A/N: This is End!verse, so there will be a lot of swearing and drug use/abuse throughout this fic. There is one brief sexual scene in the second chapter, and a long, explicit sex scene at the end. As per this site's rules, I am going to cut both sex scenes out of this version of the fic (I know I have a few sexy scenes in my other fics, but this is quite a bit more explicit than anything else I've written, and I'd rather not get banned). If you want to read the full version, it is posted at my Livejournal here (just take out the spaces): http :/wallmakerrelict .livejournal .com /23167. html
Tell me the one about twenty-fourteen
In the fast-closing gap between Heaven and Hell
Where a once-righteous man came apart at the seams
And two brothers in arms held his hands as they fell
Dean would never admit it, but he always slept best when Cas spent the night. When they'd first arrived at Camp Chitaqua, there had been no talk of living together. They weren't fucking married, after all. Dean had claimed his cabin and Cas had settled into his. They were far enough from each other that they had their own space, and close enough that either one of them could easily close the gap when they wanted a little intimacy. It worked. But on those nights that Cas didn't feel like making the short walk back to his own cabin, when he dozed off in Dean's bed wearing an expression of post-coital bliss, Dean sometimes wished that he could spend every night in Cas's arms.
So when Dean blinked himself awake that night, the eastern horizon just beginning to lighten, to find Cas not by his side, he immediately felt the loss. Dean tipped his head up and found Cas sitting on the edge of the bed, his bare feet on the cold wooden floor, his body rigid. Even though Dean could only make out a silhouette, he could see in the angles of Cas's profile that something was wrong.
Dean ran his hand down Cas's arm. Cas didn't move. "Bad dream?" Dean asked.
Cas finally turned, slowly, and looked at Dean. His voice sounded very far away when he said, "I have to go."
"What?" said Dean, but Cas was already on his feet and heading for the door. Cursing under his breath, Dean rolled out of the warm sheets, grabbed his jacket off the back of a chair, and followed Cas outside into the cold morning air. "Where the hell are you going?" Dean called after him.
Cas didn't break stride as he made his way toward the fleet of trucks. "Don't worry, Dean," he said without turning, "I'll be right back."
"Aren't you even gonna get dressed?" Besides the coat Dean had grabbed, they were both in nothing but their boxers.
This time Cas didn't even answer. He got into one of the trucks, fished the key out of the center console, fired it up, and drove away.
Dean was too baffled to even begin to stop him. He stood there in the wet grass, shivering, and listened to the sound of the truck's engine fade into the distance. "Son of a bitch," he sighed.
Dean didn't tell anyone that Cas had gone. It wasn't unusual for Cas to sleep entire days away, so no one really noticed that he was missing. Unwilling to worry anyone, Dean silently fretted all morning and into the afternoon over where Cas might have gone and whether or not he should go after him.
"Something wrong?" asked Chuck as he fiddled with one of their radios. It was lunchtime, and Risa was handing out cans of food. Many of them were missing their labels.
Dean worked open his mystery meal with a pocket knife as he replied, "Why do you ask?" The top of the can peeled away. Peaches. He handed the open can to Chuck with a grimace and edged back into line for a different one.
Chuck glanced at the can of peaches in his hand and shrugged. "You seem even more scowly than usual," he said. And then, as the radio crackled to life, "Oh! Hey!"
A few people abandoned their places in line to huddle around the radio, their hunger for contact with the outside world momentarily outweighing their hunger for food. For several minutes there was nothing but short bursts of speech breaking through the static, but eventually Chuck managed to make it listenable.
…early this morning. Projections indicate that the meteorite likely landed near Monmouth, Illinois. Experts are calling the circumstances of the impact 'anomalous,' though it remains to be seen…
Dean scoffed as he picked up a new can of food and returned to the group by the radio. "We finally pick up a clear signal and it's the fucking Weather Channel? Turn it off."
Chuck ignored him. "Monmouth isn't too far from here," he said.
