Drink Your Feelings
Rating: PG-13/T
Genre: Friendship/Romance
Summary: Post-Caged Heat. Following the events at Crowley's hideout, Castiel goes on another bender. Rachel tracks him down. Slightly schmoopy towards the end. I tried to tone it down.
Author's Note: YEAH, SO, IT'S KIND OF LIKE 'A LESSON IN CLUBBING', BUT WITH CASTIEL AND RACHEL, AND CAS IS A DRUNK NOT A STONER. YET. And there's actual romance. Yeah. The idea just started building on itself in my head, and here you go.
Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural. It's all Eric Kripke, as I'm sure we all know by now.
()()
When Castiel was gone for two days without checking in, Rachel decided to go looking for him herself.
"You want me to come?" Tabris offered. "I can round up Nuriel and maybe even Balthazar, if the traitorous bastard is feeling generous today." Tabris, like Balthazar, had picked up on the nuances of human attitude and speech- such as sarcasm- quickly. Rachel, like Castiel, was still struggling with it. She cocked her head.
"If you think he's a traitorous bastard then why invite him?" Tabris rolled her eyes and waved a hand.
"Dear, learn how to read sarcasm. Really." She sounded like Balthazar. And the fact that she currently possessed an attractive brunette Englishwoman in her late forties made the already typical comparison to their brother more reflexive than ever.
"I'll be fine on my own, sister." A glimmer of serious concern for both her younger sister and younger brother darted through Tabris' eyes, but she shrugged.
"Fine. I'm on the Angel Shortwave if you need me." Rachel blinked.
"What?"
"Just go, Rachel."
()()
Tracking Castiel was difficult. He was very good at covering his tracks when he didn't want to be found, and apparently he didn't want to be found now. Rachel briefly considered hunting down the Winchesters instead, wondering if they might know something about her commander's whereabouts, but decided against it; she had never met the Winchesters before, and given the stress they'd been heaping onto Castiel as of late, Rachel was not entirely confident that she'd be able to muster the appropriate politeness towards them.
It took some considerable time to find a trace of him, but eventually Rachel brightened when she became more or less certain that he was somewhere in northern Kansas. She wasn't certain as to the name of the town she ended up landing in, and didn't particularly care as long as she was right and that was Castiel that she sensed somewhere in the vicinity.
It seemed to be a town, not a city, but sometimes that was deceiving. Apparently modern humanity had very nitpicky ways to decide what qualified as a city and what qualified as a town, but she had always considered cities to be generally bigger and towns to be generally smaller. This place had a small feel to it: Small buildings, short roads, a forest and more rural areas visible from her position.
Humans, evidently, took alarm to strange people appearing out of nowhere (Castiel had made a point to emphasize this when she first started making trips to earth), and so she and others like her usually tried to appear in a secluded place. Rachel had chosen an alleyway. Her keen eyes picked apart the environment the way she always did when in an unfamiliar place; you could never know if there was a threat nearby. The walls on either side of her were brick. They were covered in graffiti, the language English but the words written in such a strange fashion that she could barely make out what they said, especially in the dim light provided by a nearby street lamp. The ground below her was wet. That and the fact that the air was cool and damp told her that it had rained recently and was probably due to do so again.
Being in a vessel in heaven was different from being in a vessel on earth. In heaven, Rachel was familiar with the surroundings and blocked most of the usual senses out unless she was on her guard. Now on earth, though, her vessel's natural habitat, she took a deeper notice of smells and sounds, as well as sights. She could smell gasoline mixing unpleasantly with some kind of food-related scent nearby, heard a car alarm honking in the distance (quite possibly disturbed by her arrival). Earth was so… Different. Castiel had tried to explain some of those differences to her when he could afford to, but there was nothing like first-hand experience.
Rachel shook her head. Now wasn't a time to contemplate humanity and their world. Now was a time to find Castiel. She stepped out of the alleyway and reflexively looked from side to side. It seemed she'd emerged onto a relatively busy street; a few humans wandered along, stepping into shops and restaurants or merely observing from the outside. She thought for a moment and realized that it was a Friday night, a night when many American humans were not working and would not have to until the following Monday (Or so Castiel told her).
