Twenty-three
Kevin Tran had been taken back home, after delivering the full translation of the tablet to Sam and Dean. The garrison had promised to watch over him from there. Meg had vanished, going somewhere for a while to lay low until she had a clearer plan of attack on Crowley.
The plan to take down Dick Roman and the rest of the Leviathans meant building a weapon of some kind, and the weapon included the blood of a fallen angel, among other ingredients. Castiel happily handed over a vial of his own blood. "Always happy to bleed for the Winchesters," he said, ducking his head, as if he were bashful. Brooke stood beside him, as always.
Dean looked down at the vial of angel blood in his hand, and then looked up at the two of them.
Before he could say anything, Brooke said, in a rush, "I'm sorry I punched you."
Beside her, Castiel's Grace went up by an octave or two, in worry. "You punched Dean?"
Dean blinked at Brooke in surprise, ignoring Cass. "Don't worry about it," he replied. "Uh, I'm sorry I didn't give you some kinda heads-up about the anti-angel sigil. But I couldn't let anyone know, or they might've retaliated."
Brooke nodded. "Of course," she said.
"You punched Dean?" Castiel repeated, and though his voice remained that deep gravelly tone, she had the distinct image in her head of a scared child's voice raising an octave with each word.
"Don't worry about it," Dean repeated, reaching over the table they were huddled around and gripping the angel's shoulder in a reassuring manner.
Castiel stared at Dean, then turned his head and stared at Brooke. Then he seemed to give up on caring about the issue, and smiled.
"So," said Dean, "what are you two gonna do now?"
Castiel smiled again, though this one was more genuine. He gazed at Brooke, and there was a tiny spark of his old self somewhere in his eyes. "We don't know," he said, still looking at her. He held out his hand to her, and she took it. Then, he looked at Dean, askance, still smiling, and asked, "Isn't that wonderful?"
###
Brooke loved every moment of every day she spent with Castiel for the next two weeks or so. Having not understood, before, his incessant need to teleport her all around the world, to all these places, she consciously chose to enjoy her time with him, then. They walked on beaches in their bare feet, early in the morning when no one was out in the water yet, besides the hardcore surfers. They weaved their way through quiet woodlands following rivers and streams, point out fish they found, darting through the water. Once, he took her to a salt flat, simply to stare around at the sheer, vast emptiness of it.
While traveling, he would sustain her as much as he could with his own energy, but eventually, she would need to eat and sleep. They avoided America as much as possible, what with its infestation of Leviathans and the poisoning of all the packaged food. Brooke had no money or credit cards that would work anywhere else, so Castiel had to come to terms with the idea of stealing food. Before now, this would not have been a problem for him, but he considered stealing to be one step away from violence, and it took him a while to build up the nerve.
Finding Brooke somewhere to sleep was also a challenge, and usually involved Castiel pressing two fingers to the forehead of whoever was the manager of the hotel they were in and… jogging his memory. Ah, the manager would suddenly cry, your room key! Of course!
Castiel felt guilty about this, but the alternative was returning to America, to somewhere where Brooke's stolen credit cards would work, and Castiel did not want to be anywhere near America. The closer he was to America, the closer to the Leviathans, and Sam and Dean, and the closer to the possibility of having to fight something.
###
Late one night, in a hotel room somewhere (Brooke had long ago lost track of where they ever were), she lay in the bed with Castiel as rain lashed at the windows. Thunder occasionally rolled past, overhead. Brooke turned in the bed to face her husband, who was laying, fully clothed (shoes off) on top of the covers. "You're not making it rain, are you?" she teased, thinking absentmindedly of Castiel's body, his touch. She had long come to associate rain with sex, since, for him, one correlated with the other.
"No, I'm not making it rain," he said, his voice sounding strained.
She heard the discomfort in his voice, but pushed him, anyway, just wanting to see how he would react. "Do you want to make it rain?" she asked, her voice a sensual purr.
