A/N: Rated M for sexy times.
Twenty-nine
Brooke awoke, suddenly, gasping as if she'd been underwater for far too long. All around her was light, and there was nothing but light. His light. Castiel's light. She had felt it, been around it, for so long that she knew it instinctively. But she had not felt it this strongly in a long time. Graceless since expending it all on Lucifer, she floated within his light, and it nearly blinded her.
Finally, after what could have been seconds, or hours, her eyes adjusted, her body adjusted. She felt herself being cradled in his arms and she looked up and saw his face. He smiled down at her, holding the back of her head in one hand, like a child.
He was beautiful. At one time, she might have also called him terrifying. But she had known him for two years, known his ins and outs, known his mind and his heart. His light was only beautiful, and it shone around her like the sun, warm and comforting and expansive.
Brooke, he said, and his voice echoed in her mind a hundred times.
She gasped as his mind connected to hers, gasped as thoughts rushed past her and through her and around her like a river. It took true effort to concentrate when all she wanted to do was lose herself in him, as she had done the first time she had ever met him.
"You died," she whispered, unable to speak normally, for his presence overwhelmed everything within her.
Yes. God brought me back.
God… Brooke had to laugh at that, and she felt Castiel's joy at her laughter infiltrate her being. It felt orgasmic, that joy. She lost herself within it for a time, and then, slowly, came back to her own mind and body. Are you sure you're not God? she asked him.
Dean asked me the same thing, Castiel said As I told him, it's a nice compliment. But no.
She remained cradled in his arms for a while. I'm sorry I used your Grace.
Don't be. I can give you more.
She stared into his face, reaching her hand up to touch it. You would do that?
He held her gaze. Have you forgotten? I am yours, and you are mine. Now, and forever. Will you let me into your body?
Yes.
###
Now that the Apocalypse was over, Brooke felt as if her job of sticking around with the Winchesters had ended… especially since Sam Winchester was now in the Pit, along with Adam. Dean had no intention of continuing to Hunt, so Brooke didn't feel the need to stick around with him. He had a woman to go see, someone named Lisa. Her last goodbye with Dean was fairly unemotional. She hugged him—she felt they'd reached that point in their relationship—but there were no tears.
She was much more emotional with Bobby, who had been there for her since the beginning of all of this, back when Castiel had unceremoniously dropped her off at his house two years before.
Bobby pulled back from their hug and looked Brooke in the eye. "You keep in touch, you hear?" he said.
"Of course," Brooke replied, swiping at her tears. It wasn't like this would be the last time she'd see him. "I'll come over any time you want, Bobby. Make you food. Whatever you want, okay?"
"I'll hold you to that." He turned and glared at Castiel, who had walked off to give them space. "Get your angel ass over here."
Castiel walked over to them, looking warily at Bobby.
"You break this girl's heart, I'm gonna bend you over my knee—angel or no. Understand?" Bobby stared Castiel down in a way Brooke had never seen anyone stare Castiel down.
Cass squinted at Bobby, clearly unsure of how to respond to such a threat. "I—I don't…"
"Just tell him you understand," Brooke cut in, before Castiel made a complete fool of himself.
Cass glanced at her, then looked back at Bobby. "I… understand," he said, though he didn't sound very confident.
"Good," said Bobby.
###
A few days after everyone had split up, Brooke and Castiel made their way to a cemetery—not Stull Cemetery, for they'd left Kansas far behind. There was no one here for Brooke to visit, but Castiel had confided in her that Jimmy Novak—the man whose body he had taken for the past two years—had died when Castiel had been killed. His soul had ascended to Heaven, and God, when bringing Castiel back to life, had simply recreated the body that he had grown used to in the past two years. It looked like Jimmy Novak, but Jimmy was no longer inside of it. It had become Castiel's body so long as he was on Earth.
Brooke went back and forth, trying to decide if getting ahold of Jimmy's wife and child to tell them about his death were in their best interests. If someone close to Brooke died, she thought she'd want to know about it. And yet, it seemed cruel to bring news of Jimmy back to his wife, Amelia, only for the news to be that he had died, horrendously, at the hands of an Archangel. Amelia had been devout before Jimmy had ever been taken as Castiel's vessel. Brooke had no idea what the woman thought of God or angels now, but she had to assume they weren't good thoughts. Why cause her more pain by explaining that an angel had killed her husband, especially since it had been a year since she'd even seen him? Besides, Brooke had no idea where Amelia even was. There was a large part of her that truly wanted to tell Amelia about Jimmy, yet every time she pictured herself doing so, she couldn't get Amelia's face out of her head, couldn't stop imagine her demanding to know why Brooke had even showed up, and had it only been to hurt her?