A couple, a young man and woman walked right past her, talking amongst themselves, and Rachel found that she had held her unnecessary breath when they'd approached. She wasn't afraid of humans- not a chance, she could crush them to a bloody pulp if she wanted to- but she had this illogical concern (That was how Castiel had put it, only a bit more gently) that if they stopped, if they noticed her, they would recognize immediately that she was not one of their own kind and confront her. Rachel had never been overly fond of confrontation.
But no. No one noticed her and no one realized that she wasn't human because that was the point of taking a vessel: To blend in. And to insure that they would not burn out the eyes of any innocent humans or shatter their eardrums, of course.
Rachel sighed and tried to hone in on Castiel. With a moment's hesitation, she turned right and started off down the street. She made certain to give any humans she walked by a fair berth (She used to give them a wide one until Castiel told her that that was every bit as suspicious to them as not minding personal space), and though she kept her head high she avoided eye contact entirely. All the while, she scanned the shop fronts; some places sold obvious items, like clothing and books, while others seemed to sell a variety of things that, when she put her best thought into it, Rachel could not conceive ever wanting to purchase. But then, she was not human. They had a different mentality.
All the while, she could feel like she was closing in on Castiel and began to pick up her pace while still trying to remain innocuous. Closer, closer still, she began to wonder if she might bump into him on the street-
And then she went past him?
Rachel stopped.
She'd been moving towards where she sensed Castiel to be. Now it felt like she was moving away from him. Rachel backtracked and peered into the window of the shop she'd just passed. It was actually a restaurant, and it seemed to be either low on business that night or closing down, because there were few people there.
Rachel scanned as best she could for Castiel, and when she couldn't see him anywhere inside, she gripped the handle on the door and forced herself in. The eatery itself was rather dark inside, lit by tiny, decorative bulbs on a wire that wound around the wooden banisters and support beams. The table cloths were dark blue, and each table had a candle in the center of it. Hesitantly, she began a more thorough look for Castiel amongst the tables, expecting to see him alone. It would only be later that she would consider that he might have been with the Winchesters.
"Ma'am? Can I help you?" A girl of only seventeen or so in a white blouse and dark green skirt approached with a sweet smile and helpful intentions. That was unique; many humans were good at pretending to be nice when they actually had much darker or meaner things running through their heads. Rachel paused, wondering if asking would be wise or not, but in the end couldn't see the harm in it.
"I'm looking for a- Man." She'd almost said 'angel'. "He has dark hair, blue eyes, wears a trench coat and would be alone?" The girl- her nametag said 'Stacy'- seemed to think about that for a moment.
"I've been at the door for a few hours," She said slowly, "And I don't remember seeing anyone like that come in. Was he supposed to be here?"
"No. I just- Thought he might be. He's somewhere in the area."
"Would you like me to double-check for you?" Rachel smiled.
"No, no thank you. I'll look somewhere else. Thank you." She moved to leave.
"Did you check across the street?" Stacy asked. "He might be over there."
"What's across the street?"
"The bar."
()()
In the days when Rachel had last, at length, been in touch with humanity and their innovations, there were no bars or restaurants. Most social drinking was done in the home during social events. The only place you could get a drink and eat publicly would be at a tavern. Nowadays, though, humans had made them into three separate entities: Motels, restaurants and bars.
At first, the word 'bar' had gone right over her head. She'd heard the word before, knew that it was some kind of place where humans gathered publicly, but otherwise knew nothing else. And if Castiel was in there, she didn't care about its purpose; she just wanted to know where he was.
The bar was a little more well-lit than the restaurant, but Rachel's human eyes still needed to adjust a moment. She squinted, sweeping her gaze over the bar, the tables to her left, the tables to her right, near the windows-
And there he was.
Castiel was sitting at one of the tables lining the large, floor-to-ceiling window to her right. The only reason she hadn't noticed him before was because his head was almost flat down on the wooden table before him. Sheer, unbelievable relief flooded through her, relief that he was alive, seemingly in one piece and…
…Quite possibly drunk.
The floorboards felt soft with age, and muffled the heels of her vessel's boots as she moved over to Castiel, artfully dodging a couple of rather inebriated gentlemen being supported by two women that were either their wives or sisters, both of whom looked sincerely pissed at having to haul them out. If her theory, based on Castiel's posture and the glass in front of his hand on the table, was true, Rachel wondered if she might be in a similar position some minutes from now.
"Castiel?"
His head rose from the table and he turned to look up at her. Castiel's eyes were red; he looked completely exhausted, which nowadays wasn't so unusual, but the added effect of the alcohol made it more serious somehow.