He would not look at her. "I know what you're asking," he said, "but I… I can't—I…."
She touched him lightly on the arm. "It's okay, Emmanuel," she murmured. She had been calling him by that name, almost exclusively, for the past week, as it seemed to calm him. She toyed with her wedding ring, which she never took off, rolling it around and around her finger. "I was only thinking that this all feels strangely like a… like a honeymoon."
He smiled suddenly; she could see him, perfectly, in the dark, his skin and clothes lit up from the inside by a holy glow. He turned to face her, propping himself up on one elbow, putting his head in his hand. "I'm glad you see it that way."
"It's still a little strange," she confessed. "The idea that we're… married. Even if we're really not. Not in any legally binding way."
Castiel blinked at her, still smiling.
Brooke went silent for a time, thinking back to those six months in which she had been Ruth and Castiel had been Emmanuel, a healer. "We should tell Daphne we're safe," she mused. "I feel horrible for it, but I've barely thought of her since you fell into a coma. We should… contact her, somehow. Although…"
"Contacting her could draw bad things to her," Castiel said, his voice low, barely above a whisper. He sounded like a child, confessing to his mother his fear of the monster in his closet.
Brooke was surprised he even had a mind sound enough to say it aloud. "Yes," she agreed. "Maybe it's better if we wait."
Silence reigned for some time, and during that silence, Brooke's mind went to a darker place, a place she'd been trying to keep at bay since Castiel had woken up from his coma. She missed him, the normal him, the one untouched by Sam's insanity, the one who was not so terrified of conflict… the one who could hold her, touch her. She said none of this aloud, knowing full well that Castiel could hear every thought. She curled into herself in the bed, avoiding his eyes.
"I'm sorry," Castiel whispered into the darkness.
"You don't need to apologize to me," Brooke replied, immediately. "I'm just… being a little self-pitying. Missing how things used to be. I'll get over it."
In their connected minds, she could feel him fracturing again, but trying his best to hold himself together, to become a little bit more like the old Castiel, the one who didn't crack under pressure, the one capable of pulling Brooke into his arms as easily as spreading his wings. Yet the harder he tried, the more his mind splintered, the more erratic his thoughts became, the more he was forced to remember all the bad that he brought into the world.
"Shhh…" Brooke said, placing a hand on his arm again. "Shhh…"
Down the rain poured, and Brooke slowly fell into sleep.
###
The next morning she awoke to find that the bed was empty beside her. She sat up, wondering for a brief moment, if Castiel had, perhaps, run away in the night. She blinked, rubbed her eyes, and then gazed around in shock and wonder at the sight before her. The room was full of flowers. Flowers everywhere. All different types. Petals lay spread across the bed. Vases of flowers stood on both nightstands. Bunches of flowers lay all across the floor. There were hundreds of them.
Brooke whispered, "Oh," and covered her mouth with her hands.
And there, on the ground, sitting cross-legged, was Castiel, smiling calmly up at her, his hands in his lap, the wedding band on his finger winking in the light of morning.
"How long…?" Brooke began, but was so overwhelmed that she could not even finish the question.
"Oh, all night," said Castiel, cheerily. "I went all over the world, being sure to pick only a few flowers from any one bush or tree. It's important to preserve the plant, of course."
"Of course," she repeated, staring around the room with a watery smile. "Castiel," she murmured, forgetting to call him Emmanuel, but he did not seem to mind it that time. She shook her head in awe. "It's beautiful."
Castiel smiled wider, his eyes lighting up in joy. "I know you told me once that you didn't really like flowers. You said you preferred chocolate, but… I thought, maybe, I could show you how beautiful flowers could really be."
Brooke gazed down at Castiel for a moment, at a loss for words. Then she got slowly out of bed and down on the floor with him. He seemed steadier than he had last night, able to meet her gaze without looking away again a moment later; able to focus on one thing for more than a few seconds. He still seemed a little shy, smiling at her bashfully, but he opened his arms to her as she came toward him on her hands at knees. She crawled into his lap and they held one another for a long time.
