10

On the third day - after my second sleep - I awoke to the strange sensation that the earth was standing still. The past forty eight hours had been like a plane trip, always aloft, always in motion. It was like waking up after the landing, in a new country, with a new temperature I hadn't acclimatised to yet. My clothes stuck to me slightly and I felt an urgent need to take a cold shower.

"Cas, where are we?" I sat up and glanced about. A bedroom, that was for sure. A neat, sparse, cream and white room with sheets on the beds but no duvets. The light slanting in through the windows was shockingly bright, almost painful even to look at from inside. "Cas?"

"The Holy Land," came the gruff reply. He was sitting directly behind me, on the other side of the bed, with his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped beneath his chin. "I dismissed it as an unlikely place before, but I reconsidered once we had covered three quarters of the globe. He isn't here either."

"Well then, let's go for the last quarter. Why did you stop here?"
"You needed rest."
"I was resting fine. That's not why you've stopped."

A sigh heaved from his chest like a huge weight. His shoulders were rounded and stiff. "What if we don't find him? What if I'm wasting my time looking for the wrong answer?"
"We're doing the right thing."
"I don't know. I'm starting to doubt."
"In your Father?"

"Yes, in my Father, in everyone," he snapped suddenly. "Everyone except you. And that's probably a mistake as well."

A silence followed.

"You're right," I said. He swiveled his head to stare at me. "I've been nothing but a drag on you since I got here. You should have left me behind."
"I didn't mean -"
"And you should never have trusted Sam and Dean with something this big. All they've done is sat around on their asses waiting for you to save the world, I mean, what kind of hunters are they?"
"That's not -"

I went on. "And your Father, who put so much effort into your creation, he doesn't think you're worth it. He doesn't believe in you."
"My Father -"
"And as for the rest of us! Humanity. We're not worth the dirt under your fingernails are we. Selfish, lazy, vicious bastards. We would have been better off staying as fish."

"That is not true!" He barked back at me, his cheeks colouring with indignation. "Humanity is sacred. God gave you free will. He created you to prove that good could exist even where there was evil. I love humanity as I was ordered to, and beyond that. I would do anything to keep you safe."

"Well then," I said, "what are we sitting around for?"

It took him a moment to register what had just happened. "You tricked me."
"You needed it."
"I suppose I did." His expression faltered.

I patted the space next to me on the mattress. "Come here, Cas."
"Why?"
"Just get over here."

Easing his shoes off, he lifted his legs onto the bed and scooted over. I sat cross-legged and he mirrored me without thinking.

"Now, close your eyes."

With a suspicious squint, he obeyed. We sat very still.

"Can you see me?"
"No. My eyes are closed."
"Right. Can you hear me when I stop talking?" I held my breath and turned to stone.
"No. I can't hear you."
"Can you feel me in front of you? Can you touch me?"

His hand came sweeping around in search of me. Silently I leaned away from his fingers, and they grasped at empty air.

"I can't feel you. Have you gone somewhere?"

I didn't answer.

"Faye?" he frowned.

I saw myself slowly drawing closer to him as though it was all happening to somebody else. I meant to reach out and touch his face, but the tension seemed to haul me in like a magnetic force. His face was close, and getting closer. I could feel his breath on my chin. For the last second as I leaned in, I too closed my eyes and let sensation overtake me.

He didn't flinch. He was probably too surprised to react in any way. His mouth was softer than I'd imagined, the feeling of his lips moulding around my own sending stabs of electricity down my spine. Finding myself kneeling up I slid both hands along his collar and up the smooth skin of his throat to cup my palms around his face, the tips of my fingers running through his silken hair.

I ventured another kiss, and suddenly his hands were gripping my wrists, but they weren't pushing me away. Rather he seemed to clamp my hands where they were as though afraid I would ever let go of him. It wasn't enough. His grip slithered up my arms to my shoulders, around my back, pulling me into his body like animals pull prey towards their open jaws.

His lips parted and moved with mine, taking great gasps of air. Four or five times he renewed the kiss with crushing force, and his grasp was so strong that I began almost to be afraid. My palms were splayed against his chest, half submissive, half protective, ready to push him off me.

Finally he broke away without letting me go, panting as his gaze fixed on my mouth, struggling with the impulse to continue, to dare to go further.

"I'm here, Cas," I managed, only just remembering the whole point of the exercise. "You couldn't see or hear or touch me, but I'm here."
"I have you now," he growled in a manner bordering on predatory.
"Yeah. You've got me pretty tight."
"I should let go."
"Maybe."

Reluctantly he loosed his grip, and reluctantly I retreated to my side of the mattress.

"What I'm trying to say is that God is out there, somewhere. And if he is then we have to find him sooner or later."
"Yes," he said blankly, "God. And what will God think of me?"

"He'll think that you've been brave to look for him. And to rebel against the angels."
"I don't know what he would think of me now," he glanced down at his own hands that a second ago had been all over me. "I'm not - used to these things."

I had nothing useful to say to this. My body screamed to be able to touch him again, to be lost in that overwhelming power and know that he was in control of me. But the moment had passed.

"I'm ready to go if you are," was all I said in reply.