From the Under Side Now
expression is the need of my soul
i was once a vers libre bard
but i died and my soul went into the body of a cockroach
it has given me a new outlook upon life
i see things from the under side now…
archy
Castiel, angel of the Lord, who once lifted the Righteous Man from perdition, sat at the edge of the motel bed and turned a critical eye on the bottle of vodka in his hands. When he'd set out earlier that evening, he'd had other plans: to root out some amphetamines, maybe. There had been a girl in the last town they'd passed through—painful to look at, all skinny angles and pale skin and bad teeth—who had sold him some marijuana, then examined him for a moment and declared that what he needed was something to speed him up. Before he could get anything more from her, though, Dean had shown up and Cas'd had to pretend that he had the girl there for sex because Dean was so damn self-righteous about recreational drug use.
Unfortunately, Cas had turned this town over and had for once failed to attract the attention of the seedier underbelly; he'd had to make a last-minute dash into the liquor store before it could close, and had wound up with the cheapest shit he could find. He hefted the plastic bottle in his hands, savoring just the weight of it, before unscrewing the cap and gulping down a few mouthfuls, savoring the way it scorched his throat and made his eyes prickle.
He had been whatever he was for months now: some ragged excuse for an angel, with corrupted Grace and nowhere to go. These inexplicable resurrections marked him as special, he supposed, in the way that the Winchesters' seemingly inexplicable resurrections seemed to mark them as special; but there was no reason for it, not anymore, so all he had left to him was to wander the earth and pretend that he was content.
The door burst open just as he was screwing the cap back onto the bottle. Sam and Dean tumbled in after one another, laughing and flushed from the cold, and Cas felt some strange mixture of fondness and resentment. Dean went still at the sight of him, mouth hardening into a thin line, and Cas mentally catalogued his own appearance: grimy jeans, threadbare black thermal shirt, barefoot, hair mussed and eyes somehow preemptively bloodshot. With an inward sigh, Cas placed the bottle of vodka on the floor in a gesture of submission, and Dean entered the room slowly, glowering down at the angel.
"What the hell, man? You said that you had important shit to do. You could've been helping us hunt," said Dean, arms crossed over his chest.
Cas looked speculatively up at him, taking in the way that Dean seemed to glimmer like waves of heat off sun-scorched pavement. "I did have important things to do," said Castiel, tonelessly. "I've been sober for twenty-four hours."
For a moment, Cas was sure that Dean was going to hit him; but he didn't. Instead, he just scowled ferociously at the angel before flopping down onto the bed next to him, burying his face in the pillows. Sam looked the two of them over for a moment before rolling his eyes and muttering something under his breath, crossing the room to where his laptop was charging and hovering over it protectively.
"Well," began Cas, moving to rise from bed.
"Sit the hell down," mumbled Dean, and even though the hunter hadn't moved a muscle, Cas had the sensation of being physically grabbed and forced back down. "Unless you're going to get me pie—which I doubt, you've kind of been a selfish dick—you can hold off on trolling for drugged up little girls."
Cas squirmed uncomfortably. "She was not—little."
"Which one?" said Dean, and since he was talking into the pillow Cas couldn't tell if that tone he was using was accusatory or amused.
"Can I ask you something?" Sam's voice was sudden and unexpected, and he had that solemn look on his face that he really only got when he was about to force someone into an awkward conversation about their feelings or something. Cas could suddenly vehemently appreciate Dean's intolerance for "chick flick moments".
"No," said Cas shortly, at the same time that Dean said, "Shut up, Sam."
Unfortunately, Sam had a habit of blatantly ignoring common sense, practical advice, and muttered threats, so he just pushed on. "Cas—there's got to be something about being human that's not so bad."
"I'm not human," muttered Cas, at the same that Dean said, "He's not human." There was a moment of silence—Cas imagined that Dean was glowering into his pillow with the same frightening expression that Castiel was currently using on Sam—before Cas said again, "I'm not human." Then reluctantly, he added, "It's not bad, living here. It's different. I am trying to cope."