"Rachel?" His human voice was even more gravelly than usual, and she might have detected a slight slur. It seemed that he'd said her name reflexively, because it took him a full minute or so to process her presence in the bar and what that meant. "Rachel- Oh- Hi. I, uh…" Castiel tugged a chair from the side to his left and pulled it so that it was right next to him. "Here, sit- Sit down. I, uh- Here."
As Rachel slowly sat down, still a little shell-shocked at their glorious leader's current state, Castiel snapped his fingers and a full glass of alcohol appeared in front of her. His own simultaneously refilled.
"How did you do that?"
"Balthazar taught me."
Rachel rolled her eyes heavenwards for a moment before shaking her head. Of course Balthazar taught him: Balthazar was always the negative influence that drove Castiel to do things like snapping his fingers and summoning copious amounts of alcohol to consume all at once. Now that she thought of it, the few times she'd seen Balthazar since he'd fled heaven he'd been in the process of consuming alcohol.
"I see you found me," Castiel mumbled, tipping the glass back and forth slightly and watching the amber liquid inside roll with the motion.
"I did, not without some serious effort," Rachel had been thrown off before, both by Castiel's state and the fact that they were in unfamiliar human territory, but she was slowly starting to bounce back. "Castiel, where have you been? We've been worried about you."
"I'm sorry." Castiel's eyes slid shut, and Rachel hoped that her tone had conveyed only concern and not anger. "I'm sorry. I just… It's been a long few days. I… The Winchesters asked for help, and I… It was just bad. Very bad. It didn't go well. Damn did it not go well." Rachel's eyes popped slightly. She'd never heard Castiel swear in such a casual manner before.
"Have you been there with them all this time?" Castiel shrugged.
"More or less. I only got here…" He thought for a long, long moment. "I… Don't remember how long I've been here." And then, only fueling Rachel's growing worry, Castiel grinned and chuckled, then downed a long, long drink of whatever he'd filled his glass with. Rachel didn't so much as look at her own glass.
"At all?"
"At all. It was a bad few days. A really bad few days. I was with the Winchesters." Rachel winced.
"You said that."
"Did I?"
"Yes."
"Oh. Sorry." He snapped his fingers and his glass was instantly full again. In her limited dealings with humans, Rachel had heard the phrase 'like a car crash' to describe ugly and awkward social situations. For the first time, she fully grasped the meaning of that metaphor and embraced it; Something about seeing Castiel drunk off his head was oddly like seeing the twisted metal remains of two collided automobiles.
"Why did the Winchesters want you?"
Castiel thought about that for a moment. "They told me they found the Ark of the Covenant." Rachel's eyes popped. "They didn't." She huffed.
"They tricked you."
"They needed my help."
"They could have just asked."
"I don't always answer when they call."
"As well you shouldn't- You did tell them we're in the middle of a war?"
"I did."
"Why didn't you leave them when you discovered they were lying?" Castiel's eyes slipped shut and he rubbed his face. Rachel started to suspect that yes, he was drunk, but fatigue was probably also a significant factor involved in his behavior; he had been more disoriented when she'd first approached him, snapped him out of whatever world he'd been in. Now he sounded much more lucid.
"I felt bad. They really needed help." He seemed to be fixated on that point: Sam and Dean needed help.
"With what?" Castiel downed his glass again, eyes going a bit dark.
"They wanted to find… Whatshisname- Crowley." Rachel thought for a moment.
"Not the leader of the crossroads demons?
"Lucky the Leprechaun himself." Castiel started to chuckle breathlessly. It was a little depressing, actually: Usually he and Rachel were together in their ignorance of human jokes. Rachel had no idea how Crowley and leprechauns were related, and though she was curious, she didn't ask.
"And did you find him?"
"Yes. The venture was unsuccessful."
"How so?"
Castiel waved a hand and didn't answer, looking grim, distressed. He downed the rest of his glass and refilled it again.
For maybe five minutes there was silence between them, Rachel pushing at her glass with her fingertips and finding it difficult to look at Castiel. While half of her was feeling awkward, uncertain, another part of her felt a kind of simmering fury in regards to the Winchesters. Castiel was under enough stress as it was from the war, and he had not, to the best of her knowledge, ever been driven to drinking to ridiculous excess because of it before.
