Title: The Kindness of Strangers
Author: Arisprite
Summary: Diners had become a kind of refuge, both on his own and with the Winchesters over the years. After the fall, Castiel found himself stumbling into a corner booth and trying to hold himself together, while the others in the room watch the falling stars outside.
A/N: At the end.
No one paid attention to the trembling man who stumbled into the 24 hour diner, attached to a truck stop in the middle of Illinois. The tired waitress, a young cook and the grimy smattering of truckers inside that evening were all far too focused on the small mounted television, and the frantic news reporters. They were leaning against the glass in the front windows, looking up at the sky, and chattering to each other in excitement or fear.
Castiel preferred it that way. His shaky knees carried him to the back, as far from the windows and the television as possible. Sliding into the crackly plastic booth, he could still hear the reporter's voice, the man sounding professional as was his job, but confusion and fear still seeped in.
"...an unprecedented event is taking place, one that is affecting the whole world. We're getting reports from London, Cambodia, Tokyo, Rio De Janeiro, Paris, Sydney, everywhere frankly, of falling stars. That's right, a completely unexpected meteor shower. This is unheard of. Astronomers are saying there was no warning, they just started falling..."
Castiel turned his head away, trying not hear. It was harder than it should have been. He placed his hands flat on the table, feeling the cool plastic slide, stick to his sweaty palms. He was glad to sit, surprised at the relief it brought to his knees, his aching feet (unused to the rubbing burn of Jimmy's dress shoes against his heels, the squeeze on his toes). The walk from the wooded copse he'd landed in had been long, but not long enough to process this. This change...no time could be enough.
He was human now.
It was all too much, fast and slow, full of emotions, yet painfully muted. Too bright, too loud, too silent, too dark... He couldn't sense a majority of the things he could before. He couldn't see or feel the souls of the others in the room, he couldn't listen to the music of the universe, the wavelengths of his brothers and sisters. Their voices were a silent void inside his head. He couldn't hear anything besides the mutterings of the other patrons, the ramblings of the tv. He no longer had to filter out the millions of frequencies the humans broadcast everywhere.
But, Castiel could ismell/i. He could smell the food in the kitchen, the hot grease, the yeast and meats. He smelled his own sweat drying on his skin, making the shirt he'd worn for years stick to his back, and under his arms. It was uncomfortable, and itchy. Even the dirt in Purgatory had not been itchy.
Castiel took a breath, his lungs (his lungs) undeniably requiring it. Saliva moved in his mouth, his sinuses, his stomach grumbled. He felt hunger, thirst, pain, itchiness, all on top of his roiling emotions that were too extensive to even attempt to label.
He had done this.
All of this.
His fault.
Heat pressed at his eyes, behind his nose and throat. Liquid beaded and dripped from his eyelashes. He felt it fall down his cheeks, trickling in the crevasas of his skin, into the corners of his mouth. It wasn't the first time he'd cried, but it was so different now. He sniffed. His vision was blurred, and he watched the water droplets gather on the table top.
Castile hunched his shoulders, hiding his face from the room, hoping no one looked over, saw him a sniving ex-angel, pressing his hands to the table to keep them from shaking. He wanted to sob, to scream...
What was he supposed to do now? He was mortal. His family were fallen. Heaven was broken beyond repair, in the control of a madman. What could he possibly do now, powerless, helpless, and utterly alone? Castiel thought of Dean, and how he'd done everything that he'd said not to do. Again. A hiccuping sob broke free, and he sniffled again.
"Are you alright, sir?" A timid voice asked, a few feet to his left. The young waitress stood there, a notebook in her hands looking at him with both worry and embarrassment. "Sorry, I didn't see you come in...can I get you anything?"
Castiel felt a burn of shame flood his face, at her seeing him like this. It was strange, a girl he'd never met, and he felt awkward at her pity, her concern. It was both touching and maddening. Why was everything human twofold or more and so very complicated? He sniffed, and wiped at his eyes, his nose.
"Uh," He didn't know what to say. "I don't know..." His voice was wobbly, cracking and strained around the lump still in his throat.
The girl bit her lip. "Do you want water? Or coffee? I could get you toast if you like?"
Castiel swallowed, rubbed a shaking hand across his head, felt the sweat in his hair, flopping it over his forehead.
"All three would be nice."
She bobbed her head, and smiled. Out of her apron, she pulled some folded napkins, and handed them to him.
"My name's Alice. Just let me know if you need anything, okay?"
He wrapped his fingers around the napkins, and looked up. Her eyes were blue and sweet. He couldn't see her story or her soul, but he was sure it was beautiful.
"Thank you,"
She left him there, and was back a moment later with the water. Castiel gulped half of it quicker than he meant to. It was blessedly cool, and soothing to his throat, and boiling emotions.