"You're doing a hell of a job, really," put in Dean. "But could you not molest little girls in our motel rooms?"
"Jesus, Dean, he was buying drugs," Sam said with an exasperated sigh. "Only you could be so blinded by jealous rage to not recognize a hand-off when you see one."
More awkward silence; Cas took the opportunity to fish the bottle of vodka out from under the bed, where Dean had 'accidentally' kicked it when he'd thrown himself into bed. With as little movement as possible, Cas untwisted the cap and took another mouthful; then, swallowing consideringly, he took another gulp or two for good measure. When he had screwed the lid back on, Dean—face still buried in the pillows and apparently operating on finely honed other senses—kicked out firmly with his boot and sent the bottle tumbling out of Cas's arms. Castiel grumbled a little in indignation, but at that point the vodka, combined with his empty stomach, was making him feel pleasantly warm, and he couldn't really be bothered to move.
Clearly Dean had been struggling with which part of Sam's comment to attack first; he rolled over, propping his head up on the rickety headboard and crossing his arms tightly over his chest, glowering down towards Cas. "You could be out there helping us hunt and you're buying drugs from little girls in our motel room?"
"I am trying to recover from being reduced to some half-formed thing—not even an angel, not even a human, not anything—with only fragments of the powers I once had," said Castiel, his voice more dispassionate than anything else as he gazed at the television screen. He was still trying to find it in himself to get up and retrieve his bottle of vodka. "I'm sorry if my coping offends you."
"Damn it, if you would let us try to help you—" Dean began, and then cut himself off, his scowl deepening in frustration. "Just never mind. Go out and buy drugs from little girls, if that's what's helping you cope." He said "cope" like it was a dirty word; as if he were somehow disgusted with the whole thing and wanted it to be done with immediately.
Cas made a vague grumbling sound, kicking his foot out; his toes were just shy of brushing the bottle of vodka, but Dean shifted just slightly, communicating more with that barely-there movement than Cas might have thought possible. So Cas swung his foot back onto the bed and tucked it under himself, giving Dean a well-practiced dead-eyed look over his shoulder. "Imagine being a poet or a philosopher, but you die and come back as a cockroach. That's what this is for me." And then, because of course neither of these stupid humans understand entirely what that means, and Dean was looking surprisingly hurt, Cas continued, "And you're a disgusting invincible bug, except you can look up and see that maybe you're better off as a cockroach."
"Just to be clear," said Sam, after a moment because Cas had a feeling he was trying very hard to sound entirely sympathetic and not at all amused, "we're the cockroaches in this analogy, right?"
Cas glowered at Sam—or at least, twisted his face up and tried to mentally communicate that he could probably still be capable of some smiting if he so wished it. Behind him, Dean shifted again—but Cas could recognize it as his relaxed shift, tension bleeding from his muscles as he let himself melt into the motel bed. Sometimes Cas wondered if he paid too much attention to Dean's movements; that perhaps, if he forced to live on earth, he should attempt a little normalcy.
"Yeah, well," said Dean, sort of drowsily, "the cockroaches are glad to have you."
It was Cas's turn to sleep on the floor that night: they probably could have afforded to get a second motel room, but anymore Dean had such a complex about Sam or Cas spending a night away, and very few of the places they stayed were decent enough to warrant having extra beds available for rooms. Most nights, though, Castiel didn't need to sleep; sometimes he did, and he could feel whatever bits of him that were still angelic weakening, and sometimes he didn't, and he spent all night staring at the ceiling wishing he were one thing or another. That night he curled up into the ratty sleeping bag, hoarded a pillow from each of the beds, and stared into the dusty space beneath Dean's bed, hoping that he would in fact fall asleep.
The next thing he knew, the sun was spilling painfully into the room and someone was stumbling over him on the way to the bathroom. He heard a muttered, bleary apology from Dean before the hunter trudged into the bathroom and locked the door soundly behind him; with the three of them traveling together, the arguments over who got the first shower had gotten sort of brutal, and even Dean would brave early morning if it meant beating Sam and Cas to the bathroom.
