Chapter 5:
Castiel didn't rush this time like the warehouse, having learnt his lesson.
He materialized through blink of an eye and appeared mile from the motel in a lonely road just off the highway where the sound of traffic was heard. He felt the crackle of static through his grace and looked up at the night sky. In the distance he saw bolts of lightning streaking through the ominous clouds all grey and shade of black.
A storm was coming.
He turned to look at the road, paying no attention at the dark weather, choosing instead to broaden his grace far as they can reach for any hint of demonic presence or the familiar spoor of the hunter.
Startled, his head snapped up at the direction east, where he could see a silhouette of a dreary motel far in the horizon.
His grace sensed seven earthbound demons and very alone hunter—the rest was unaware.
He felt echo of fight: a door blown from the hinges, jeer of laughter, residue of gunpowder in the air, thrown punches, crash against furniture and sound of male voice, cursing, you son of bitches.
The hunter was fighting back against the swarm of demons.
Castiel snapped his wings open far as they could and shot forward through the dimension, slicing the air like a knife through butter until he was facing one of the demon's back inside the motel. His hand shot forward and gripped her head, forcing his grace into her. The demon's eyes burst with a white light, her mouth open with a silent scream.
When Castiel released the demon, she dropped to the ground dead.
The rest of them shrieked.
Castiel spared a survey around, calculating his options. He saw five demons swarming toward him while the other was fighting against the hunter, unaware of the sudden angelic presence.
His attention was split when someone screamed. "Angel!"
His sword slid into his palm, clutching the handle and Castiel lunged to the nearest one, striking the demon easily with a sharp jab through his chest. Then, Castiel moved to the next while trying to reach to the hunter. A grunt and sound of fist hitting flesh was confirmation enough for Castiel to deduce the hunter was still fighting to his death but he preferred there would be no death on his part.
After he slain the current one he was fighting, he heard a suspicious sound, alerting him. Castiel felt a shift in the air—two demons jumping at his sides. His angelic sword dropped to another plane, Castiel quickly raised his hands without looking, clutching the both demons in midair lunge at the throat. Ignoring the grunt and the struggle from both of them, Castiel tightened his fingers, crunching the man's and woman's larynx. Their black-eyed and mouths exploded into bright, streaming white light with a howling screams.
Castiel lips thinned in distaste, dropping the smote demons aside.
However a glimpse through the corner of Castiel's eyes made him pause, the hunter fell to his knee. The demon took advantage of his injury, kicking the hunter's face, sending him sprawled to the floor spread eagled. For the first time since the battle, he saw the hunter's face, clearly.
Castiel's world shifted and pivoted, like the deck of a storm-tossed ship before sinking. Through it all, his first thought was:
Dean.
Brown colored hair, viridian eyes flashing in pain and rage, his split-open lips shaped into snarl as he looked up at the demon that kicked him down. It was Dean's face, down to the last details.
Castiel knew appearances were easy to manipulate: spells, shifting skills, angelic or godlike powers but the soul . . . that would never change. It might grow deformed, darkened, bruised, brighter, stony and opaque yet the core would still remain the same.
Dean's soul—bright and incomplete—was the one convinced Castiel, it was without a doubt: Dean Winchester.
His shocked thoughts were cut off when the demon that had kicked Dean pulled out a knife and lunged toward Dean and Castiel had terrible flashback of Dean bleeding, dying in his arm as he begged him hysterically, "Hold on, hold on. Please, don't go. Dean? Dean!"
Castiel's reaction was instinctual. It was so sudden that he didn't have moment to think as the grace within him burst open, tearing his skin apart and he only had few seconds to shout:
"Close your eyes!"
The grace exploded, like a sun going supernova with a loud rushing sound. It was an almost alien feeling, having him, the grace that made Castiel pierce through Jimmy's pore, eyes and mouth, whitening everything. He felt himself grow infinite and colossal—a Chrysler sized building woven with kaleidoscopic brilliance—almost reaching toward the stormy clouds above as the lighting thundered just over his head and the world slips away, leaving him floundering, helpless.
Castiel looked down, through the motel, through the room and saw Dean recoiling in the blinding light, so small in this height and it made the angel wonder how such microscopic mortal could make him feel so much. Only him.
He wondered for a moment if this was real. If this was some trace of magic of a witch or a poison of a Djinn making his mind to play cruel tricks. Memories he had pushed with his grace, good and bad, returned with the force of train freight, all coming at once in shocking chaos and confusion.
He forced himself back into the Jimmy Novak's vessel, his blue eyes opening, barely aware of the recently dead demons' gaping sockets, still smoking. No, his stare was on Dean who blinked his eyes open, confused at the nearest smote demon.
"Dean." He whispered, his voice hoarse with every emotion bubbling inside him.
Dean's head jerked so fast that Castiel recoiled instinctively, shaken to see wide green eyes on him and he felt raw, scrapped and gutted. He looked exactly the same as the last time Castiel saw him except for the blood.
"It's not possible." Castiel said shakily, "You're—how this can be?"
Dean shot to his feet, fast as humanly possible, and his eyes alert and wary and Castiel sensed something was missing in Dean's eyes.
Castiel had expected a hug or laugher or a smart-ass remark or even a punch but what he didn't expect was this:
"What the hell are you?"
He staggered in shock by the enormity of the situation, his stomach plummeting, suddenly understanding what was missing in Dean's eyes: recognition.
