After learning something upsetting, Castiel has a conversation with Vaughn. Set several months after the close of Chasing Glory.
There was a storm coming in when Castiel showed up.
Vaughn could smell it, and the wind was starting to shriek around the corners of the house as Sam and Castiel sat at the kitchen table, Vaughn leaning over the back of the couch and Dean standing against the counter. It seemed like it was still hours away. But it was picking up steam, and the fact they'd just had rain yesterday didn't seem to be slowing it down at all.
The conversation had started off slow. Just asking how everybody was, Castiel wanting to know what their plans were, Sam talking optimistically about hunting and finding a new place. Castiel didn't seem super thrilled about the hunting.
"You're sure you won't just return to a more passive role? You made an excellent scribe."
"I can hunt and still do research," Sam pointed out. After months of recovery, he was finally filling back out, long body getting solid again and bones in his face not looking so much like knives. "I'm actually working on stuff here. The wifi's...not great, but it'll be better once we move someplace permanent, and I can at least answer people's questions. And I've been tracking the weather."
"The weather," Castiel stated.
"I think having so many demons in one area, for so long, all those omens...it really screwed with the climate here on the coast. We're still having record storms."
"Show him your charts, weathergirl." Dean stood, walking over to put his hands on Sam's shoulders.
"There aren't any charts!" Sam protested. "At least...not a lot."
"Unfortunately, I think there may be many long-term effects of having so many demons present on Earth, especially in one spot," Castiel agreed. "I've seen this kind of thing several times before, but...I understand that last time, there was a plague."
Dean's eyebrows rose. Sam's mouth opened slightly.
"That didn't end with the Gates of Hell closing though, so things will likely be different this time," Castiel added.
There was a pause
"Uh huh." Sam swallowed. "Right. We might come back to that later but, uh, speaking of demons and closing the Gates - "
"Find anything else out?" Dean interrupted. "Y'know, Heaven. The Jesus club. Maybe anything to do with Alastair, give us the rundown."
"As I stated earlier," Castiel began, smelling just a little bit like frost to Vaughn, "Heaven is quiet. Although I'm not sure if that's because they aren't active, or simply because my connection's been cut off."
"You haven't heard from any of them, then?" Sam asked quietly. His sympathy had always smelled soft to Vaughn, sort of buttery. It was a familiar scent.
"No." Castiel shook his head. "None of them have made any effort to contact me. I haven't attempted to speak with any of them either, not even those I considered myself close to in the past...not that there are many left. Most of my garrison is still missing."
Sam's guilt was kind of like licorice. Less because it smelled similar to licorice at all and more because Vaughn didn't like it, or how strong it was.
"I don't want to make myself any more of a target than I already am," Castiel finished. "Everyone seems to have forgotten I existed. With so many angels gone, Heaven is likely in turmoil. I'd like to take advantage of that."
"And Alastair?" Dean asked impatiently.
"Nothing else, Dean. I am sorry; I have been looking into it."
"That's fine." Dean smiled, sort of tight, and patted Sam's shoulder. "Not that much longer 'til we can take a look ourselves."
"I'm gonna help," Vaughn said firmly.
"Uh huh. By staying with Bobby. Like we talked about."
Vaughn pressed his mouth into the scratchy, mildew-smelling fabric of the cushions so Dean couldn't accuse him of pouting.
"I have found something with the other possible Messiahs, though." Castiel continued like Vaughn hadn't spoken.
Sam and Dean exchanged a look, then Sam quietly said, "I thought you said another one wouldn't...ascend or anything 'til I'm dead."
Dislike from Dean. It smelled like rotten eggs, but not his normal rotten egg sulfur smell.
"I said probably wouldn't," Castiel corrected. "There's never been a Messiah in your exact position before, which leaves the fate of the others largely uncertain, but none of them are showing any signs of awakening beyond the moderate psychic powers some are experiencing."
"Wait, what?" Dean said at almost the same time Sam protested, "I don't think you've ever told us that before."
"'Moderate.' It's nothing you need to be concerned about," Castiel said impatiently. "That's not what I wanted to tell you. Things have remained largely the same, none have attracted any worrisome attention, but...there is one complication." He looked from Sam to Dean, then back again. "I have reason to believe that one of the beings Bobby Singer was tracking as a potential Messiah may actually be a nephilim."
"What's the difference?"
When Vaughn spoke up, everybody turned to look at him, and the room smelled like they'd forgotten he was there even though he'd just talked a couple minutes ago. He folded his arms on the back of the couch, spines itching self-consciously in his wrists. He couldn't back down now, though.
"I-I mean. A nephilim's like, Biblical, right? Like a Messiah."
Sam cleared his throat as he shifted his whole body towards Vaughn. Vaughn recognized his "teacher" posture. But the throat-clearing ended on a cough, and Dean sighed forcefully through his nose and started banging around the kitchen, grabbing a chipped mug and filling the rusty kettle with water.
"You know how I told you what a Messiah was?" Sam asked, voice a little strangled from the effort of keeping in more coughs. Vaughn felt kind of shaky inside, but six months ago, Sam wouldn't have been able to stop himself from coughing until he was bent double and going blue-white.
"Uh huh. A human, um…'imbued with the essence of God.'"
Sam nodded. "A nephilim's half-angel, half-human. Or I guess it could technically just have angel ancestry, but all the ones I've ever read about had one angel parent."