###
Perhaps the strangest thing to occur on their made-up honeymoon happened near the end of the two weeks they spent by themselves, just before the angel began to grow concerned at the lack of communication between himself and the garrison meant to be watching over Kevin.
Walking through a pasture somewhere under a noonday sun, Castiel paused and closed his eyes, seeming to be listening for something.
"What is it?" Brooke asked.
Castiel did not reply, but tilted his head to the side, his eyes still closed. Suddenly, he vanished, and Brooke felt the wind on her face from his wings.
Cass? she called, in her mind, feeling a little worried at his disappearance. Still, she could feel him at the edges of her mind, which meant he was somewhere relatively close by.
He returned a minute later, and Brooke screamed.
He was naked, and he was covered in bees. BEES.
Castiel blinked manically for a moment, staring at Brooke in apparent surprise. They won't hurt you, he said to her, as the bees crawled around on his bare flesh, and buzzed around his face.
Brooke, however, was past the point of being talked to. She backed up so fast that she tripped on some rock or root behind her and fell, catching herself a little by the throwing her arms out behind herself. All she could see were the bees, and the sound of their buzzing filled her brain like hypnosis. There she was, a Hunter, someone who killed monsters for a living, and the sight of hundreds of bees scared her more than any ghost or vampire ever had.
All she could think was that they might all decide, at the same time, to sting her. And then she would die, horribly, her throat closing up, her body swelling like a balloon. More like a thousand balloons, all underneath her skin. She was not allergic to bees, but she knew that if anyone was stung enough times, they would die.
Castiel stared down at her, on the ground, confusion and a little hurt in his eyes. He took a step toward her, intending to help her stand, but she let out another scream, this one squeakier than the last and shook her head, hard. He stopped, and took a few steps away from her, repeating again, They won't hurt you.
"I don't give a fuck!" she yelled, paranoia slowly rising in her. "Get them away from me!"
He looked at her sadly, for a moment, then tilted his head, as if listening again. "Dean is calling me," he said, and vanished.
Castiel did not return for some time, perhaps half an hour. Brooke took the time away from him to sit on the ground and collect herself, trying to calm her furiously beating heart. She felt bad for turning him away like that, but there was nothing she could do about it now. She had never been around so many bees at once before, and she didn't think there could have been any way to prepare her for Castiel to come to her, completely naked, and completely covered in bees. It had been such a shock that it was like her brain had shut down.
Slowly, her heart returned to normal, and by the time Castiel returned to her, she was sitting calmly in the grass, her chin resting on her arms, resting on her knees. She looked up at him with only her eyes, and laughed.
He was still naked, but this time he was covered from head to toe in butterflies.
"I thought you might like these better," he said. "No stingers."
She smiled lovingly up at him, grateful that he had taken her wants and fears into consideration, even with his mind as scattered as it was. "What did Dean want?" she asked.
"I don't know," Castiel said. "He told me to go away the second I showed up. I guess he didn't like the bees, either." He frowned. "You know you can't live without bees, and humans are killing them all."
"I like bees just fine," Brooke said, standing up, her eyes flitting here and there around Castiel's body as the butterflies floated around him, landing on his head and shoulders to fan their wings; crawling up and down his stomach and legs and arms. She continued, "I just don't want a whole bunch of bees all in my face at the same time."
Castiel smiled and slowly held his arms out to the sides, allowing the butterflies to roost there, as well. Brooke slowly stepped closer to the angel, and some of the butterflies began to flit off of him and onto her, landing on her head. She laughed.
And Castiel tilted his head back, laughing with her, his arms spread wide, wings unfurled in all their glory; and angelic light poured out of his body like the sun, filling the valley with that warm glow that only Brooke could see.