They managed to get themselves together and out of the door; Sam had decided that there was definitely a ghost terrorizing an apartment complex in a town a few hours south, and they piled into the Impala with nothing but the expectation of a simple salt and burn to distract themselves. Cas occupied the backseat with a sort of sprawling insolence—after so brief a period, he had kind of gotten used to having some semblance of a designated place in the word, even if it was sort of cramped. He settled in behind Dean and turned sideways, kicking his feet gingerly up behind Sam, with his old trench-coat folded up in a makeshift pillow to wedge behind his neck.
A few hours later—hours filled with the weirdly reassuring sound of Dean singing along badly to Led Zeppelin and Sam alternately looking broody and amused—they stopped at a gas station. The three of them piled out of the car, Dean immediately occupied with checking over his baby as Sam stretched out his legs and Cas walked a little unsteadily into the convenience store. He shivered reflexively as the blast of air conditioning cut through the thin material of his t-shirt and the ragged holes in his jeans, and then immediately felt bitter; he hated feeling the cold like this, even if it didn't affect him quite the same way that it did humans.
"Nice shirt," muttered the girl behind the register, and Cas looked at her with a distant curiosity. She looked sort of ridiculous—all badly cut black hair and thick black makeup and enough facial piercings that it was a wonder her head didn't list forward slightly—and for the most part disinterested in anything other than her copy of what Cas recognized as the latest Supernatural book.
Cas didn't bother to check the logo that he knew was splashed across his chest; the shirt was apparently a relic from one of the first concerts Dean had gone to as a teenager, and as such had some band name and tour dates spelled out in ancient flakes. "Thanks," muttered Castiel, and found himself being drawn towards the refrigerated section. There was an enormous bottle of Corona simply calling his name, promising to make up for the mysterious disappearance of his vodka—
"Cas," said Dean, his voice all authority and ringing command, but for once Castiel didn't feel irritated. He wandered back towards the counter to thumb through brightly colored bags of candy as Dean paid for gas, trying not to remind himself that Dean really had no right to scold him for his substance abuse issues, given that Dean himself was an emotionally-stunted alcoholic.
The girl put aside her book—Dean glanced at it and the corner of his mouth twitched just lightly—before ringing up the cost of the gas and the bag of Twizzlers that Dean had grabbed without Cas even having to ask for them. "Spare a quarter?" asked the girl, jerking her head so that the awkward rings in her face all jingled slightly; it took a moment for Cas to get over his vague revulsion at her body modification to look at what she was indicating. It was a large jar with a piece of paper taped messily to the side, with a grainy picture of a bright-eyed little girl.
"She's got cancer," said the girl, filling in the awkward silence as Castiel stared at the picture and Dean fidgeted. "The guy who works here nights? It's his little sister." Something undefinable softened around her face, and she touched the rim of the jar absentmindedly. In the face of Cas's silence, she babbled on: "They don't have a lot of money, you know, and his mom's an alcoholic who refuses to get a job. She's convinced that she can pray it away. Like God's gonna do shit."
Gritting his teeth, Castiel reached over and plucked Dean's wallet out of the other man's pocket, ignoring the following low sound of indignation. He pulled out a bill and dropped it unceremoniously into the jar, thrust the wallet back into Dean's hands, grabbed his bag of Twizzlers and trudged moodily back outside into the watery sunlight.
"I could have healed that child," Cas muttered, when they were back in the car, through a mouthful of sticky red candy. Sam looked mildly bewildered, but neither Dean nor Castiel felt inclined to explain. "When I was—complete. I could have healed so many of them."
"Yeah," Dean said. "You could have."
They drove on in silence.
Because Castiel still had some angelic resilience, it fell to him to distract the ghost as Dean scrambled to simultaneously burn the bones and check his younger brother for a pulse. As the ghost thundered towards Cas, the angel could only wish that he was still actually a little more angelic. Just as one meaty fist was coming down towards Cas's head, there was a flare of light from Dean's direction.