Vaughn took that in. "So they've got different powers from Messiahs."
Sam took a deep breath. Vaughn tensed some without even fully realizing he was doing it, but Sam didn't cough again.
"We don't really know a whole lot about nephilim," he said almost apologetically. "They aren't super common."
"Neither are Messiahs," Dean pointed out dryly.
"Yeah, but I know more about those than I do nephilim." Sam twisted in his seat. "Which is. Kind of ironic, considering I just found out about Messiahs about a year ago, and I've known about nephilim since I was in high school."
"So what d'you know about nephilim?" Vaughn prompted. Sam looked at him again, but Dean spoke before he could.
"They pack a serious punch," he stated. "More powerful the dad, the more powerful the nephilim."
"Or the mom, right?" Vaughn asked. "I mean, if the angel's a girl. Or in a girl vessel. Right?"
"Yeah," Dean said, and visibly shuddered. "About that."
"If a pregnancy occurs, the human half of the depravity will always bear the offspring." Castiel stepped in. "Without fail."
"Why?" Sam seemed interested. "I mean, d'you know?"
"Angelic Grace doesn't allow for an ideal - "
"Wait, wait," Vaughn interrupted, desperately needing to know. "But what if the human's a guy?"
Dean was making the same squick-out face he made whenever Sam (or Vaughn) coughed or sneezed or barfed something up, except worse. He smelled so sour Vaughn could taste it. Castiel was the one who answered though, as the kettle started whistling and Dean turned for it.
"That makes no difference."
"But - " Sam was hooked. Vaughn fought really, really hard not to roll his eyes. "How? I mean, I've heard about spells a-and rites, but nothing that ever actually...all the structures, it'd be super painful, and you'd need a bunch of mass or energy to - "
"Hey. Captain Nerd." Dean set a steaming mug in front of Sam, tail of a tea bag dangling out of it. "You and Feathers can crawl as deep into this as you want later, somewhere I can't hear you, but for now, kid asked a question." He nodded to Vaughn.
"This has to do with nephilim," Sam replied almost triumphantly as he looked at the tea, then up at Dean. "I'm sure Vaughn wants to know."
Vaughn didn't even have to think before shaking his head as hard as he could. "Uh uh."
"See? And he eats brains, not like he's squeamish. Now, drink your tea, there's honey in it." Dean pointed at the mug. "Anyway, nephilim. After all the gross miracle-of-life crap wraps up."
"The conception of a nephilim is the opposite of a miracle," Castiel said firmly. Dean acted like he hadn't talked.
"I ran into one, back in the seventies," he said, one eye on Sam as he very grumpily nursed at the tea. "Sperm donor was a pretty low-level angel, but it still gave me a run for my money. If I hadn't had backup…" He trailed off with a whistle. "Yeah."
"They're abominations." Vaughn finally felt like Castiel was talking directly to him. "The only time the divine and the human were ever meant to come together was in a Messiah. A nephilim is an affront to the natural order. When one exists, it has to be purged."
Vaughn felt himself start to frown. "Like a monster."
Dean eyed him, then looked down at Sam.
"According to the lore, their powers are usually unstable." Sam stepped in, smelling uncomfortable. "They can't control themselves."
Vaughn looked down at his hands on the back of the couch, pale. He went back and forth on whether or not to say it. He finally decided he couldn't help himself and tentatively began, "That kinda sounds like you up at Bobby's cabin."
Dean smothered a laugh. Vaughn quickly added, "Not anymore! You're better now. It's just that for a while everything kinda flickered and rattled all the time, especially when you were upset…"
"Well, nephilim usually do stuff more dramatic than tipping over saltshakers and shorting out vending machines." Sam smiled tightly, took another drink. Then he looked at Dean, one of his hands almost absentmindedly finding its way up to Dean's, back on his shoulder. "Y'know, I knew you'd hunted one, but we've never really talked about that. What was it like?"
"Set a lot of fires." Dean shrugged. "Killed and crippled a lotta people, fucked a bunch of stuff up." He was quiet for a second. "Nothing I really wanna share with the class."
Sam squeezed his hand.
Once some silence had passed and he realized Dean wasn't going to say anything else, Vaughn said, "So it kinda sounds like nephilim and Messiahs are pretty close, 'specially if everybody's mistaking one for the other. Are there any more differences between a nephilim and a Messiah? Besides the angel thing, and the…" He glanced at Castiel and swallowed. "Abomination thing."
"They're a perversion," Castiel said flatly.
"They have wings," Sam offered.
"Some do," Dean corrected. "Most do. Some don't. Really just depends."
"Nobody dies when a Messiah's born." Sam's throat flexed. "Right away, at least. Nephilim, the mother dies during birth."
All of a sudden, Vaughn smelled something that made him somehow think of an earthquake. The ground splitting open and falling away underneath him. It smelled like empty air and living rock and zero warning, like shock that wasn't quite pain yet but was strong enough to hurt on its own.
He looked at Castiel.
"They don't," Castiel said. "Maybe they can, but it wouldn't be any more likely for the carrier to die birthing a nephilim than it would a human baby."
"No...giving birth to a nephilim's always fatal," Sam said slowly. "Which would kind of make sense, if some of the 'mothers' are men, but. Anyway. That's just what it says in the lore, you might know better."
