Chapter 87.
Cas and Jules lay naked, looking at the ceiling, his arm around her shoulder and their heads together on the pillow. "This," he said, "Is how life would be if I made the rules."
"This is the life you'd want?" she said, "Given the choice, wouldn't you prefer to be welcomed back into Heaven?"
"Heaven?" he said, turning to look at her, "Heaven and I were never a good combination. Now, you and I, we have something special."
"We do." she said, smiling in a way that made his heart flutter. "Is it different?" she said, "With depleted grace, I mean. Do the kisses and the ... special kisses feel different?"
"Yes." he said, "Not better, not worse, but very different. I've never wanted a human life. When I was forced to live an almost human one, I hated it. I think, if I had been with you then, it would have been a lot better." He looked into her eyes and said, "I wish I had a soul to sell."
"Aren't we in enough trouble with the deal you already made?" she said.
"If we both sold our souls and went to Hell, we could be together. I know that's not ideal for you, but it sounds like Paradise to me."
"Life without you will be Hell anyway. Hell with you sounds pretty good." she said.
"But I have no soul and Hell only takes angels under special circumstances."
"Like when Sam Winchester drags them into the cage." she said.
"Do you think Sam would consider it?" he said.
"I think he probably didn't enjoy it much the first time." she said.
"I'm not a great planner of plans." he said.
"Know who could be?" she said, "Sam and Dean."
"Yes." he admitted.
"But you still won't tell them."
"Do you know what it would do to them if I did?"
"Yes. I also know what it'll do to them if you don't and then you get taken and they could have prevented it."
"They can't." he said, "Nobody should try."
"I will try. You can't stop me." she said.
"Can we not talk about this tonight?" he said, "My whole body aches with thinking about it."
She took his hand. "I'm so sorry. I don't want to make things worse, but I can never just let that place take you. I'll fight. I have to."
"With what power?"
"With Jack's power. It will come back."
"If the deal is broken, Jack will die. If Jack dies, I am dead anyway."
"Do you think I would let Jack be harmed?"
He looked at her for a long time in silence, then he said, "No, of course you wouldn't. Forgive me. Please, let's talk about something better than the end of everything."
She smiled. "What's your favourite sound?"
"I think the one you make when I tickle you." he said.
"I hate it when you tickle me."
"No, you don't." he said.
"Favourite sound that can't be heard in this room tonight." she said.
"Dean, laughing. It's honestly the most joyful sound in the world."
"We don't hear that often enough." she said, "I like it too."
"When ... If I'm ever ... When it happens, I need you and them to stick together. I need you to make sure he's okay and Sam too and Jack. And I need them to take care of you."
"I thought we weren't talking about that." she said.
"If I'd been human, we would have had a chance of a good life together." he said.
"If you'd been human, you wouldn't have been you." she said.
"Some would say that would be the best thing about it."
"I'm not one of them. I love who you are. I even love what you are, though I never thought I'd be falling in love with an angel."
"I never thought you would either." he said, "It's still hard to believe that someone like you could ever love someone like me."
She stroked his chest and this time, along with the reaction of the human flesh, he felt the slightest shivering of grace. He closed his eyes, trying to subdue the longing to forget everything and make love to her.
With his eyes closed, he seemed to focus more on her honeyed voice as it whispered, "You don't know who you are, my love."
"No." he said, "I don't think I ever have, but I like who I perceive myself to be when I'm with you."
"Are your eyes closed because you like this, or because you're in a sensory overload situation?" she said.
"Both, I think." he said.
She lifted her hand from his chest and said, "Open your eyes and take a few deep breaths."
He did, grateful for her skills at angel-wrangling.
"Better?" she said.
"And worse." he said, "Is there a less erotic touch we could employ?"
She moved over to kiss him and he closed his eyes again, this time in pure bliss. "This shouldn't be so necessary to me." he said, "I lived for billions of years without it."
"For most of that time you were ... what was it you called it?"
"A multidimensional wavelength of celestial intent." he said.
"It's weird how sexy that sounds when you say it." she said.
He opened his eyes. He kissed her repeatedly, feeling the human impulses he had inherited from his vessel quietly urging him on. As flesh, he desired her, as angel, he needed her, as Castiel, he loved her and in none of those capacities could he imagine voluntarily letting her go.
He rolled over, so that he was on top of her and she clasped the back of his neck with her hands and pulled him deeper into the kiss. He had no soul and yet he could hear it singing ... singing as Dean did when he thought nobody could hear or that nobody could judge ... singing as human souls did in moments of ecstasy. He was alive as angels never were and were never supposed to be. He existed. He was Castiel, not human, not angel, but something else, born from the collision of celestial intent and human love.
Somewhere in the midst of all the kissing, the thought entered his head that those words also described Jack. He was not a nephilim. He lacked the power. He was something, though, something vital and real and new, that would die completely in the Empty and yet remain conscious and aware through all the unhappy ages of time.
In becoming whatever he was, he had become more vulnerable to grief and loss, more susceptible to needs that did not trouble the celestials, yet without the resilience of humans. He was now a creature perfectly primed to suffer and he had pledged himself to an eternity of pain no human or angel could bear.
Dean was right. He was stupid. He had made a mistake he could not remedy and still would not, even though he knew it to be a mistake, because of Jack. Worst of all, most stupidly of all, every kiss was one more sweet memory to be torn from his grasp.
She stopped kissing him for a moment and said, "What are you thinking, Castiel?"
His name again, a heavenly name made flesh and then made something else on her lips. When she spoke it, a light shone around it and the shame piled high on it was gone. That release and relief would also be stolen from him by the Shadow and he would lose so much more because those who loved him had given him so much. What was he thinking and how could he translate it to make sense to her?
"Cas?" she said.
He gazed into the eyes that saw only goodness in his confused and broken being and he said, "I live, because of you and because I have loved you, I am both afraid to die and unafraid of anything. Which, I grant, makes no sense whatsoever."
"You're not alone." she said, as if she heard him begging her to say it.
"No, but tomorrow ... " he said.
"Tomorrow, it'll be your choice, either way."
"There is no choice." he said.