Something began to itch at the back of Dean's brain, as though it were telling him that there was something important that he hadn't quite put together. He brushed the feeling aside and said, "So what? Are you gonna go looking for it?" He opened his new can as he walked outside, leaving the sounds of the radio behind. Beans. He always ended up with beans. But there was no one left to trade with, so he fashioned the lid into a spoon and began to eat.
Cas came back just as the sun was beginning to go down. The roar of the approaching truck engine made everyone who heard it freeze uncertainly, except for Dean, who breathed a sigh of relief. "It's okay!" he shouted to his nervous soldiers, "It's Cas."
He went to meet the truck at the gate. Cas beamed at him through the open window. Each truck was equipped with shock blankets, and he had draped one around his bare shoulders like a cape. "Hello, Dean," he said.
Dean found it very hard to stay mad when Cas was smiling like that. "Where the fuck have you been?" he demanded, even as his lips curled up to match.
As Cas parked the truck, half a dozen onlookers came up behind Dean to find out what was going on. Cas hopped out and jogged purposefully around to the passenger-side door. Then, all at once, Dean and the others realized that Cas had not come alone.
Seven side arms left their holsters in an instant. "Cas!" Dean warned, his pistol pointed at the ground but ready to raise at the slightest provocation, "What the fuck do you think you're doing, bringing someone here? You know the rules. What if they're infected?"
Heedless of the guns pointed his way, Cas opened the door and helped his passenger down to the ground. It was a slight, dark-haired man. He was also wrapped in a shock blanket, but he looked to be completely naked underneath it. He peered around at the camp and the crowd curiously. He seemed a little dazed, as if he had just woken up. Cas's hand rested comfortably at the small of the man's back, and he was gazing at him fondly.
"I assure you that he poses no danger," said Cas, "This is Inias. He is an angel."
After a long, tense moment, Dean turned to the people behind him and gave them a nod. One by one, they put away their weapons. Dean did the same as he approached Cas and Inias, both of whom were staring at him mildly, as if there were nothing strange going on at all.
Dean sighed, giving in to the absurdity of the day. "Okay," he said, "Fine. Now will you two please put some pants on?"
Cas took Inias back to his cabin and put him to bed, where he proceeded to sleep for two days straight. Cas abstained from his usual schedule of drugs, drugs, booze, and more drugs in order to keep watch over him. Dean brought Cas food on the first day of his vigil and found him slouched in a chair, his elbows on his knees, staring at Inias's sleeping face like he was trying to work out a great puzzle.
"Hungry?" said Dean, and Cas jerked at the sound of his voice, startled.
Then he smiled. "Thanks, fearless leader," he said, taking the can of chili that Dean was offering him. Dean had opened six cans to find one that contained some form of beef.
Inias's face was serene and his body motionless. "Is he gonna be okay?" said Dean.
Cas nodded and shrugged at the same time. "There's no manual for this," he said, "But you remember how much I slept when the other angels first left. It's difficult, being cut off from Heaven. It takes a while to get used to it."
Dean sat on the floor at the foot of the bed, angling himself so he could see both Cas and Inias. "So," he said, "He's like you? Cut off? I mean, Heaven didn't send him to drag you back, right?"
"No," said Cas, his voice becoming quieter and sadder with each word, "There is no more free passage between Heaven and Earth. In order to get here, Inias must have thrown himself out of the sky, knowing that there would be no return. He is an angel now, but his grace will fade just as mine did. He will become like me."
Dean and Cas both glanced at Inias, almost as if they expected him to wake up. When Dean finally looked away, he asked, "Why do you think he did it?"
"I haven't the slightest idea," said Cas.
The next day, Dean brought more food only to find that Cas had shoved a dresser crossways in a corner of the room and fallen asleep curled up in the triangular nook behind it. When Dean tried to wake him, he only giggled uncontrollably for five minutes before falling back to sleep, so Dean took up the watch over Inias and ate all the food out of spite. It was beans again. It was always beans.
Though he tried to keep his eyes on his string beans, Dean soon found himself gazing at Inias's sleeping face. Dean hadn't ruled out the possibility that Inias was a spy, but the longer he watched him the less likely it seemed. With his floppy hair and dark-ringed eyes, Inias looked even less like an angel of the Lord than Cas ever had. He looked tired. Not for the first time, Dean wondered what could possibly make an angel choose to fall, to give up an eternity in Heaven for a few measly decades on a dying Earth.