"He doesn't," Dean said, and Vaughn heard something bitter in his voice. "It's an abomination. Of course it would kill the mom on the way out."
"Abominations don't have to be destructive." Castiel sounded sort of irritated too as he gestured to Sam and Dean. "Take your relationship, for example - "
"These ones are." Dean interrupted Castiel. "Something that came outta God's perfect little wind-up soldiers defying orders? Something that shouldn't exist? It needs a whole lotta power to come to life for real. A sacrifice. The mother of a nephilim always dies. Sucks the life right outta them."
"Dean," Sam said quietly, twisting in his seat to look up at him, "hey. C'mon."
Now the air smelled a little, to Vaughn, like it did when a really nasty storm, one of the ones that Sam said came from all the demons hanging around here so long, was on the way. A sick wind coming off Castiel.
"Was it the suckling monstrosity you killed that told you that?" Castiel snapped.
Dean pulled his hands away from him, folded his arms across his chest. He didn't look at Sam.
"No," Dean replied, "it was Anna. When she was helping me take it down."
Normally, Vaughn would have asked who Anna was, because he'd never heard of her and Dean said her name like he was rubbing it in Castiel's face. But Sam didn't look super happy about her being brought up, either. And the earthquake smell was back, even stronger than before. So Vaughn slowly lowered himself, the way his mom had taught him, inch by inch, using the couch to keep himself hidden and hoping everyone just forgot he was there.
Dean laughed like he couldn't tell what he'd just done to the room. Or like he was feeding off it. "Guess she didn't share that tidbit with you, huh?"
With a sound like God Himself shaking out a bedsheet and a gust of wind powerful enough to knock over a spice rack on the counter, Castiel disappeared.
Sam had to steady his mug of tea to keep it from spilling. Then he turned to Dean, glaring. "You happy?"
"You saw how he was being."
"I saw how you were being."
"Whatever." Dean turned away, threw his hands up. Vaughn blinked, and then he was at the sink, beginning to aggressively bang around the couple dishes they had in there without, for the most part, touching them. "There's something else going on there, I wasn't even that bad."
Sam set his mouth in a line, and Vaughn didn't even have to comb through his scent all that hard to know what he was thinking: there was something else going on with Dean, too. Vaughn thought he could tell him what it was.
Sam bent his head over his mug, closed his eyes. "Cas, I'm sorry. We didn't mean to upset you. You can come back."
Vaughn watched Sam pray to Castiel a few more times. His legs and back were starting to ache a little from crouching on couch cushions, soft enough for him to feel the springs underneath them. When Castiel didn't show and Sam finally gave up, opening his eyes and flopping back in his seat with a sigh, Vaughn quietly said, "I'm sorry."
Sam looked at him. Dean paused, where he seemed to be seeing how many times he could knock a Corelle Ware plate against the sink before it shattered.
"What are you talking about?"
"I asked. About nephilim." Vaughn squirmed. "I shouldn't have. I didn't know everybody'd get so upset."
"It wasn't your fault, Vaughn," Sam assured him. "Don't worry."
Dean finished with the dishes, a lot quieter now. Vaughn watched as he turned away from the sink and crossed the kitchen, patting Sam awkwardly on the shoulder as he passed him.
"Drink your tea." Ignoring Sam's muttering about how he'd only coughed once, Dean looked at Vaughn. "You wanna watch TV?"
He turned it on with a nod, but the connection was dead, screen all snowy and sound nothing but a crackle. Probably the storm. That was all right, Vaughn was kind of TVed out anyway.
"I think I'm just gonna read."
Dean nodded, and headed into the bedroom.
Sam stayed out in the kitchen a little while longer, trying to get into contact with Castiel then fiddling with Dean's weather radio. It wasn't getting great reception, either. Making himself small on the couch with a nineties issue of Morbius, Vaughn heard him switch it off and get up. When Sam reached the couch, Vaughn looked up at him.
"You didn't do anything wrong," Sam said. "He'll be back soon."
"He's been coming around so often," Vaughn said quietly. "I know you guys were happy about that, he drops in a few times a week, but...what if he stops?"
"He won't." Sam squeezed Vaughn's shoulder. "Trust me."
Sam followed Dean into the bedroom. Vaughn glanced at the headphones they'd gotten him when they moved in here, but didn't put them on just yet. He kind of liked listening to Sam and Dean talking, even though the closed door indicated Sam didn't want him to. It was nice to hear their voices get steadily softer as they smoothed over what had happened earlier. And Vaughn sort of figured out who Anna was: an angel, apparently, and Dean's ex. He was a little proud of himself for putting that together on his own.
He heard the creak of the bed, then nothing. He set the book down and looked out the window. The maritime flags hanging off the roof on a loop of rope snapped in the wind, and the sky was dark.
Vaughn sat up and looked over the back of the couch, into the kitchen. Sam's empty mug was on the counter, teabag still in it. Nobody had bothered to pick up the chair that Castiel had been sitting in. Vaughn had an itchy feeling under his skin, his real skin, and it made him swing his legs off the couch and stand up.
He padded soft to Sam and Dean's room, putting a hand on the door. He hesitated, but didn't smell anything besides quiet, bittersweet feelings, so he slowly pushed it open. It was a really tiny room, barely enough space for a dresser and bed. The worn walls and floor were all chalked up with a bunch of different symbols and runes, mostly to keep angels out. Vaughn had the same thing all around the couch, but his had been done in spraypaint so it wouldn't wear away with everybody walking over it, and Sam obsessively checked it at least twice a day to see if it needed touchups.