If they were his friends, then why did they lie to him? How could they lie to him and pull him away from a very serious conflict in heaven that, if lost, could mean the erasure of all of their hard work and sacrifice a year previously? How could they add to the stress that Castiel was obviously experiencing?
"Are you mad at me?"
Rachel started slightly. "What?"
Castiel looked doleful. "Are you mad at me?"
"What? Of course not."
"You look angry." Rachel realized that perhaps in the midst of her musings her emotions had bled into her facial expressions. Not for the first time, she damned the human body and its ability to seamlessly express emotions the owner of said body might not even be aware of.
"Not with you, Castiel."
He must have believed her, because she saw something like relief flicker across his face before falling totally solemn again.
"Thank you, Rachel."
"For what?"
"For not being mad at me. For not criticizing me about my faults. For not pushing me, like I'm a-" Castiel's face twisted for a moment in what seemed to be a mixture of anger and sadness, and he shook his head. Rachel, however, felt something like coldness.
"Castiel, do the Winchesters criticize you?"
It was like a dam breaking, and Castiel sighed angrily and looked almost totally lucid for the moment.
"You have no idea. 'Cas, get your ass down here', 'Cas, where were you?', 'Cas, why the hell didn't you come, we needed you', 'Cas, what took you so long?'. A full year Dean went without contacting me for anything and now he's expecting me to hop to it the second he calls!" He slammed his glass down on the table and it cracked, alcohol beading and bubbling through the long line.
Rachel was shocked.
No one in the Host would have ever spoken to Castiel that way, not even their superiors prior to the war- not that they'd ever had cause to; when a superior like Zachariah said 'come here', you moved as fast as you could to obey the command. Certainly no friend of Castiel's would ever speak to him like that, except perhaps in jest (Rachel had Balthazar in mind as the kind of person who might use a light-hearted 'Where the hell were you?' as a greeting).
"They speak to you like that?"
"They do."
"And you tolerate it?"
"I-" Castiel's transition from angry to sorrowful was lightning-fast. "I suppose I do." Rachel stared at him in disbelief.
"Why?"
He toyed with the glass. His eyes were red, tired. He took a long time to respond to Rachel's inquiry.
"The day I returned to heaven, I told you that you were free to make your own choices, choose your own destiny. I said it so simply, and you didn't understand." Rachel nodded slowly. "There was a time when I barely understood free will, a time when my automatic response was exactly like yours: What does God want?" His posture slumped a little further.
"It was Dean who taught me how to truly voice my doubts, how to rebel. If he hadn't taught me, Raphael would have found a way to release Lucifer and Michael from the cage, and a world full of innocent people would have gone up in flames. It was Dean who taught me how to think for myself, and in turn the rest of us have now learned independence and how to act on what we know to be right rather than what we are told. I..." He lowered his voice. "I owe him for that."
Rachel's grip on her glass tightened. "How much?"
"How much what?"
"How much do you owe them, Castiel?" Rachel leaned forward. "You died for them. Twice. Both times smote by archangels, which I've been led to believe is incredibly unpleasant. And even now you try to help them whenever you can, and you feel guilty when you don't- I can tell, Castiel!" She insisted, glaring at him when he moved to protest. "I can tell how badly you feel when you either are unavailable or the help you've rendered is insufficient!"
"It is often." Castiel admitted in a mutter.
"And have you ever once received an expression of thanks? Even once? From either of them?"
"Yes-" Castiel's expression flattened slightly. "…On occasion."
"And how emphatic is it? Do they fully appreciate that every time they call you away from us in a time of need they risk Raphael's victory, which would mean the very apocalypse they sacrificed so much to stop restarting again?"
Castiel winced, struggled, thought, "I've- I've told them that we're in a war. But I have not… Relayed… The... Dirtier details to them about it. I have conveyed its gravity as best as I am otherwise capable of doing."
"Why haven't you told them?"
"They have problems of their own."
"And so do you." Rachel felt like pulling at her hair. "Castiel, I am not trying to brow-beat you: All I want is for you suffer from as little pressure as possible. Yes the Winchesters have their own problems, but if they can handle them on their own then they should. They did manage for several years as hunters before they met you, correct?" Castiel deadpanned.
"Define 'managed'." Rachel's lips twitched.
"Cas."
"I know. I know they can manage. I've told them I can't always come when they call."
"And if they don't understand that, then maybe you need to be a touch more forceful." Rachel suggested gently. "Lay out the situation in its entirety for them. If they're really your friends, they'll understand."