A few measly decades, that is, if you didn't get killed before that.
Dean was so deep in thought that when Inias suddenly opened his eyes, Dean almost dropped his can of beans. Very calmly, as if he had just been napping, Inias brushed the bangs out of his face, sat up, and studied Dean curiously. "Where is Castiel?" he asked.
"Uhhh…" said Dean. He considered telling Inias that Cas was behind the dresser, but somehow he thought that Cas might like to make a better impression on his old friend than that. "He'll be back soon. He left me to look after you."
"Oh," said Inias as he took in the one-room cabin. His eyes flicked here and there uncertainly. "Where am I?" he finally asked.
It hadn't been Dean's plan to babysit a fallen angel today, but there wasn't much he could do about it now that Inias was awake and there was no one else lining up for the job. "Camp Chitaqua," he said, "Come on. I'll show you around."
It wasn't until Inias stood up that Dean realized that Cas had put him to bed the day before without giving him any clothes. Dean spun around and faced the wall, saying, "Pants! First, pants!"
Fucking angels.
Introducing Inias to the Chitaqua crowd had been a little awkward, but people had warmed up to him once they were sure that he wasn't a demon or a Croat. By the time it started to get dark, they had even put together a little welcome party for the newcomer complete with a bonfire and food that hadn't come directly out of a can. For once in a very long time, there was an air of happiness in the camp.
"Hey, 'Nias!" said Yeager. He had been picking at his guitar for the last half-hour, and now he held it out to Inias. "Play us something."
Inias took the guitar as if it were made of glass and said, "I don't know how."
"You're an angel, right?" said Dean, who was a little tipsy by that point, "Isn't it just like playing a harp?"
"I don't know how to play a harp either," said Inias, clearly confused, "But this is an interesting instrument." He turned the guitar over in his hands twice, and then settled it on his lap slightly askew. He plucked at each string, and then again, walking his fingers up each fret. He listened to every note that the guitar could play, and he did it so purposefully that no one said a word in the meantime.
Once Inias had completed his examination of the guitar, he nodded to himself in satisfaction and suddenly began to play.
Inias played guitar like no one else had ever played guitar. All at the same time, he picked notes, he strummed chords, he pinged out harmonics, and he even plucked at the short lengths of string between the nut and the tuning keys. He drummed on the body and tuned the strings up and down as he went, all so quickly that it seemed as though his hands were flying. At first it sounded like nothing but noise, and there was a collective wince, but soon the dissonant notes began to resonate and music began to well up through the cacophony. It didn't sound like a guitar being played. It didn't sound like anything of this Earth. Dean felt his teeth rattle with the power of it, the way Cas's true voice had once shaken his bones. This was the music of the angels, somehow reproduced in a way that humans could just barely appreciate.
The music hadn't been going on long before the door to the cabin cracked open and Cas emerged. He was rubbing his eyes and blinking owlishly, but when he saw Inias there, illuminated by the fire, his hands dancing over the steel strings of the guitar, Cas suddenly came wide awake. He walked toward the fire as if in a trance, swaying so dramatically in time to the music that he was almost stumbling, and the way his lips moved around each note made Dean think that Cas must have known all the words to this song.
Cas wound his way up to the fire. Inias played, his eyes closed and his face full of emotion. Dean was about to call out to Inias that Cas was there, but then the song abruptly ended and Inias turned around as if he had sensed Cas coming all along. Which, Dean supposed, he probably had.
"Hello, brother," said Inias. He said the words the way he had played the guitar, with oceans of meaning behind every syllable.
"Inias," Cas whispered.
For a moment, Dean thought the two would embrace, but the way they looked at each other it was almost as if they had no need for physical contact. Cas held Inias's gaze so intensely that Dean was sure they must be having an entire telepathic conversation.
And then, as if they had said all that needed to be said, Cas sat down next to Inias – so close that their knees and elbows were almost touching, but not quite – and Inias began to play a new song.