Sam and Dean were on the bed. Vaughn nearly flinched, but they were both wearing all their clothes. Sam's head was on Dean's chest, their hands loosely held together on Dean's stomach, and Dean was wearing headphones. Both their eyes had been closed, but Sam opened his and lifted his head to look at Vaughn.
He looked tired. Vaughn almost left, but the itchy feeling got worse, so he stayed.
"I'm gonna go outside and draw," he announced.
Dean squinted at Vaughn with black eyes he blinked clear, then pulled one cup of his headphones off his ear. Rock music poured tinnily out, and Vaughn had lived with him long enough to know Zeppelin when he heard it.
"Hell you are," Dean replied. "We got a storm, and not a little one." He pointed in what Vaughn was pretty sure was the exact direction it was coming from.
"But it won't be that bad." Vaughn bounced a little on his heels, pathetically. "Please? You said the weather's only gonna get worse the deeper we get in winter, and I wanna get out as much as possible."
Sam and Dean glanced at each other. Sam reasoned, "We got a while 'til it hits. Radio said it'll make landfall this afternoon."
"Coming sooner than that. And it's November."
"Please," Vaughn wheedled, "c'mon, I know storms, we've lived here like forever."
"It's been a month."
"And we've had a whole bunch of storms!" Vaughn looked expectantly at Sam, who worried at the inside of his mouth.
"You'll keep your phone on you?" he asked eventually.
"Son of a bitch," Dean groaned, putting his earcup back on and dropping his head.
"Duh," Vaughn said impatiently.
"You're not gonna talk to anybody, you come back if you see anybody, and you stay in range so Dean can feel you," Sam rattled off. Vaughn was already heading for his boots.
"And come in soon as it starts to rain, yeah, I know, bye Sam!"
"Yep. Hey, take a coa - "
Vaughn let the door slamming behind him cut Sam off.
It wasn't totally selfish, getting out, Vaughn reasoned. Maybe Sam and Dean could have some alone time while he was gone, too. This place, one of about a dozen half-abandoned "vacation homes" scattered up and down the Maine coast, was tiny. And Vaughn heard a lot better than a human did.
He knew Sam and Dean were married or close to it or something, but things got awkward.
He had his bag with him, the one Sam had gotten him for what he said was his birthday. It held his sketchbook and his colored pencils and his references perfectly, had everything he needed, and as lightning flickered out over the nearby ocean, Vaughn couldn't wait to take it all out and start drawing. How cool would a fight scene look against that backdrop?
His boots crunched through the gravel as he narrowed his eyes against the sting of the wind. His ears started to hurt, and it tingled on his skin, his real skin, under the glamour. Maybe he should have brought a coat, especially if he was going to stay out here long enough for Sam and Dean to do whatever they had to. But he'd be fine. It wasn't that cold.
And he was too happy to be out here, where the air smelled like ocean and winter and storm and space, to think about going back for even a second.
The storm was probably too close for him to make it all the way down to the beach and back before it hit. But there was a cool outlook closer, with an old lighthouse in plain sight, and he could make that easy. Especially if he ran.
God, Sam was weird, he thought to himself as he sprinted along the path he'd already worn in the grass. Whining all the time about not being able to do this for fun…
Vaughn stopped on the outlook with a couple hard, heavy steps that made his legs judder, breathing hard. Something icy needled his face and hands, but with the waves crashing so hard, it was more likely sea spray than rain. He walked the rest of the way up the edge of the cliff, wanting to get a really good look at the lighthouse like he always did, but something closer caught his attention before he could.
There was a trail of rocks between the land and the little island the lighthouse was on. Somebody could technically walk all the way out there, if they were really good at jumping and the ocean was calm. Vaughn hadn't ever tried: he wasn't stupid. But right now, there was someone standing on one of the ones in the middle.
It was so weird it took Vaughn a second to actually process the dark hair and the trench coat whipping and flaring loose around him. Like a pair of wings. Then he scooted even closer to the edge, so close Dean probably would have freaked on him, and yelled, "Castiel!"
The wind ripped his voice right out of his mouth. He couldn't even hear himself. Even if it hadn't, the waves were too loud. Maybe even for an angel to hear him, because Castiel didn't look, or move at all. Vaughn tried calling out to him a couple more times, then realized it wasn't worth giving himself a sore throat, and went to climb down.
A second later, he stopped, took his bag off, and tucked it in securely behind a rock, out of the wind and water. He couldn't help feeling proud of himself. Sam would be happy with him.
Carefully, he started climbing down the cliff. He'd been training, like he used to with Mom, and Dean told him to trust his body. He was strong and fast, technically a predator; his instincts knew what he was doing and the rest of him was catching up. But it was hard to believe all of that right now. The rocks were rough and bit into the new calluses on his hands, except where they were smooth and slick with seawater and algae. And they were all freezing, the cold pounding into the aching marrow of his hands until he could barely move his fingers.