As for Castiel, he felt awful about Jimmy's death, but was in the same boat as Brooke in terms of telling Amelia about it. He felt he'd already done enough damage to Amelia and the child, Claire. He figured he should probably leave well enough alone. Now that Jimmy Novak's body was his body, he thought it would be cruel to go to Amelia, looking like Jimmy, only to be told that Jimmy was dead. It would be like staring at the ghost of her husband.
Lacking anything substantial to do memorialize Jimmy's death, Brooke had taken them to some local cemetery as they were driving through Utah on their way to nowhere. They got out of the car and simply walked among the graves, silent and pensive as they went. There was a large tree in one area of the cemetery that Brooke felt drawn to. She and Castiel walked over to it, and she sat down beneath its branches. "Jimmy was too good for any of this," she said. "He didn't deserve what happened to him. Amelia and Claire didn't deserve any of this, either."
Castiel was still standing, but he slowly lowered himself to the ground, sitting cross-legged. "I regret that he died. Now that the Apocalypse is over, he might have been able to return to his family safely." He sighed, staring up into the branches of the tree.
"I have to think it all meant something," Brooke murmured, and lay down in the grass.
"We saved the world," Castiel replied, absentmindedly brushing his fingers through her hair. "That means something."
"You're right. I probably shouldn't complain. I'd rather not tempt fate."
They stayed there for a while, silently, Brooke laying in the grass and Castiel sitting beside her.
Eventually, Castiel said, "You know I have to return to Heaven soon."
"I know."
He looked down at her. "When I leave, I… I don't know when, or if, I'll be able to return. Raphael is up in Heaven right now, causing chaos… and with God gone…"
Brooke smiled up at him. "I live in your head, Cass," she said, gently. "You gotta go be God's good little soldier. I know."
"That sounded a little condescending," he said, looking at her askance.
"Hey," she replied, pointing at him. "Remember what I said: only family can tease you, and we do it cos we love you."
He smiled and looked away.
There was another long silence, and then he looked at her again. "Will you be all right… if I leave?"
She sighed, taking a moment to gather her thoughts. There was an ache in her chest, a hole already slowly widening where Castiel was supposed to be, and he hadn't even left yet. "I'd like to think that I'm a strong, independent woman, and that my relationship with you doesn't define my entire life… except that my relationship with you has defined my entire life for the past two years." She looked up at him, reaching up to touch his face. "I dunno, Cass," she admitted. "We'll just have to see how I do. I'll get back into Hunting full-time, probably. I tried to get out of the life before and we saw how that turned out. Lucifer might be back in his box, but there are still demons and ghosts and monsters to Hunt. And with Sam and Dean outta commission…" She shrugged.
Castiel nodded, placing his hand over hers. "Next time, don't forget to bring something silver to a vampire fight," he told her.
"Hey," she said, sitting up and laughing, "I didn't know it was a vampire, okay?" Then she burst into tears.
In a rush of wind, she was suddenly sitting in the backseat of her car, wrapped in Castiel's arms. For just a little while, she allowed herself to be a blubbering mess in his lap. She felt his own sadness, but there was a resolve within him that could only be described as angelic. His duties to Heaven had to come first, and they had both known it for some time. He promised he would try to keep in touch, try to come to her in dreams if he could, try to tell her he was all right… but they both knew he could die in the coming war with Raphael.
They had promised one another to stay by each other's sides, but they both knew that Brooke could not ascend to Heaven with Castiel. A mortal would die upon entering Heaven if they were still alive. So this was it, possibly for only a little while, but possibly forever. Castiel did not cry with Brooke, but she could feel his heart breaking as much as hers was. They sat in the backseat of her car for a long time. Eventually, Brooke stopped crying, but it hadn't really made her feel any better. She knew that, were it not for her, Castiel would have already left for Heaven. She knew he was avoiding the inevitable for her, and she couldn't ask him to stay forever.
"Give me one more night," she whispered.
"Yes," he said.
###
He came to her that night in her motel room, looking all kinds of nervous and vulnerable and human. His body was his own, now, and no other souls resided within him. There were parts of both of them—Castiel and Brooke—that thought of Jimmy as he came nearer to her, but Jimmy was dead, and there was nothing either of them could do for him now. And this was the last night they would see each other for God knew how long.
