voice and, Heaven, it is so clear.
He doesn't lift his head away because he knows he is just daydreaming so he doesn't feel so lonely. "Dean said you were dead."
"Did you cry me a river or two?"
"I'm not sure I know how yet." His fingers lift, feeling nothing but air, but he imagines he can feel her hands pushing into the collar of his shirt. "But I…"
"Mm." When he looks up she is there. His vision of her is a little hazy, a little blurred at the edges, but she is how he remembers her long ago, this time with that dark hair and red lips curved in a wicked smile.
"How are you here?" he asks and Meg chuckles.
"Never had one dirty fantasy about me? I'm hurt."
He knows immediately what she means. "I… I…"
"Learn a thing or two? I should definitely be on your fantasy file then as a practice run for all those dirty human thoughts you are bound to have," she says smugly and he has to laugh, actually laugh because there is something so genuine about her now that feels good to talk to.
He passes out when he goes to kiss her and wakes up alone in his cold living room.
The next night he waits for his brain to slip between consciousness and dreaming and like magic she is there in his bed. Naked and wrapped in his ratty sheets as if she belongs there, as if she was born to make an imprint in his mattress, and he can't stop staring at her. Dark curls kiss her pale shoulders as she rolls on top of him and he keeps his hands at his sides, terrified that if he touches her she'll disappear again.
"Daydreams, Clarence. It's only when you fall asleep that I'm not here," she offers and he shakes his head.
"You're there. I just didn't realize how close I've kept you."
This time he lets the vision kiss him and Meg's mouth tastes bittersweet, exactly how he remembers it. He lets this fantasy carry through, not caring how hard and aching it makes him now. Not caring that when he wakes up from this he'll be coated in sweat and alone.
It's when the daydreams start to slip into everyday life that he wonders if he's haunted. But then he dismisses that. That would be stupid to think. He hasn't had enough people die in his time as a human to be haunted.
It is just so easy to feel her with him. He takes her with him on his lunches to the park, where he people-watches and he can hear her snarky jokes and he's aware of the bizarre looks he gets when he talks back to her. Meg follows him into the antique store and reads to him as he works. Sometimes he sits down at a coffee shop and she's there, tucked under his arm reading one of those ridiculous magazines of hers. Other times he just keeps her all to himself in his apartment, sleeping against her phantom body and pretending for a moment he can have something of his own.
Maybe it is because the fantasy is so easy to accept that he ignores reality for a while.
Eventually he remembers that he should meet other humans, that this isn't healthy, so he tries to stop. But his awkwardness around women at times makes it hard to let a fantasy life go. He can be happy, hiding in this little world of his.
He goes on for a month or so without noticing his life changing until one night Meg seems to stiffen up and react in pain. She actually cries out in pain when he holds her and he feels it acutely as if it part of him. She disappears just as quickly and he misses her so much that he cries for her.
He had never cried before.
It is four nights before she comes back, before his imagination seems to obey him to let her come into his existence.
"You just have to say the word," Meg says that night as she holds him in the bathtub, his back pressed to her front with her leg hooked around his waist. The warm water makes him sleepy enough that this daydream is easy to bring into existence. He watches her toes play with the faucet and, God, it is good just to feel that phantom touching him. It even hurts to envision losing this. "This isn't what we call a healthy fixation, Clarence."
"Did you learn that term when you were a nurse? You never told me what you learned then." He can feel her stiffen up and when he turns around, arms braced on the ceramic so he can look down at her, her eyes are wide. "What's wrong?"
Her grin appears as if to dismiss his question. "Why are you so sweet on me still? Even if I am just some fantasy you've cooked up to convince yourself you aren't alone?"
"Because I like how you made me feel something besides loyalty and duty, for a while." It is hard to hold back when he's waited days for this and he sinks into her warmth with a slow roll of his hips, hears her gasp as water sloshes out of the tub. This should be embarrassing, because he knows this isn't real, but he lives alone. Who will ever know what he does?
It is getting strange, Castiel thinks in the morning as he dresses, but when he lay with her in the tub, she actually felt so real as their bodies moved together. So real he had forgotten she was just a trick of his mind.
Dean's unexpected phone call, offering him a place, makes Castiel hesitate. He wants to go back, to be with his friends and family but he can't. He's tired, and he's angry still. He's been safe here for so long. Three months now and he doesn't want to go back to that world yet.
When he says no, Castiel can feel Meg's arms curl around his neck as he hangs up the phone. He can feel her teeth graze his ear and it feels so good to let go of his cell phone.
"Heat up that pizza and let's do some redecorating."
There's nothing to do but laugh. Castiel lets the fantasy go to where they actually eat pizza together and in the next heartbeat she is up against the wall, crying out his name. So loud that the neighbours shout at him and his new friend to keep it down and he wonders how they knew he was 'with' someone. Maybe he is getting too into this fantasy and his moans in his dreaming state are too loud.