Vaughn bit his lip, struggling to navigate, trying to find places to put his boots. He was about halfway down (he thought, he kind of didn't want to look) and the muscles in his chest and arms were starting to flutter. This would be so much easier if he were still in Purgatory. He'd always felt stronger there. Or maybe it was just that he was safer, because even if something bad happened to him, worse than what the demons had done to him up at Sam's cabin, he'd just come back and Mom would find him again. Falling, bleeding, eaten screaming...he always woke up again in the same spot after some hazy darkness, with her waiting for him. It had happened a few times, especially right after he first got there.
She'd find him again if something bad happened here, too. But it wasn't exactly the same as it had been.
He was still on that thought when his foot slipped and seared it permanently into his brain.
His stomach swooped right out of him, and he panicked. He only realized that that was a mistake a second after his grip weakened and jerked enough to come free from the rocks, one palm torn raw in a bright shower of pain. Okay, he was going to fall, it was all right - except it wasn't, because he all of a sudden knew with absolute, aching clarity that he wasn't anywhere near the halfway point, and being stronger than a human didn't save you from getting your skull bashed in.
Both spikes popped free like that would do something. The brittle carapace of one chimed painfully off the side of the cliff, and he thought he felt something splinter. His face scraped raggedly over the rock, lip pulling, eye tearing, and his knee twisted hard when he tried to stop himself, and then he was falling backwards out into the horrifying sensation of empty, screaming air -
Then somebody was grabbing him, catching him, and his feet were on solid ground and he was being held steady. For a second, he thought it was Dean. But then he smelled Castiel, a lightning storm over a wild apple orchard, just before he looked up and saw his face. Expressionless but somehow, at the same time, also stony and disapproving.
Flatly, Castiel asked, "What were you doing?"
Vaughn swallowed. "I-I wanted to talk to you," he said shakily.
His face really, really hurt when he spoke. He reached up to touch his cheek, and his fingers came away with shimmery, gooey blood all over them. His right spike was killing him, to the point where he was afraid to retract it or even look at it, and so was his left knee. He could literally feel it swelling against his jeans.
Then Castiel pressed two fingers to his forehead. Vaughn jerked, surprised. But not only did all his pain vanish like it had just been wiped away, the chill in him did, too. Even his heart rate went back down to normal.
Slowly, Vaughn pulled his spines back in, both of them now perfectly whole. He looked at his hands, neither scraped. When he touched his knee, it was fine.
"The glamour is damaged on your face," Castiel replied. "I don't have much experience healing non-humans. You'll have to repair that yourself."
Vaughn grimaced, feeling the stretch of his real skin, exposed. It was weird not to have any flesh, even fake, covering the teeth on that side. He was a lot better at glamours than he used to be, thanks to Mom...but anything would have been an improvement, so he still wasn't great. And he hated repairing or changing the one he was wearing because mirrors were useless. He'd have to get Sam or Dean to help him.
"I'm going to ask you again," Castiel said after a couple seconds of quiet. "What were you doing trying to climb down? Why did you want to talk to me?"
It suddenly occurred to Vaughn that, even though they were both standing out on the rock he'd first seen Castiel on, close together out of necessity, he could hear him fine. He wasn't feeling the wind very much, either. It was like Castiel had some sort of force field wrapped around them, or mind barrier, or -
Oh. Right. Angel. Wings.
"I wanted to tell you I'm sorry," Vaughn said quietly.
That seemed to catch Castiel off-guard. "Why?"
Vaughn looked down at his boots. He scuffed them on the wet rock. Castiel's shoes, like something a normal person would wear to a boring job, were right next to his feet. "Well, I…"
He hesitated, trailed off, looked back up at Castiel. But he was just looking down at him with that confused-bird head tilt thing he did, eyes narrowed. Vaughn took a deep breath.
"Things have just been...going really good lately," he started. "Sam and Dean are happy. I mean, I think Dean's bored and Sam's still not back to normal all the way, but I know that's gonna take a while, he - anyway. Um. And you've been coming around a lot, more and more."
"There's a lot of news to share," Castiel replied.
It didn't seem like it to Vaughn. Whenever he was around to hear, it mostly just sounded like Castiel was saying the same thing every time because nothing was changing much. But he didn't tell him that. "It's been nice. And I feel like I screwed everything up because...you didn't get upset 'til I brought up nephilims." He paused, not really sure what the right word was. "Nephilim."
Castiel suddenly looked tired. More than tired, exhausted, all the way down into the very bottom part of who he was. Vaughn hadn't ever seen anybody look so worn out, but Castiel was the oldest person he knew, and he didn't think that angels got to rest very often. However it was they rested. A thousand years without a nap could probably really take it out of somebody.
"It wasn't your fault."
"Sam said that, too," Vaughn looked down again, fidgeted with the zipper of his jacket. "But I'm sorry anyway."
"You had nothing to do with it," Castiel told him firmly.
"So…" Vaughn looked up. "Are you mad at Dean, then?"
A gust of air came out Castiel's nose, and he pressed his mouth into a thin line before answering. "While Dean is...abrasive, I can't blame him. The comments he made were relatively tame, by his standards. Or would have been. If it weren't for…"
He trailed off. Vaughn waited, but it didn't seem like he was going to finish the sentence on his own. Vaughn tried, "What were you gonna say?"
Castiel was not inclined to tell him. "You should get back to Sam and Dean."
"Are you gonna come with me?" Vaughn asked. "Now, or later." Castiel didn't say anything. "I think I'm gonna stay out here for a while."