"About time," said Cas, as Sam burbled something nonsensical and dragged himself out of unconsciousness. Dean bent to check the back of Sam's head before straightening up and scowling at Castiel; he seemed to spend a disproportionate amount of his time scowling lately, and most of the time scowling at Cas specifically. For a moment, Castiel almost felt guilty. "Is he all right?"
"I'm fine," insisted Sam, wobbling into his feet and then stumbling sideways. "Just—give me a second for me to hold the wall up here." He gestured expansively at the cracked blue wallpaper with one hand and rubbed his other palm against his forehead.
Cas looked blankly at the younger Winchester and said, "Clearly for the wall's benefit."
Dean actually stopped scowling and cracked a smile; Castiel tried to himself that in no way was he ridiculously pleased about that. After a minute or two, Sam finally got his bearings; or at least, relented and let Dean and Cas grab an arm and drag him out. They made their way out of the apartment building, Dean heading immediately for the stairs because he knew that Cas had developed a thing about elevators. Castiel tried to tell himself that he was in no way touched by this either; although, really, he thought, he probably should be. Not many people would volunteer to carry their brother down four flights of stairs to save a bad-tempered ex-god angel-thing some discomfort.
Castiel threw himself into the backseat of the Impala and immediately felt something heavy dislodge from inside of his chest; as Sam settled tentatively into the passenger seat, Dean fussing over him like a mother hen, Cas turned his head just slightly to breathe in whatever lingering scent there was in the seat. He didn't know what it smelled like—he had never really paid attention to mundane smells like this before—but the fact that it was familiar and his somehow was strangely reassuring. When he looked up, Dean was looking at him oddly; for once Cas couldn't read his expression, so he just turned his face back into the seat.
"Dude," said Dean gleefully. "Please tell me that you didn't crumble and get Twitter after only a couple of months on Earth." The look on his face seemed to indicate that this was rather insincere—he had that just-found-something-to-mock-you-for glint in his eyes.
"No," said Castiel, hunching his shoulders and trying to cover the laptop screen with his body protectively. Almost absentmindedly, Dean nudged him out of the way with his shoulder to peer at the screen. "I was just checking—"
The expression on Dean's face changed dramatically, and once again Castiel couldn't figure out exactly what it meant. "Is this—isn't that this kid? The one on the jar at the convenience store?" His brow furrowed and he stared intently at the words on the screen before glancing back at Cas, who just squirmed under his gaze.
They were sitting in some dingy bar, watching as Sam tried to chat up a blonde who may or may not have been a vampire. Dean was clutching his bottle of beer like someone was going to try and wrestle it out of his grip—and considering that he'd managed to guilt Cas into stopping after two bottles with only that darkly intense look of his, this was a very real possibility. For his part, Castiel was fidgeting on his bar stool, watching the lively expressions play across the blonde woman's face and suspecting that not was the woman not a vampire, but Sam probably knew full well by now that she wasn't a vampire.
"You really think I'm a cockroach?" asked Dean abruptly, taking a swig of his beer and keeping his eyes on the back of Sam's head. Castiel blinked, and before he could voice his confusion, Dean had added, "What you said—about being a poet and then a cockroach."
Cas fidgeted a little more in his seat before answering, fingers itching for a bottle of beer. "I think you're more like a cat," he decided finally. "Cats are hunters, you know." Then, almost with a half-smile: "And very self-important."
For a moment, Dean looked like he didn't know whether to chuckle or snarl. "Dick," he muttered finally, lips curling slightly as he tilted the bottle up to his mouth again. Cas found himself sort of relieved that Dean seemed to have stopped scowling as much, and then immediately wondered why he spent so much time paying attention to what Dean's mouth was doing.
That thought made his skin prickle uncomfortably, and Castiel picked at the edge of the table with an unusual level of concentration, even for him.
Three hours later, they had dispatched the vampires and returned to their motel room; Sam, smeared with blood and sweat and grime, had put his long legs into overdrive to beat them into bathroom, slamming the door shut with what Castiel was reasonably sure was a malicious snicker. Or a relieved sigh; but Cas was sort of leaning towards the more nefarious of sounds, mostly because he had been learning of late that blood and guts tended to itch terribly once they started to dry against one's skin.
