"That is just disgusting." Laptop open in front of him, television playing beside him, Sam Winchester is staring, not at scenes of carnage, but at the vision of Dean flopped on his back sideways across a motel bed, cramming his third bacon cheeseburger into his mouth as if he can fit the entire burger into his maw, and without regard to the crumbs he's getting onto the bedspread. Crumbs that fly when he turns his head, trying to speak around the food.
"What?" It comes out as a muffled interrogative slur, but Sam knows Dean is doing it on purpose. There's ketchup at the corner of his mouth, and before he's even had time to chew up what he's already got, he's shoveling more in for the benefit of Castiel as he exits the motel room's bathroom, clean shaved and bathed, hair still wet and t-shirt clinging as he pulls it down.
"Cas, your boyfriend is being disgusting." Dean begins chewing, rolling his jaw without closing his lips, just to bother his brother further. Bitch knew he hated that term. Castiel, for his part, looks as if he's considering the benefits of putting the aviator glasses he'd been sporting since they dragged his hungover angelic ass into the car. Eventually he hooks them by one leg into the front of his t-shirt, reserving the option for later. He doesn't bother glancing at Dean. "Husband. And no, he's not."
"Fiancé." Sam corrects right back, apparently completely capable of bitching at both of them at once. "He's getting crumbs all over the bed. . ."
"Which we have no intention of sleeping in." Castiel interrupts, still sounding irritable.
". . . And he's crammed like two burgers into his mouth at once."
"The White-Throated Monitor is able to dislocate its thyroid bone to. . ."
"Oh, God, not more of the Animal Planet crap. . ." Dean's managed to swallow enough to make his complaint understandable, and he shifts to lay oriented correctly on the bed, cramming a pillow beneath his head. When Cas shoots Dean an annoyed glance at the interruption and the casual blasphemy, he swipes his tongue across his lips to chase away the ketchup there, and smirks smugly when Cas's eyes track the movement and the bitchy response dies before he can voice it. "I was hungry. And I frikkin' miss beds. I'm getting too old for the sleeping on concrete crap."
At that, Castiel can't help letting out a contradictory snort, though he doesn't again remind Dean of their respective ages. Mostly because Dean has reached to the nightstand and grabbed the burger and cup of mocha coffee he'd left there, holding it out to Castiel as if baiting a stray cat, waggling the offerings enticingly.
"That's like the lamest seduction technique of all time." Sam grouses as he turns back to the screens.
"Works though."
Cas clambers onto the bed beside Dean, sitting with his back to the headboard and the coffee cradled in his hands, the burger forgotten on his knee for the moment, his legs stretched out before him, alongside the long line of his lounging hunter. It's comfortable, and comforting to both of them, and to Sam as well, who watched every problem in their relationship as if afraid they'd break at any moment.
They all know it's time to put the family business aside, their personal problems, and so Castiel hadn't made an issue over Sam being left to babysit him and make sure he didn't leave the room while Dean went on a food run, and Dean hadn't mentioned the miserable hangover that Castiel was stoically attempting not to take out on the rest of them. The eyes of all three men find their way to the television before them.
There are people wailing on the devastated grounds of the Vatican. It looks as if a bomb has gone off there, torn the buildings apart and destroyed everyone. The warning of potentially disturbing images flashes across the silenced television screen, before the bodies are shown with their eyes burned out. They'd be speculating on it again, their theories wild and even more improbable than the truth.
"So. Crowley?" Dean is the one that brings the discussion up, and neither man needs to ask what he means. This is well trod conversational ground.
"He is the weaker party." Castiel agrees weakly, and he takes a long pull from the coffee, ignoring the scalded tongue he gets for it in favor of the caffeine and chocolate that would help abate the hangover effects. Dean knows he isn't going to like the next words out of Cas's mouth, when the angel begins with worrying his chapped lower lip in his teeth immediately after.
"There was a 'but' there . . ." Sam prompts, and Dean knows he can see it too.
"But. If we look at the long-term aspect. . . Hell will still exist. Hell must exist, much as Heaven must be kept open to the Reapers to pierce the veil, even if the gates are closed to the rest of us. . ." Dean wasn't sure he liked the flash of naked jealousy in Cas's eyes at that. ". . . Because the souls of the dead would otherwise be left to roam the earth. All of them. The point remains that someone must rule Hell."