Castiel didn't fight him on it, just turned so that he was staring back out at the ocean. Vaughn stood next to him. The wind was picking up, and the rock really wasn't big enough for both of them at once, but with Castiel's wing still around him, it wasn't so bad at all. He just kept on feeling like he should say something else, ask something. He didn't know how Castiel would react, but he might actually explode if he didn't open his mouth, so he risked it.
"Does Dean know you're still here?"
Thankfully, Castiel didn't seem all that bothered. "Dean's powerful, but he's also young, in infernal terms. He doesn't have a good grasp on his powers. It's simple to hide my presence."
"Oh." Vaughn took a deep breath. The air was getting colder, and it kind of hurt his chest and his throat. "Him and Sam are worried about you."
Castiel didn't answer. Vaughn kept talking.
"I don't know how much longer we're gonna stay here." He leaned a little towards Castiel, further out of the wind. "Sam thinks we oughta move away to another temporary place 'cause winter on the coast is probably gonna be bad, but Dean wants to stay on the beach. I think he wants to...maybe make up for something? Maybe. His feelings don't smell like everybody else's 'cause he's a demon so I'm not sure."
Vaughn looked up at Castiel, staring impassively out at the ocean with eyes like blue granite, and cleared his throat.
"But none of that really matters. When we move into the real place. Like, the place that we're gonna stay, where I'm gonna have my own room and Sam'll have an office and maybe Dean'll have a workshop or something and we'll be more than twenty minutes away from his dad. They want you to stay, too." He paused. "Did they tell you that?"
"Yes."
Vaughn waited. Castiel didn't say anything else, and he wondered if maybe he should just go home. This was worse than talking to Mom about Sam. But he tried again.
"I know what you did for Sam," he told Castiel, as quietly as he could without being worried he couldn't hear him. "For both him and Dean. You helped them save the world, even though all the rest of Heaven and the other angels didn't want you to."
Nothing from Castiel.
"You knew what was right and they didn't. And that's hard."
Just staring out at the water, savage, crashing against the rocks. The paint on the lighthouse was all faded and torn up from years and years of ocean and wind and storms and Vaughn could suddenly imagine it falling over, crashing into the sea, very easily. It practically felt like a vision.
"So you...stopped listening to them."
"It certainly took me long enough." Castiel finally spoke. And now he looked so tired again.
"What d'you mean?" Vaughn thought Castiel might want to talk about it. If he didn't, he at least needed to.
"There were orders, many, many orders, I shouldn't have followed, but did." Castiel shook his head. "So many mistakes."
"Did one of them have to do with a nephilim?"
Castiel looked sharply at Vaughn, then away. He didn't say anything.
"Y'know, everybody screws up."
Castiel looked at him again, but this time, he was confused.
"Given the context," he began, "I imagine that particular platitude is meant to be comforting, but...I can't imagine how."
"It just means you can't judge yourself too harshly. You're not the only person out there who's ever made a mistake."
"I belong to a race that was never meant to be judged at all," Castiel replied flatly. "We were supposed to be perfect."
What Vaughn had seen of angels (or heard from Sam and Dean, at least) didn't bear that out, but he didn't have to say so. Castiel continued.
"What that seems to have become in reality is that we never question the orders we're given. We assume, always, we're carrying out the will of God, when indeed we, and especially our superiors, are just as flawed as the humans we were tasked with protecting." Castiel's jaw clenched. "And I'm convinced the least obedient among us were those who, in the end, came closest to living by His original plan."
Vaughn looked at the wet rock, the ocean, the lighthouse, and thought about Heaven and Hell and Purgatory. Not for the first time. About how flawed and broken the system seemed to be for human souls, how easily you could game it or lose out when you didn't deserve to.
"I'm not sure carrying out the will of God's all that great," Vaughn said softly. "I mean, His vision or plan or whatever. I don't really like what I've seen of it."
He could feel Castiel looking at him. Vaughn looked up and met his eyes, which were bright and fierce with Grace backlight, and didn't look away. Castiel wound up being the one to break first.
"You may be right," he said after a while, in a low, bleak voice. "So much of what I always thought I knew to be true was completely shattered after I was sent to guide the rising Messiah. It was misguided of me, destructive, to hold onto so much of my old beliefs for as long as I did." Castiel almost smirked, but it kind of looked like he was trying and didn't really know how to do it. "I should have questioned everything. I was a fool."
"No." Vaughn contradicted him immediately, shaking his head. "Learning's hard. It hurts sometimes. A lot of the time, actually. And you were kind of fighting a war against every other angel in the world and stuff was happening really fast, it's not like you had time to sit there and go back over every single thing you knew and did and pick it all apart. Right?"
Castiel didn't answer. A long time passed. Long enough the temperature started to really drop, and Vaughn could see his breath even with Castiel sheltering him, and off in the distance, a blurry wing of rain swept in from the ocean. Then, abruptly, Castiel said, "There was a child."
Vaughn looked up at him. Castiel didn't look down.
"A girl. Maybe younger than you, but I've never been good at judging human ages."
Vaughn wondered if what he was smelling, the raw, throbbing atmosphere like a wound in the sky, was what Castiel was feeling, or just the storm.
"My garrison descended and took vessels, because one of our number had rebelled and fallen. Not in the way Lucifer did; the opposite, actually. He'd chosen to...debase himself with a human because of his love for the species, and the union had borne fruit. Offspring that, by decree of God, could not be allowed to survive." Castiel's voice got quieter. "That was what we were told, at least."