"Dean, don't you remember me?" He stepped closer to him, wanting to touch him, to see if he was real and not figment of his imagination.
"Don't come any closer!" He grabbed the knife from the dead demon's grasp, raising it. "God help me I'll slice your throat if you do."
The angel stopped and he could hear something in his heart crack when he almost echoed Dean's word, "It's me, Cas."
It didn't change Dean's reaction, not even a flicker, "Cas what?"
"Castiel." He whispered and hoped Dean wouldn't call him that. Never that, not like this.
"No last name?"
Castiel shook his head, staring helplessly at Dean.
Dean shifted uneasily, his eyes flicking at the bathroom's open door then back to Castiel, "Look, I appreciate you for saving my ass but I don't know what you're trying here because I sure hell don't know you."
"I know you." Castiel said, his voice laden with hurt mixed with tentative hope, "We're friend."
Dean stepped backward, toward the bathroom, sidestepping the corpses carefully while keeping his eyes on the angel and keeping the knife front of him. "Sure, whatever you say. You didn't answer my question. What are you?"
"I'm Angel of the Lord."
That got a reaction. "No shit?"
Castiel frowned at him, "I almost expected you say 'there no such thing.'"
"Why?"
Since Dean didn't remember Castiel it stood reason that Dean had reverted to his old beliefs. Atheist to the heart even Dean had proof of their existence. "Because you didn't believe in them. You had no faith."
Dean grinned, his teeth bloodstained, "That's sounds like me." He took one step back more, "You're right. I don't believe them but I knew they existed. I don't know why but I do. Do you know why?"
The angel struggled to understand Dean's words, "No."
Dean's free hand reached the doorknob behind him, scrambling a bit since he couldn't see behind, his eyes still on Castiel, "Because whenever I go to a new place, I felt the urge to do something—something to draw or even freaking paint. It always made me feel I was going crazy—Marvin Boggs to the whole level."
The bathroom door jerked, closing with a loud click. A finger-painted symbol was plain on the wooden surface, entirely made with dried blood.
Angel banishing sigil.
It made Castiel's every inch of grace run cold.
Dean smiled grimly as he drew the blade on his palm with one swift, practiced gesture and slapped his bloodied hand on the center of the sigil.
"No! Dean, wait!"
He lunged at Dean but it was too late. His grace reacted at the banishing, flaring out, bright and painful and Castiel watched the motel, the dead demons and Dean's face disappear as he was cast away into the light.
His wings ached and Castiel wanted nothing more wallow in his misery or cry but he was not certain which to pick one, maybe both. It was foreign emotions that it could not detach from one to the other with thin double-edged swords and it left the angel sitting forlornly alone in the middle of the cornfield.
Despite his turbulent emotions, he was mostly confused and angry. Dean didn't recognize him, had banished him and if Castiel would have flown back to the motel, he knew Dean would not be there. He was long gone.
Was Castiel erased from Dean's mind and memories he'd known smiled, shouted, frowned and laughed?
Was he truly that unimportant?
With that thought, Castiel felt a crippling pain in his chest, one far greater than caused by fear of his brothers falling, fleeing for his life, Dean telling him that he could not stay, living as Steve, feeling his human's rage, sadness and hopelessness fester and fester into him.
Castiel touched his chest with a tentative finger, as if to see if that emotion could be held with his hand and he took a deep breath, a raw deep breath, unshed tears springing into his eyes as he felt Dean's rejection throb in a painful, unsteady rhythm.
However, through that confusion, there was a flicker of hope, followed by a slow epiphany, like a sun rising behind the mountain.
It didn't matter what he felt. It didn't matter that Dean didn't recognize him. It didn't matter that Dean had banished him, cast away because he believed Castiel was another enemy.
The only thing that mattered is that Dean was alive.
"Dean's alive." Castiel whispered, tasting the words.
It was difficult to believe and even harder to hear aloud. He said again, this time louder.
"Dean's alive."
The seven years grief that was buried by grace, the one that refused to be erased by it, the one it made him feel as if he could truly die by the enormity of it. He had wished to—God, how he had wished to die, not to live in heaven, hell or purgatory or in any form of afterlife, just to stop existing altogether. And now that grief was easing with each utterance.
Louder, he said, "Dean's alive."
The grief that could not be killed by grace had truly died in his chest and it was sledgehammer of happiness, peace that had slain it. It was like spreading his wings and flew through the stars, seeing Dean's smile, kissing Meg for the first time, the ice cream he tasted, the warmth of coffee, the woman he touched, the serenity of a sunset or sunrise, the first successful hunt, the hardworking sweat of accomplishment made with his bare, human hands, the laugher that could not stop until his chest hurt and cried.
"Dean's alive!" He shouted so loudly, like he shouted with Kevin, outside at the bunker, arms raised high, face facing the sky. Shouting until his throat felt scraped and hoarse. Shouting until he couldn't use his voice.
"Dean is alive!"
He laughed and it came out surprised. He opened his eyes, watching the thousand luminous stars above him, feeling content through the grace. He felt at peace and he didn't even care there was a rustle of tall plants moving, indicating that someone was behind him in the cornfield.
"Mister?"
Castiel turned and saw a boy, no older than ten, in his pajamas that featured cars and a flashlight on his hand. The boy looked at him with wide eyes.
"I saw the light." The boy said, full of wonder and fear, "Are you alien, mister?"
The angel stared at the boy for a long moment then he laughed, he laughed so hard that there were tears in his eyes.