"If you're about to suggest to me that we make a deal with Crowley, I will punch you in the nose."
Letting his breath out slowly, Castiel fixes a level gaze on Dean, and raises his chin. "I headbutted you. That seems fair. It does not, however, negate my point."
"Your point being that you want to make the same goddamned choice that fucked you up last time." Dean growls, shoving himself upright and turning to face Cas on the bed. Carefully setting aside his coffee, as if worried Dean was going to punch him in the face and choosing to preserve the beverage instead, Cas is trying his best not to lash out verbally. He's not certain how long that resolve will last, given his hangover and the topic.
"I made that choice, Dean, because it was the tactical decision. That was not where I went wrong last time."
"Coulda fooled me, Cas. Because to me, it looked like you went skipping off with Crowley first chance you. . ."
"You were there, Dean!" Castiel's volume has ratcheted up to match Dean's, and it lances through his skull like a railroad spike. Flinching, Castiel drops his face to his hands, pressing the heels of his palms over his eyes, trying to abate the feeling that they were going to explode behind his eyelids. Repeating himself at a more reasonable volume, he picks back up again. "You were there. You saw the memory Asmodeus dredged up and what happened. I did not go 'skipping off.' I came to you first. I stood there for hours. Watching you talk to your neighbors, watching you get Ben to school, watching you rake the lawn and drink your beer and be. . ."
"Be what, Cas?" Castiel can hear danger in those three words, and the lowered voice does nothing to diminish the tension. This is. . . he cannot have this conversation now. Forcing his breath out through his nose, Castiel raises his head again and redirects back to the topic.
"My error was in allowing Crowley to dictate the terms of the agreement, and set the plan. My error was in accepting the power of Hell as a . . . a gateway drug, to the souls of Purgatory. It was always my plan to 'double-cross' him. . ." He keeps his hands still in his lap, rather than providing the air quotes, and it feels stiff and awkward. "We were at war. Him against the idea of Lucifer, against his supporters in Hell, and me against Raphael. We were both the weaker parties, and it benefitted both of us to work together in some manner. And it. . ."
"Be what, Cas?" Dean Winchester can be like a dog after a bone when he gets his mind set, and no amount of conversational redirection was going to deter him. One of the most shameful moments of Castiel's life, and he's allowed Dean access to it once again, a reason to touch on it. Dean knows it is the memory that broke his resolve, that Asmodeus dragged up again and again until she could crack his concentration, trying to keep Dean out of it.
Dean just doesn't know why. It rankles.
"You were alive, Dean. I couldn't take that from you. And a war of that scope would have killed you. Just as this will likely kill all three of us." The words might be depressing, but Castiel does not seem defeated in giving them. There's defiance in his gaze, and he opens his mouth to continue, but Dean holds a hand up without breaking their stare, eyes narrowed, nostrils flared angrily.
"Sam? Take a walk."
Sam's been watching the proceedings like the verbal battle was a ping-pong match, head swiveling to look at one brother, then the other, brow furrowed. And yet, neither of them expects it when he firmly responds to Dean's demand.
"No."
Dean and Cas both blink. They both turn towards the youngest Winchester, sitting in the chair at the table across the motel room from them, bent nearly double to rest his elbows on his knees, hands hanging loosely into the space between, jaw set stubbornly.
"No, I'm not going to take a walk. Look, I only get about half of what you're talking about, but I know enough without the specifics. I've had enough of both of you being hypocritical idiots about each other. The two of you having a pissing contest over who gets to take a bullet for the other guy still ends up with one or both of you dead, so no. I'm not going anywhere. Apparently I'm the only one of us whose plan revolves around all three of us living, so I stay. So let's take the emotional baggage off the table for a little while and talk about the Crowley thing, okay?"
". . . I tell you that you're a brat any time recently, Sam?"
"Three days ago, over a bag of chips that made your lips and fingers orange and tasted nothing like cheese. He is not wrong, though."