Vaughn swallowed. He felt cold all along his spine.
"When we arrived, we found the child, and our brother...and the mother. Alive."
And there it was, snapping into place. Vaughn felt like he'd already known where all the pieces went. He'd just needed Castiel's confirmation to fit them in.
Castiel didn't continue. Vaughn asked, "What happened?" Not because he couldn't figure out what happened. Because he felt like he should ask.
There was a shuffling sound, reaching Vaughn despite the wind. Feathers. He smelled wild apples and mint and ozone, violent weather on top of creeping nature.
"I read out the death warrant," Castiel said dispassionately. "Our brother was executed where he stood in defense of his mate and child. And another of our number dealt with the rest, at his insistence."
"You didn't know." It popped out, a kneejerk response.
"I should have asked," Castiel said harshly back. "I should have wondered. I should have pushed for proof...I did later, with Sam, so I had the capacity back then. I just didn't take advantage of it. And that's not even what I feel the worst about, that I didn't stop the slaughter of innocents - it was that Annanel knew. Or Ishim knew. Or they learned later, and no one told me."
But Anna told Dean. Because Vaughn knew suddenly, with nail-in-the-heart certainty, that that was who Annanel was. He didn't think he had to say it.
Castiel shook his head almost wonderingly. "I want to know how many other times I was lied to. How much of my existence was meaningless, or a mistake, or murder. How many innocent lives I've extinguished for no reason, and how many of the brethren I thought I could trust were traitors."
A silent minute or so passed. Castiel finally said, voice all dry, "I've had this variety of conversation with Sam before. I know now you'll tell me it wasn't my fault, or I've made up for it. Or I can do better in the future."
"I could also tell you that if you hadn't followed orders back then, you wouldn't have been around to help Sam and Dean when they needed you," Vaughn agreed. Castiel nodded wearily. "But I'm not gonna tell you any of that."
That hit Castiel like a tripwire at high speed. His face didn't change all that much, but maybe Vaughn was getting to know him better, because he could still tell. Vaughn took in a deep, deep breath. It cut at his lungs.
"Dean loves Sam," he started. "More than I think I ever knew somebody could love another person. He'd die for him, and he takes care of him, and I act like it's gross, but...it's nice. You know." He nodded to Castiel. "But when they first brought Dean up to Sam's cabin, when Sam's leg was still bad, Dean kicked him in it. So hard Sam couldn't even walk the rest of the day, and I think he even passed out. And Dean told him all sorts of horrible things before he did."
Castiel was frowning.
"Sam saved the world," Vaughn continued. "He brought me outta Purgatory and put my body back together, and he's apologized pretty much every day for letting me die in the first place. And for not going looking for me sooner. But he still let me die, and he still only brought me back 'cause he stumbled on me. Or 'cause me and Mom stumbled on him, I guess."
Vaughn took a deep breath. "And...before I got brought to Sam. Where I lived before, there were other shifters there who maybe would've been okay, if they'd gotten to Sam's place, too. But I didn't say anything, 'cause I was afraid, and the hunters killed all of them."
Vaughn glanced at Castiel. "You and Sam and Dean can save the world a million times, and you can make a million good decisions, and you can tell a million people you're sorry. But no matter what, it's never gonna un-kick Sam's leg, or un-let me die, or un-kill the other shifters, or that other angel, and that lady, and her kid."
Castiel was studying Vaughn with hard glass eyes, smelling like sleet, not saying anything for a long time. Vaughn just waited until Castiel stated, "I'm not very familiar with conversational customs. Or emotional ones. So forgive me if I'm missing the point, but. I think you might be even worse at providing comfort than I am."
Vaughn couldn't help it: he laughed. Then he apologized.
"Sorry," he said. "It's just - nobody was honest with me my whole life, y'know? Definitely not the Dochtúir." He stumbled some over the word. "And Sam tried, but he kept a whole bunch of stuff from me. I think most of it was without meaning to, like about my mom and how I was born, and what he did with a whole bunch of the other monsters who lived there while I did...I think that one was to keep me from getting upset. But when I died, I met my mom. She was honest with me. About everything. And it kinda sucked, and it kinda hurt, but. It was also really great. I liked it better than not knowing." Vaughn sucked at the inside of his mouth. "I don't wanna lie to anybody. Maybe not even to make them feel better. 'Cause…'cause I think the truth works better."
Castiel didn't respond. Vaughn tried to explain.
"Anyway, I don't think the good and bad things people do cancel each other out. Everybody acts like they do, but if you look at it, they really don't. I've thought a lot about this. They've got to be weighed totally separate." He remembered suddenly he was talking to something that probably knew all the secret workings of the universe. "Or they should be. 'Cause they're distinct. Um, think of the person you hate most in the world, okay?"
"Annanel," Castiel said immediately, then nearly winced. "I mean. Zachariah."
"O-kay." That seemed like something Vaughn should maybe mention to Sam later. "Uh...imagine A - Zachariah saved a billion babies or something. But you were still mad about what he did to you. But everybody was telling you you needed to forget about it and move on and forgive him, right? Because of the other thing he did." Vaughn watched Castiel for signs of tension. "That's not fair, is it? Because it doesn't undo what happened to you. Even if he saved you personally, that wouldn't undo it, and that's about as close as you can get."