"Not hurt, are you, Cas?" grunted Dean, probing at a scratch on his arm and apparently deciding that it wasn't deep enough to be concerned about. He rolled his sleeve back down and turned expectant eyes on the angel; there was that fussy mother hen feel about him, although he might punch someone in the face if they attempted to mention it.
Castiel shook his arms out, stretching all of his muscles, and shrugged. "I seem to be fine." There was a bruise darkening above his right eye and a sore spot in the vicinity of his ribs, as well as other various bumps and bruises—it was so hard to remember that he had to be a bit more careful about his body now—but nothing seemed terrible.
Dean stepped forward and caught Cas's chin with one hand, forcing his face up so that the hunter could inspect his eye. His fingers were hard, an almost bruising force of their own against Cas's face, but Castiel was somehow distracted from this by the fact that Dean's eyes seem to gleam a cat-like green in the dim yellow light from the bedside lamp. Almost as if he had shocked him, Dean dropped his hand, but he didn't step back; Cas understood, all at once, why Dean had been so adamant about personal space. Personal space was sort of important, wasn't it?
"How are you coping?" asked Dean, his voice rough. "With the whole—living like one of us thing?"
"I practically am one of you," Cas pointed out, and the words didn't come out as bitter as they might have a month ago. "Aside from whatever Grace I still have—I'm still not human—"
"C'mon, Cas," Dean interrupted, with something ragged about him that some tiny part of Castiel's soul seemed to commiserate with, "there's got to be something about walking around with us that's not so bad."
Cas shrugged; the question seemed to have a different meaning coming from Dean than it had coming from Sam, and Cas struggled to figure exactly what differentiated it. "Most of it is not so bad. And there are some things that are good," he said, and even though he had for some reason been thinking of that surly teenage girl in the convenience store, collecting money for cancer treatment, he was once again distracted by Dean's mouth. He must have leaned forward absentmindedly, or his gaze must have shifted that tell-tale fraction, because Dean seemed to notice this time.
This time, the hunter smiled slightly and leaned forward. His eyes caught Castiel's, like he was trying to measure the angel's reaction before he did whatever he was about to do; he seemed vaguely pleased by whatever he saw there, because the smile widened just infinitesimally before disappearing completely. Dean swayed forward an inch or two, paused, then crossed that final distance and pressed his mouth firmly against Cas's.
It only took a moment for Cas to kiss back, although he was reasonably sure he was doing it wrong; really, the only comparable experience he had was kissing Meg, except that had been entirely different. This was more messy, somehow, all tongues and teeth, and for some reason it made something in Cas's chest swell up to an unreasonable size. Dean's hands caught in Cas's hair, and Cas's grip strayed to Dean's hip, trying to urge him closer without breaking the kiss.
In the background, there was the sound of the shower running as Sam washed away blood and dirt, and some stupid horror movie because Dean never remembered to turn off the television when he left a room, and Cas's stomach was grumbling because he hadn't eaten all day. But there was Dean, and Dean's mouth, and Castiel, who was once an angel of the Lord, kissed the Righteous Man in a dingy motel room and decided that maybe he didn't mind so much being a cockroach.
A/N: Okay, so this was almost entirely inspired by reading the Archy poems (or, the Archy and Mehitabel poems) by Don Marquis, which are basically about this cockroach writing poems about seeing things "from the under side now", as well as his friend Mehitabel the cat who claims she was Cleopatra in a past life. So, yeah, I guess that means I ship Archy/Mehitabel, which crosses all kind of species boundaries...Anyway. Edited because I hate the ending, and I still hate the ending, and I think it's really fucking stupid and blunt and rushed but ughhh what can you do. Also in retrospect how fucking pretentious is that quote? Like, ugh. But I am eighteen and am allotted a certain amount of pretentious behavior and rushed endings, so yeah. Here's this shit heap, take it how you will. Also I'm not a huge fan of human!Cas in a canon setting anymore, unless it's like angel!Dean and hunter!Cas, because...Well. I have a lot of irrelevant feelings. Anyway.