Brooke felt a little calmer as she realized that Castiel was, somehow, more nervous than she was. All that bravado and confidence melted away the moment he realized that real sex involved all of the body. Now that he had begun to understand this body as his own, he seemed more fragile within it, even despite knowing that, with his angel powers intact again, almost nothing could really damage it.
They undressed, slowly, together, and Castiel seemed to feel calmer once he no longer had to worry about clothing. Brooke noticed, with amusement, the way he carefully removed his tie and shoes, remembering the way she had yelled at him the last time.
She took the time to sit with him, naked and side by side, and explain how a condom worked and how to put one on. The break in emotions to explain something logically helped to calm him further. Instructions were something he understood, as a soldier. He stared at her very seriously as she explained never to open a condom package with his teeth, or to let a girl (any girl) put one on him with their mouth.
"Now," she said, smiling at him. "The last time you had an orgasm, you exploded all the windows in about twenty cars. Is that gonna happen again? Because we're in a motel room and I can't afford awkward questions or being charged with destruction of property."
He was still staring at her with a completely serious expression. "I can control it," he said, his voice deeper and more gravelly than usual.
"Good," she said, and handed him the condom.
Castiel grew in confidence steadily after the initial awkwardness had worn off. Actually, Brooke found him to be a surprisingly competent lover—though, perhaps, she shouldn't have found it surprising. Being inside her head meant that he knew everything she wanted, before even she knew what she wanted, and once his angelic levels of confidence returned, she found that he had no inhibitions. He also had angelic levels of stamina…
Towards the end of the night, when Brooke had reached a point of ecstasy that she had not previously known existed, she could feel him reaching his own limit. Sweat ran down both of their bodies, and all they knew was the sound of each other breathing. She sat atop him and he stared up at her, laying down on the bed. As he grew closer and closer to climax, she began to feel a sort of electric crackle in the air. Outside, the wind began to howl and rain began to patter against the roof.
Are you doing that? she asked, unable to even speak.
He did not answer her, but kept moving, and the more he moved, the louder and stronger the storm raged. There was a tightening in her body, in his, in the air around them. Brooke, who had already reached her limit multiple times, could feel herself beginning again.
Castiel sat up, suddenly, and the motion caused Brooke to cry out. His eyes began to glow, and the Grace in both of their bodies hummed loudly. The air tightened even more, and outside, the wind slammed against the motel room, the rain so loud that it drowned out even the sounds that Brooke was making. The lights in their room began to flicker. Castiel's entire body seemed to shake. Brooke's mind was numb, all thought between the both of them having ceased completely. Instead, all she heard was a ringing in her ears…
All that tension released, suddenly. The window did not, in fact, explode, but one of the lightbulbs did. Brooke felt, simultaneously, her own pique, as well as his. Behind all the ringing in her ears, she could hear her own ragged breathing, and she could hear his. He was saying her name, his voice hoarse and deep and compelling. The window rattled loudly, the wind outside slamming against it. The rain roared down onto the roof of the motel…
###
The next time that Brooke became aware of her body, she was laying in the bed, Castiel laying beside her. The storm had mostly abated, though a light sprinkling still pattered on the roof. The light was slowly shifting in the room. It was almost dawn. She turned in the bed and looked at him, tracing her fingers across his arm. He brought his head closer to her, resting his forehead against hers. Together, they breathed, and allowed their thoughts to flow freely between each other. Slowly, the room lightened more and more.
Dawn came and went.
Castiel pulled back from her, cupping her face in his hand. "I will come back to you," he said.
She nodded, sighed, closed her eyes. Tears rolled down her face, but she swiped them away. She opened her eyes and her gaze roamed across his face, memorizing it.
He got out of the bed and slowly dressed.
She stayed where was, watching him. He pulled on the trench coat—technically an overcoat—and stood at the foot of the bed. She saw his wings unfold and spread, and she basked in the glow of his light. There was a rustling sound, and a breeze gently caressed her face.
He was gone.
END.
A/N: So, this is the end of Book One! I will put up the first chapter of Book Two shortly. Book Two will be called "Kept" as the main title. I might subtitle it "(sequel to Touched)" or something to make it easier to find, but just go to my author page and find it there, in the next few minutes-ish! Thanks to everyone who had read up to this point! You're the reason I keep writing! Love you all.