"Things can be undone, though," Castiel interjected. "Time travel is simple enough, if you have access to sufficient power."
It was Vaughn's turn to be thrown for a loop. "You can time travel?"
"Yes."
"Have you done it before?"
"Special dispensation is required and only given in extreme circumstances. So no."
"Could you - ?"
"No."
"But do you even need permission if you're - "
"It's about power. I can't do anything like that while I'm cut off from Heaven; I need to ration my Grace."
Vaughn opened his mouth to ask Castiel how he did it, if he just flew backwards really fast or what, then slowly closed it again. It was hard. He thought he might finally get how Sam felt when he nerded out about monsters.
"Even with time travel…" Vaughn was going to ask more about that later. "It still happened. Somebody remembers it, even if it's just you. Or God. But the point is it's still there, 'cause there's no erasing bad stuff with good stuff."
Castiel said something. Vaughn didn't hear him over the wind until he shifted his wing (Vaughn felt it) and repeated himself, voice doubtful. "And you find this comforting."
"I do," Vaughn confirmed. "'Cause it's a good thing. What happened to you, what you did? None of it takes away from you saving Sam and Dean and the whole world. And, even besides that…d'you really think it's good to do good things just 'cause you're guilty? Just 'cause you wanna stop feeling bad about something else you did? That doesn't feel right to me. It's selfish. I mean, yeah, use bad choices to make better ones, like, learn from them, but you should try and do the right thing 'cause it's the right thing. Not to make yourself feel better." Vaughn rolled his shoulders. "Dean doesn't love Sam 'cause he hurt him, and Sam didn't close the Gates 'cause he let me die."
Vaughn looked at Castiel, and realized he was only really looking "up" at him by a few inches. He'd grown these past months, but hadn't been close enough to Castiel to realize it since he was fresh out of Purgatory in Maine. "When you decided you were gonna help Sam. Did you do it 'cause you felt bad about that girl?"
"Of course not. I still thought I'd helped exterminate a nephilim."
"Then something else that happened, something you already knew was a mistake. Were you thinking about that?"
"No," Castiel said after a few seconds, quiet, and Vaughn nodded.
"Then I think you're doing okay. No matter what you might've done before."
Water washed around the rock, foaming dirty with sand off the beach. It would have hit them, been up to Vaughn's hips, if there hadn't been some kind of perfect invisible wall, like they were standing in a bucket. Castiel put a hand on Vaughn's shoulder. Vaughn blinked and, in a rush of uneasy vertigo, they were back up on the cliff.
The outer edges of the rain had just started to fall. The storm had looked all feathery from a distance, but Vaughn realized it was stinging needles that bit past his glamour when he suddenly remembered his bag and scrambled to grab it. Even standing next to Castiel, he started to get wet, and cold. Maybe rain didn't bother angels.
"Actually, I think you're doing really okay," Vaughn told Castiel. He knew he should go, Dean was probably already mad, but it didn't feel right yet. "You don't have to take any more orders from anybody ever again. Or hurt anybody who doesn't deserve it. And...and you've got all of us. To help you figure out anything you're not sure about."
Castiel didn't say he agreed, but at least he was looking at him.
"And...if you wanna make better choices in the future." Vaughn looked down at his bag, and swallowed. His exposed teeth hurt in the cold. "Maybe. The Messiah you think might actually be a nephilim. Maybe...you could just keep an eye on them, and we could help you. Just make sure nobody hurts them, if they're not a nephilim, and if they are. I mean. Maybe you don't have to do anything to them if they're not dangerous."
"...maybe." Castiel inclined his head slightly.
Vaughn stood there, mostly protected by the wind but with rain slicking his short hair to his skull. The ocean was roaring. He remembered Sam saying Castiel liked the water, and Vaughn wondered if he liked storms, too. Maybe he was one, or maybe they were related. Maybe that was why he smelled like weather.
The demon-fed storm around them shrieked, the insides of Vaughn's ears aching with cold and sound, and he told Castiel, "You don't need to torture yourself, either. I know guilt's normal and good but if doing good stuff doesn't make up for bad stuff, feeling awful forever to try and punish yourself definitely doesn't."
"I'm not sure you entirely grasp the value of penance," Castiel replied, "but I suppose I can keep your perspective in mind." He made an awkward, bird-y shrug. "Then again, perhaps penance is useless for both of us. Neither of us have human souls; there is no possibility of salvation achieved through suffering. No Heaven."
"Or Hell," Vaughn pointed out. "I'm okay with that."
A shiver rocked him. He clenched his teeth.
"I'm gonna go home," he said. Castiel raised a hand, but he shook his head. "No, I wanna walk. And I want you to come with me."
There was a long, loud second where he thought Castiel would disappear again, just another gust of wind battering Vaughn. Instead, he nodded, almost imperceptible, and followed when Vaughn turned to lead the way back to Sam and Dean.
Maybe it was just his imagination. Probably it was. His nose, his whole face, was frozen, and he was feeling cold and worn out and really wanted to take a nap on Sam and Dean's bed under their big quilt after a hot mug of brain juice. He could practically taste that, so his senses were off.
But Vaughn could have sworn he smelled rain, just the barest hint, and not the kind pelting down on him like it wanted to rip the rest of his glamour off his body. This was misty, like in the spring, soft and warm. Forgiving.