"I don't even remember what I ate the night before. That's almost as creepy as invisible stalking." Dean mutters, and he drags his blunt fingernails through his hair before straightening, unconsciously resuming a more military bearing, and Castiel smiles faintly to himself as he unwraps his burger. "Alright, so Crowley we either find and take out, or find and make a deal with. . ." He shoots a quick glare at Cas, who responds with complete lack of response, chewing his burger. ". . . We all in agreement about Lucifer, at least?"
"We have to kill him this time. It won't ever be over unless we do. Not really." Sam feels guilty for it, as if it's selfish, as if their sole reason to kill the devil was to keep him from forever trying to crawl into Sam's head. Despite his reservations about the probability of it, Cas nods his agreement with the assertion.
"So, assuming you don't have some Heavenly weapon you can conveniently get your hands on for that, Cas…"
Castiel frowns, swiping his tongue over his lips and swallowing, speaking immediately. "If I had, I would have brought it to your attention last time, Dean."
"That was sarcastic and rhetorical, Cas." Dean was wearing his long-suffering expression again, the one he usually had when Cas missed something patently human.
". . . Ah."
Dean's lips twitch faintly as Cas ducks his head down, and he shifts on the bed to sit next to Cas comfortably again, bumping shoulders with the angel before resuming. "So, that being clearly and definitively ruled out, thanks Cas. . ."
Cas raises a middle finger at him, which startles a laugh out of Sam across the room, and he knew he had that one right after observing enough of their interactions.
". . . maybe later." Dean leers, waggling his eyebrows, and maybe he didn't have that particular gestural response correct after all, but he wasn't going to say no to that offer. ". . . So, we're back to ganking an archangel with an army of mooks. How goes the exorcist act, Cas?"
There was something pointed in the way Dean phrased their current situation, but Castiel ignores it, answering the question posed to him instead. "I have no practical way to test it, but I have recorded everything Alistair said and patterned a completion to the ritual based on texts of similar structure. In truth though. . . I am not certain of its effect now." Reaching for his coffee, he pulls it to himself, cradling it close to his face for the warmth and the smell of it, for the comfort the beverage represented. "I know what it felt like. He was ripping my grace from my vessel, tearing me loose. But in that event, I would have been pushed back to Heaven without form. It would have taken some time to recover, and for a lesser rank of angel may have been permanently disabling."
"Lucifer's a whole different ballgame." Sam says, and he braces his chin on his fist, staring at the devastation on the screen that evidenced that fact.
"Yes. And Heaven is. . ." Castiel can't find an end to that sentence, and tips his chin down, trying to steady his words, beginning again. "It wouldn't work the same way. Even before, if it expelled Lucifer to Heaven, the effects would have been devastating. It might hurt, but it would not have the desired effect, and we are more likely to be summarily executed if we tried. Now, even if it did not merely send him back to Hell, which at best is a temporary roadblock. . . he has no vessel. There is nothing to exorcise him from unless he takes another temporary vessel, I am not in the right form to fight him as he is." Not that he would have stood any chance in a straight fight, as an angel. "The exorcism is forClaire Novak. We are going to rescue her."
He had promised.
Dean doesn't argue, this time. "Well, it's a start, I guess. Save the cheerleader, save the world."
Cas stares blankly at him, and Dean rolls his eyes, pushing off of the bed. "Yeah, yeah. I know. She's not a cheerleader and you don't understand the reference. Don't sweat that one." Linking his hands together, Dean gives a full-body stretch that sends his back cracking all the way down, letting him slump comfortably afterwards. He really missed crappy motel rooms and their beds and full baths. "Alright, so we just gotta figure where we go from here. . ."
"Kansas." The answer is immediate. Pre-programmed. Inexplicable. And Castiel frowns suddenly, brow furrowed. ". . . I don't know why I'm saying that."
Dean and Sam exchange looks, and Dean rests a hand on Cas's shoulder, drawing his eyes up.
"Cas, where. . .?"
"Kansas." The sharp headache that has followed him since Heaven closed is abating, and the absence of pain is jarring. Blinking, he shakes his head slightly and there's an edge of panic to his wide eyes as he looks up at Dean; he can't handle this, so soon after Asmodeus's violation. It doesn't feel invasive, but he doesn't trust his own mind any more. "Something. . . someone. . . wants me to know that. I don't understand."