He dreams her up again in the shower and he lets his imagination turn to naughtier things than he ever dreamed possible. But between those lonely nights he spends, daydreaming of ways he could be with her, he's acquired a taste for everything it is to be human. Picturing Meg doing inane things with him is so ridiculous that getting her to scrub his back seems hilarious and he laughs before believing that he can feel her skin under his lips when scrubbing turns to a sexual fantasy. He can taste her and feel her all around him, and he cries in need because he wants so badly for this to be real.
Castiel has to mop up her footprints when she leaves his shower and she is gone by the time he makes it to his bedroom to slump down in an exhausted heap.
He doesn't think about it until the next day when he is making coffee. It's just a little thought, stupid really, but the more it lingers the more it makes such sense.
The noise of the neighbours.
The way she left footprints behind.
The way she tasted so real last night.
The pot crashes the floor and he walks on glass, feeling it splinter into the soles of his feet but he doesn't care. He leaves bloody footprints on his carpet and stumbles over his laundry to see her standing at his dresser, a knife in her hand. The actual woman. Nothing he dreamed up. He hadn't even really been thinking on her that hard this morning so why was she here now?
Her head tilts up and she lifts a hand to show him the blood weeping from a cut she has made.
Everything in him holds still, takes a pause to try to figure out why this has happened. He nearly forgets to breathe.
"What did you do, Castiel?" she asks when he stands in front of her. When he touches her chest gently, he can actually feel her heart pound. It's not just in his head; he's lucid enough at all times to know the difference between his dreams and reality.
If he was an angel, he would have rejected what has happened, but right now he can only cup her face and lead her, naked, to his bed to sit.
"Stay here," he orders and he picks up his phone and dials. Dean sounds so happy to hear his voice but he asks for Sam instead, ignoring Dean's hurt in favour of getting fast answers. "I have someone you need to talk to."
Meg glares at him. "I don't want…"
"What the hell, is that Meg?"
"You can hear her?" Castiel asks and he can hear Sam stammering out a yes but it doesn't matter when he hangs up on him. He tosses the phone, ignores it as it buzzes with an incoming call, in favour of kneeling at Meg's feet so he can stare at her.
"Tulpa," he mutters and he sees her blink a few times. "You're… you're a thought given life. It must be what I was, some after effect. Or I just wanted you badly enough to be here."
He strokes her leg and Meg looks puzzled, confused by what he's called her.
"I was wondering why you were so much the same but not exact. You only have my memories of you, of what you were and how you were like. Am I right? What do you remember?"
"The hospital, the kiss in the compound, the Holy Fire… that's it." She sounds stressed and for the first time he feels such responsibility for her.
"I recreated you."
"Why?" There's a snap to her voice and when he cups her face she holds still. "Why would you do this for a demon?"
"Because I need you."
It takes three days, as this version of Meg relearns things, before she touches him of her own will again. Just a touch but it makes him believe all the harder in her existence.
A week passes before they share a bed again, though he says it is just for warmth. He helps her with the benefit of his own newfound knowledge, and he wonders if there is any way to give her all of her memories. This thought-come-to-life just watches him though, adapts to this change, and slowly he sees fragments of Meg's true personality shine through. The sarcasm, the fierceness, the protectiveness; that's the demon he remembered though this tulpa will never be purely her. So close to a rebirth that he wonders why God would let this happen.
She is unusual enough that they know hunters might come for her if they ever learn of her.
Meg even points it out one night as he turns off the lights, a strangely domestic scene as he checks the locks for the tenth time and makes sure she has the space heater on her side of the room.
"They'll kill me. Hunters are a stab first, ask questions later crowd. Even you know that."
"I'll stay with you. They won't find you and they won't hurt you," he vows as he watches her slip into the bed. When he joins her Castiel says it again and, just like the true Meg, she rolls her eyes and turns away from him.
He actually prefers the fantasy version sometimes when this one just rolls away from him. He falls asleep staring at the back of her head and wanting to touch her. But he keeps his hands to himself and falls asleep with the words slipping past his lips
When he wakes up to find her leaning down on an elbow beside him, Castiel almost forgets to breathe at the look in her dark eyes. Their bodies are warm where they are pressed together and she stares down at him, dark hair in a wavy cloud about her head and her lower lip being bitten.
"What's wrong? You can't sleep?" he asks and she nods. Lifting his hand, so slowly to not spook her, he thumbs a dark curl and watches her eyes close for a second.
"It'd be easy to get rid of me," Meg offers finally. "This can't be a good side, Clarence, wanting me bad enough to create your illusion into reality. Just forget me as a thought and we're good to roll."
"If I don't?" He can't keep the challenge out of his voice and her eyebrow arches.
"Then this is till you die."
"Then stay. I don't want you to go."
It's the closest he can come to a declaration right now and he watches the creation's eyes flicker a little as the weight of his words anchor her into reality even further. Suddenly that hollow pit that had been inside of him, that had been there since his fall, leaves him.
For several long minutes, they can stare at each other before Castiel sits up and she moves off his body. But with his hand holding hers she only moves so far and he can feel all of her body shudder when he presses against her. This time when he kisses her neck, he feels the skin move as she swallows, tastes something like soap and sweat and he lingers on the flavours for a minute.
Reality tastes so much better than his fantasies and when he feels her breathe his name in his ear, he forgets to be lonely.