March installment of the No Quarter 'verse. I've decided that I'm going to get all twelve months done, even if it takes me until 2014. Previous installments include January, and February. Thanks for reading!
"I can't find Dean."
"Hello to you to, Chuck," Cas countered drily. He was sitting in the lotus position, trying to reach something like peace and harmony through the yoga meditation he'd been teaching himself.
Not that it was working.
"No, Cas, this is important. We have new people, and a recent patrol found some things he needs to look at. I need to find him. Have you seen him?"
"Much as I'd love to be considered Dean's keeper, he will not allow me to take the job, and as such," Cas sighed, his calm state obliterated, "No, I have not laid eyes upon our fearless leader this fine and glorious post-apocalyptic day."
"Well, you've inherited his sarcasm at any rate. Congratulations on becoming an asshole." Chuck huffed and stomped off in the direction he'd come.
Cas stared into the tree line and tried to reclaim his Zen. That was why he'd come out here in the first place. This particular pavilion was far from the main section of camp. Only Dean and Chuck knew it was where Cas came to commune with nature, or, in all actuality, to try and hear something beyond the human cacophony that was Earth since the angels left.
Several months ago, after Sam had said yes and before Dean had almost died of the flu, Cas had been out there, on the edge of Camp Chitaqua, listening, listening, trying hear anything, and he'd felt a whisper, a brush of grace against his consciousness.
It had terrified him, shook him to his very core, because that voice, that grace - he hadn't felt it in thousands of years.
Some part of him had known, accepted that Lucifer walked the Earth. But until that moment, he hadn't really believed it.
And the worst part of it was, beyond that thin trail of familiar grace, he'd felt something infinitely more familiar. The brush of a soul, terrified and desperate. A soul he knew almost as well as the one he'd raised from Perdition.
The knowledge that Sam was still in there, still aware, and so incredibly scared, had very nearly knocked Castiel off his perch. He'd gone back to his cabin that afternoon and buried himself in alcohol.
And he didn't tell Dean.
Cas sighed. There was no pretense of remaining calm. He was concerned about Dean. It wasn't like him to disappear and not let anyone in the command know where he was. He knew of a handful of places no one else knew about, where Dean liked to go and hide when things became too much for him. It didn't happen often, but it did happen.
But, two hours later, after Cas had worn himself out circling Chitaqua and looking for Dean, he was actually starting to worry. He made one last check of Dean's cabin, then wandered out to what was left of the Impala.
Dean wasn't in either of those places.
Frustrated, Cas made his way back to his own cabin. It had started to rain again. The temperature was dropping as well, and Cas sincerely hoped Dean wouldn't be spending a cold, early spring night outdoors.
They surely did not need a repeat of the January illness that had almost killed him. Both of them, if Cas was being honest.
Pushing open the door of his dark cabin, Cas fumbled in the dark for the matches, finding them and lighting his kerosene lamp. He built a fire in his fireplace, hoping the warmth would burn off the pervading chill dampness.
He settled on the couch and opened a book Dean had recently brought him. The Art of War, by Sun Tzu. Dean had found it in an abandoned vehicle on a patrol one day and thought Cas might enjoy it. Cas returned to where he'd last left off, thoughts and mind clear and uncluttered for once, free of any type of organic or chemical distractions. He was peaceful, despite the underlying worry that Dean was off hating himself somewhere.
He had proved to be incredibly adept at that.
Cas was snuggled into his couch with a blanket and the book, warm and drowsy, when someone moaned, a horrible pained sound, somewhere immediately behind him. Startled, he dropped the book, whipping around.
He didn't know how he'd missed it when he came in, but back by the bathroom door, there was a big, moving, black shadowy mass on the floor.
It was Dean.
Cas stood so fast it made him dizzy, yanking the kerosene lamp off the table as he dashed to Dean's side.
Dean was semi-conscious, pill bottles open and contents scattered around him. He whimpered as Cas knelt beside him and pulled him into a sitting position. Dean seemed unable to hold his own head up, eyes only semi-open.
"Dean! Dean, wake up. Wake up!" He gently slapped Dean's face, but the other man barely responded. "Dean, come on. I have to know what you took. What did you take?"
Dean shook his head, as if clearing it, and blinked at Cas, eyes red and bloodshot in the firelight.
"P-pills," He stuttered. His chin started trembling, and then his teeth began to chatter, the shiver in his jaw traveling down his neck, and into his shoulders and arms.
"How many? Which ones?"
"D-dunno. Jus' - jus' lemme. Lemme," Dean's fingers clawed ineffectively at Cas's jacket. "J-jus' lemme," he said again.
"Let you what?"
He tilted his head up, just enough to catch Cas in his lost, broken gaze. "Lemme. Lemme d-die, C-cas. P-please, jus' lemme d-die." Dean slumped forward into Cas's arms.
"Oh, Dean," Cas whispered softly, "You don't mean that."
"Do. I d-do, C-cas." Dean's whole body shook in Cas's arms, partly from the drugs, partly from the silent sobs that were wracking his frame.
"Dean, I'm going to get a bucket, and I'm going to need you to try and throw up. I can't tell what all you took, but this stuff shouldn't be mixed. I'll be right back," he said softly, carefully leaning Dean back against the wall.
True to his word, he was back in moments with the bucket, and a bottle of ipecac he'd pilfered from the first aid kit Risa kept.
Dean was unconscious, body still trembling, and Cas opened the bottle and forced some of the liquid down his lax throat. A moment later, Dean's stomach gurgled dramatically, and he filled the bucket. Cas kept a steady hand on him, keeping him from falling into the mess.
When it was over, he laid a still unconscious Dean flat on the floor, then cleaned up the pills, scooping them back into the appropriate bottles.
The bottles were then put back into his special wooden box, which he took and stashed away on in the top of the closet.
Dean was moaning softly when he returned, arms clamped around his middle. Cas struggled with his bulk, but managed to get him into his own bed. He fetched a damp rag from his bathroom, and wiped away the cold sweat that had formed on Dean's brow.
All he could really do was let Dean sleep it off. He should be fine now, all the drugs vomited from his system, and he knew in the morning, Dean would refuse to recognize that this had even happened, that he had shown any sort of vulnerability.
He would be cold, and brusque, all business, and he'd have zero time for a fallen angel.
Pushing bitter thoughts aside, Cas picked his book up and settled back into the couch.
"I called him," Dean said softly, startling him again.
"Called who?" He stood, once again setting aside his book, sitting on the edge of the bed beside Dean.
"I went out to the edge of the woods, and I called him. I said yes. I said, come get you me you winged bastard. He never came. Why didn't he come?" Dean's voice cracked, a tear rolling down his cheek.
"You called for Michael?" Cas asked tonelessly, cold chill running down his spine.
"Yeah. I just thought, y'know, maybe we could end it. While there's still a few people left to save. But he didn't come. Because the angels are gone, aren't they? It's why you don't have any grace left. It is, isn't it?"
Cas considered the man before him, broken expression cutting him deep with every tear that slipped from his green eyes.
"Yes. They're gone. Only one angel walks the Earth. And it's not me."
Dean nodded. "Lucifer," he said softly. "Lucifer is the last angel on Earth."
"Yes."
"And I have to kill him. I have to kill my brother."
"I'm sorry."
Flopping onto his side, away from Cas, Dean muttered, "You should have let me overdose."
"I will never allow any harm to come to you, even if it's of your own making. If I am able to stop it, I will always stop it."
Dean said nothing else, and Cas knew that he would speak no more that night, and that this incident, this moment of what Dean would call weakness and hate himself for, would never be spoken of again.
He pulled a quilt over Dean, and returned to his book.