Dean resettles in front of Cas, legs folded beneath him, holding Cas's hands on his knees, Sam perches beside them on the bed checking Castiel's pupils, offering theories, until Castiel finally shakes them off in annoyance. He can feel it now, though: it is more than a word, a place, it is magnetic north and he can feel himself becoming drawn to it.
Closing his eyes, Cas folds his legs, and shuts them out to try and get to the bottom of what's happening to him.
"But how do you feel now, Cas?"
Or he tries to shut them out.
"Hung over." Opening an eye, ruining the meditative attempt, he shoots Dean a warning look. "And irritated."
"So, 'normal.'" Dean substitutes in, but he lapses into silence again when Cas doesn't rise to the bait. Dean's silences are never silent. Cas can feel him gesturing at Sam, holding some sort of wordless conversation with his younger brother, and he has never been particularly adept at tuning out Dean Winchester.
"You're distracting." Cas finally huffs, opening his eyes to Dean dropping his hands quickly, clearly having just been pointing at him.
"I didn't say anything!"
"You did it very loudly." Pinching the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger, Cas sighs. "I don't know. It feels. . . right." Both of the boys are watching him, now, and this could prove another inadvertent wedge, he knows. . . another reason not to trust him, the belief that he might be compromised. As much as he is attempting not to, though, he can't quite quell the surge of hope. Hope that will crush him if proved otherwise. "There may still be angels on Earth. They could just be trying to communicate, but with the warding and the hex bags. . ."
"You want that to be what it is." Sam says, not entirely unkindly and, without looking at Dean, Cas inclines his head slightly admitting it. This is not a reasoned analysis, it is an extension of the same desperation that had driven him the night before.
Dean grunts, pushing himself off of the bed and shaking his head. "Well whatever it is, we should figure it out." This isn't the reasoned response, either: Dean is letting Castiel's hope guide him, rather than staying far away from Kansas and the high probability of a trap, but he's still chewing it over mentally. "I'm gonna hop in the shower now that there may be hot water again after you two hogging it. We can hit the road again after lunch. Sammy, you look for anything in Kansas that sticks out, omens or things that might point the way. Cas, you do. . . whatever the hell it is you were just trying to do."
Sam accepts his assignment with good grace, and with only a brief pitying look at Cas. As the younger Winchester settles in at the motel table again, Cas stares contemplatively at the closed bathroom door between them, before speaking into the silence as he hears the tap turn on. "You called me your brother, Sam. Last night."
Sam blinks as he looks up, a hand rubbing unconsciously at the back of his neck, and he shrugs his broad shoulders slightly. "Yeah, I did. You kinda are, Cas. I mean. . ."
Castiel nods slightly, accepting the unspoken. "I feel the same. And thank you, for accepting me into your family." Sam doesn't quite know how to respond to the formal tones, and it's a little late now for Cas to be asking permission to marry his brother. He doesn't get the chance to question Cas's train of thought, though, as the fallen angel continues. "I assume then that I am expected and allowed to engage in the family customs and traditions?"
Sam's having visions of finally getting a frikkin' wedding out of the two of them when he agrees. He doesn't expect Cas to turn away from his intent stare at the bathroom door, to fix an unabashed stare on Sam. "I believe you and Dean have a thirty minute rule. I would like to invoke it."
". . . What?!" Sam's spluttering and staring at Castiel, who adopts his most patient tone and thus makes things a hundred times worse.
"I intend to have sexual intercourse with your brother. Now. While we have a bed, and a shower. I would advise you to find another place to finish the research." After a beat where Sam is staring at him, Cas glances at the door to the bathroom again, and back to Sam. "For at least thirty minutes. If you would like to give us an hour, as it is the both of us that rule applies to now, I would not object."
". . . What?"
Catching the hem of his shirt in his hands, Castiel pushes himself out of bed, tugging the t-shirt over his head and tossing the sunglasses onto the nightstand when they fall free. "I'm uncertain as to if your repeatedly asking the obvious counts against my time, and Dean will be out of the shower in a moment, so. . ."
Sam gives up on trying to cram his laptop back into the bag and just sweeps both into his arms and bolts out the door. Castiel has already disappeared through the steam obscuring the bathroom by the time the motel door swings shut behind him.