He sat in his corner for a while, trying to not think, avoiding the television and the gazes of the other people in the room. He could still hear the conversation about the stars streaking the sky outside. Castiel wanted to shout at them, tell them to shut the hell up, that those were his brothers and sisters out there, hurting, maybe dying and it was all his fault!
But he sipped his water quietly.
Alice brought his toast, and coffee, and he learned that coffee both tastes and felt different as a human. He tongued the burn on the roof of his mouth, and added cream and sugar to cool and sweeten the heat and bitterness of it. He learned that buttered toast was like manna, and the taste of food lingered in his mouth longer than the food lasted, making him want more. His stomach grumbled, not satisfied, but the coffee went a ways to fill it. Then he learned that caffeine made him sit up straighter, made his heavy eyelids lighten, made his mind the slightest bit clearer. He realised he was eating food in a diner, and the humans are required to pay for the things they partake of.
Alice found him, digging through his pockets, adding to the strange detritus across the tabletop. Jimmy's old wallet (slightly waterlogged) along with his identification, a few useless cards. A quarter. Some other loose change, and three green bills with ones on them. He'd used the rest he'd gathered in that futile shopping trip for Dean. Some colored money from other countries. Stones. Trinkets he'd picked up and liked. Bits of string. A rubber band.
Alice cleared her throat.
"I take it you're ready for the check?" She said. Castiel glanced up, feeling that embarrassment again at his incompetency.
"I'm sorry," He said, touching the few green bills he had. He thought they were all American. "I don't think I have enough money."
She looked around the interior of the diner, and tapped her pen on her notepad. Then she looked at pile spread across the table like she was calculating in her head.
"Actually, you have more than enough. It's two dollars, forty cents."
Castiel swallowed, somehow feeling like she wasn't being truthful, but unable to tell why. His hands hovered over the bits of money he had.
"I don't..."
Her quick fingers came to the rescue, touching two of the bills, and four of the smallest coins. He handed that much to her, storing away the information. She tucked it away in her apron, and smiled at his grateful look.
"Thank you again," He said, picking up the things he'd spread out, and putting them back into the pockets they went in. Castiel was somehow glad to have not lost them.
"Can I do anything else for you, sir? You look awfully lost." She asked, and Castiel felt again that burning behind his eyes. His face trembled, and seemed to want to crumble inwards. Alice made a small noise, and Castiel tried to smile through his trembling lips, wanting to reassure her.
"It's okay..." He said, and gave a watery chuckle. "It's just... the kindness of strangers."
She smiled, worried still. She looked so concerned. About him. What had he ever done to deserve her care, her worry? He was a stranger to her, to say the least. Wouldn't his sins have precluded him from the kindness of of such a child, caring for a being as blackened as himself.
"I'm fine." Castiel said, blinking back the tears (for the time being anyway) "Thank you for your care. You're a good person."
Castiel stood, and picked up his dirty dishes. She took them from him, and he nodded, stepping away. The diner was warm, safe feeling, and he'd been touched more than he could say by the kindness he'd received, but he didn't deserve it. He couldn't stay.
Castiel walked outside, trying not to look up, and turned his feet into the night. He had to decide what to do. He felt an urge, an almost irresistible desire to return to Dean, to walk to Kansas if he had to, but...
He couldn't. He had broken too much to duck his head and hide under the safety of Dean's care. Much like Alice, Dean would help him, provide for him, and make him feel loved and wanted...there was nothing he wanted more. But he was a murderer, and a destroyer, a stain that would never be righted. He deserved the cold night, and darkness. He deserved to be alone.
And it wasn't even just that. He had to fix this, to help his siblings, to try to create some kind of plan...he felt it in his heart that it would be wrong to run crying to Dean when so many of his family were alone and scared. Even if the last thing they wanted was his help, even if they lashed out or tried to kill him. He had to try.
He had to fix his home.
A/N:
So, I know we're all reading and writing these sad and precious and amazing fics of Castiel finding Dean again, falling into his arms, sobbing. There's been months of domesticity in the bunker, and perfect conversations between them that I love to read. However, I hate to say it...but I really doubt that will happen. Castiel has never given precedent to his own feelings. I have no doubt that all he wants to do is to curl up at the bunker and let Dean take care of him. He even knows that Dean would, for all that he was mad at him last time...but I don't think he can. He has to fix his home. Everything again being his fault in his eyes, and all his family alone struggling, spread across the globe, newly human (we assume), and helpless. Castiel will feel compelled to help them, to try to get them back to Heaven. And he won't be going to Dean for help with that. He will try to fix the problem on his own, because he's convinced himself that he doesn't deserve Dean's love or help.
So, as sad as it makes me to say, this is my firm headcanon. I think in canon, the first few eps will have them be apart. Perhaps all, perhaps a few of the five episodes Misha won't be in will be during this time. I don't know how Cas is going to get back to the boys, cause he WILL, just know he's not going to come stumbling back to the bunker to cry on Dean's shoulder.