And if they're not, you're better off without them.
It wasn't that simple.
Castiel was a Good Person. A Good Person does not easily let go of friends, instead doing everything they can to try and repair and/or ignore the issues within the friendship so that they won't ever be forced to actually sit down with those friends and tell them what's wrong. Rachel could only assume that Castiel was trying to somehow spare the Winchesters' feelings (Which was ridiculous, because they were big boys acting like five year-olds that needed to be reminded they weren't the only ones on the planet with issues).
Castiel's empathy towards others had always been a benefit to him, because it was hard to dislike someone who was so nice and genuine. That was why Balthazar had never been able to stay mad at Castiel, and why he was trying to avoid him now: If Castiel had another chance to plead with him, Balthazar knew he would probably buckle. It was why Rachel had been so inclined to join him in his venture against Raphael.
But there was something to be said for knowing when someone needed to be empathized with and when they needed a strong and swift kick in the ass. The Winchesters were taking advantage, and if Rachel had to be the one to knock their heads together herself, then so be it; but it would be better if Cas did it.
"You're right," Castiel muttered, sighing. "But it will not be pleasant."
"But they need to hear it. And you won't have them calling you so much. You might actually get some rest on occasion." Rachel smiled, and Castiel mirrored it weakly but genuinely. He took his left hand off the glass and grasped hers with it.
"I honestly don't know what I would do without you."
For a moment there was silence.
And then Castiel kissed her.
Rachel's eyes widened and she thought her vessel's heart might have stopped beating. She heard the glass crack under her suddenly too-tight grip. She could smell alcohol on him. Her mind went blank, and in the ten seconds it took her to even conceive responding (never mind figuring out what kind of response), Castiel had pulled back quickly.
"I-" He swallowed, suddenly looking nervous. "I- I'm- Sorry. I'm sorry. That was impulsive."
Rachel could taste alcohol on her lips.
"I didn't mean to. It was-" He winced. "I'm drunk. I think I'm drunk. I-"
She kissed him back.
It was like he'd never made those excuses, like he'd never looked embarrassed for taking the initiative. Her hand came up and cupped his neck, pulled him closer. The room felt a lot warmer. When Castiel pulled back again, it felt too soon. He didn't look bothered this time, though; quite the opposite.
"I've… Studied this a bit."
Rachel cocked an eyebrow. "Kissing?"
"Mm."
"How?"
"Unimportant."
"That just means you don't want to answer me."
"True. I think that time would be better spent showing you what I've learned." The confidence disappeared in a flash, though, and suddenly he looked like a nervous teenager again, meek and uncertain. "If that isn't too forward."
"It's not." Rachel almost giggles.
"A place with less humans, then?"
"Definitely."
He slipped his hand back over hers, and a moment later they outside in the dark. Not on the street, not on pavement, but in a park with trees dotting the landscape and dim lamps lighting the narrow, winding sidewalk that cut through the grass. The air was wet, rainy, but Rachel couldn't tell if they were still in or near the town or if they were somewhere new.
Castiel's quick but comparatively gentle shrug surprised her, and she jumped when her back hit a tree. He was pressing up against her, lips brushing over her own, and she moved to chase him but he pulled back. "This," He tilted his head to the side, and she saw a pair of benches facing a playground. "This is where I first admitted that I had questions, doubts about my orders. Where I first understood the gravity of what was to be lost if we didn't tread carefully in our efforts to avert the apocalypse."
"Dean was here with you." Stated, not queried; Rachel knew that Dean was the first that Castiel had raised his doubts to, the only safe one as his brothers and sister would have reported him immediately.
She begrudged Dean that. She begrudged him the fact that he had been able to be for Castiel what she had been too blinded by faith, too obedient to be. She was angry with herself for ever being so subservient that she would have reported Castiel if he'd ever even spoken the word 'doubt' in relation to himself. She knew better now.
"Mm." Castiel's breath was warm on her neck. "But he isn't right now." One blue eye met hers. "And I'm rather glad for that: He seems to be disturbed at the idea of me having any romantic or sexual inclinations." There was a slight rustle, the sound of his wings manifesting, and the large, ebony appendages curled neatly around them, allowing them a modicum of privacy.
Rachel smiled. "I happen to be interested in your inclinations."
"I thought you might be."
He reinitiated the kiss, and yes, Rachel remained interested for the rest of the night.
-End