Song Remains the Same
Chapter 32 / Deadly Sins
"Some things are just inevitable."
- Unknown
It was like coming back down to earth from paradise itself.
The fever pitch of perfection and ecstasy was fading away now, and in its place there was an overpowering sense of wonder. Left breathless and dazed by dumbfounded amazement and disbelief over what had happened, Alex was flushed all over in dizzying heat, she was left to reel in every way possible in the aftermath. She was so very aware of the all-powerful angel who was trembling in her embrace and her arms tightened around him just a little bit.
Only able to focus on one thing at a time, Alex's mind struggled to regain the ability to think. She was aware that Cas's strong arms were holding her up, she could feel the fabric of his trench coat against her bare legs which still hugged around his middle. The two of them were pressed against each other so closely that she couldn't tell which thundering heartbeat was which—only that she felt two. His rapid breaths hit the curve of her shoulder and the side of her neck in little puffs of hot air. His warm forehead gently leaned against her temple, his hair tickling her forehead. But none of that really compared to the feeling of him still inside of her. The sweet, torturous pressure remained, filling her to a point that didn't seem possible. She shut her eyes and let out a trembling breath. Was this real?
She turned her head toward him slightly and opened her eyes slowly. His head moved back a little and their eyes locked. His expression was so unlike any expression she'd ever seen on his or any face ever before. Surreal and overwhelming emotions tumbled over Alex as he touched her face gently, his grazing fingertips leaving a hushed tingle across her skin. Cas leaned in, his nose brushing against her nose as he brought his lips to hers, kissing her with slow and simple sweetness. Helpless and in love, she touched the side of his face too, returning the kiss. And for a moment, as they shared that gentle, quiet kiss, everything was right—the troubles of the world were still there of course, but Alex didn't feel anything but complete, safe, wanted, adored. She was with the one she loved. Everything was okay.
And then it all went away.
With startling abruptness Cas pulled away from the kiss, and the second he did, Alex could tell something had changed. Her stomach dropped when she saw how his expression had become clouded and troubled... where there had been euphoria and amazement a moment ago, now there was dawning horror and panic. She suddenly began to feel those things, too—what was wrong? He looked down and around, as if he were coming out of a fog, like he was realizing what he was doing, what they had done... and then he began to remove himself.
And Alex was suddenly empty and blindsided, standing on two shaky legs, feeling discomfort and confusion. Cas had taken a couple stumbling steps back, turning away from her. Suddenly cold and feeling his absence in every part of herself, Alex looked at his back in silent shock. What had she done—what happened? She heard his zipper go up, then his belt buckle clinking. And in a strange state of dazed confusion, she looked down at the ground, seeing broken stained glass littering the polished floors. Her discarded white underwear beside her foot. In a daze of autonomy, Alex stooped and picked them up off the floor. As she straightened, a series of horrible thoughts slammed into her like a solid brick wall.
She was the one who had moved his hand to touch her how she'd wanted to be touched. She was the one who had unzipped his pants, had touched him, had pulled his boxers down. Oh my god, maybe it was because he hadn't wanted it. Maybe he'd just done that with her because he had known she wanted it, or maybe he'd been much more drunk than she had realized, maybe it was just his vessel and not him at all, maybe she had misinterpreted everything—but why would—and did he really not—had she gotten it wrong and made the biggest mistake of her life?—how could she have let this happen?—she hadn't meant—
Alex was having a hard time breathing now, she felt lightheaded and queasy, her thoughts were half-finished and frantic. All she could think was had she forced him somehow? Taken advantage of him or something? Had she wanted it so badly that she hadn't cared to really find out if he wanted it too or not? No that couldn't be it, he'd wanted it, hadn't he? He had seemed fine until that last kiss, why? Her heart sank. She was thunderstruck, confused, remembering how eager he'd seemed. How could she have imagined that? Even as she wondered that, Castiel turned halfway, looking back at her over his shoulder.
His expression was unreadable; she couldn't tell what he was thinking. Her heart sank even further, her horror increased. She wanted to disappear and was too afraid to ask him what was wrong. His eyes flickered to her hand—she followed his gaze—she had clenched her underwear so tightly that her knuckles almost matched the white fabric. Cas's jaw worked strangely and he looked away pointedly, giving her a chance to put her underwear back on. Her shoes crunched on the broken glass under her feet as she did, and she was totally mortified—she hugged her arms around herself when she was done. Swallowing thickly, feeling wretched and low, she tried to look at him but was only halfway able to. "A-are you all right?" she asked fearfully. Her voice wavered badly, there was no strength to it.
His eyes met hers just barely. His despair deepened. "I-I shouldn't have done that."
Words that made her feel smaller than an ant. Her stomach was nauseated beyond belief, she almost felt like she could be sick with dread. "W-why?"
His answer did nothing but make everything worse. "It was wrong." His words were stinging, like a slap to the face, and he still wouldn't look at her. It was like the air had been ripped from Alex's lungs. She had felt fulfilled and loved and complete a minute ago—and was now left with a crumbling world. It was wrong? Did he really believe that?
She couldn't let herself believe that, and chancing everything, putting everything on the line, Alex went closer to him. "Cas—" she appealed, hesitating, then tried to touch his face and get him to look at her—but he turned his face away from her hand and she froze. His gaze was still on the floor, he was purposefully not looking at her.
She stood there stupidly, unable to reconcile the passion and love she'd felt from him with this cold Castiel before her now. Dismayed, she asked herself what have you done? Everything inside of her protested, tried to understand, tried to convince herself that she'd done nothing wrong. She loved Castiel—loved him—didn't ever want to hurt him or mistreat him in any way… but maybe she had.
Stupid, childish, naive. She wanted to die, she suddenly hated everything about herself and she turned around, hiding her face from him, fighting the urge to break down and cry. There was a long silence and then she heard him draw a book off the shelf.
"This is the book we came here for," his deep voice said bleakly.
Barely able to hold herself together, Alex shook her head, fighting to keep her composure. "Just... just take us back to the motel," she said in a voice barely above a whisper.
Their eyes met for an instant. Then suddenly, they were not there anymore—and Alex realized that for the first time, he took her through the fabric of space and time without touching her. And that realization was another blow, another devastation.
Her feet were now on cheap carpet—they were back in the motel again—it was dim, smelling faintly of cigarettes and disinfectant.
Alex almost jumped out of her skin when she heard Sam behind her. "Did you guys find the book?" Alex turned around to see her twin getting up from the little couch, an open book on the coffee table in front of where he'd been sitting. The second Sam saw his twin's face, it was clear he could see something was up—he stopped and frowned, glancing at Cas before he looked back at her. His eyes were narrowing in attentive concern. "Something wrong?" he asked, directing the question to his sister who just looked away from him with a tight jaw. Sam's piercing stare went back to Cas, who was looking down at the book in his hands. Sam's frown was deepening, his eyes narrowed even more when he looked back at Alex, his tone taking on a suspicious note. "What… what took you guys so long?"
For all the feelings swirling inside and making her ill and close to her emotional edge, Alex exploded. "Jesus Christ, Sam!" she exclaimed, "There were a shitload of books, okay?! Like you could have found it any fucking faster!" The words flew out of her mouth and left a stunned silence in the room. Feeling herself rapidly dissolving, Alex had to flee. Without grabbing a jacket or looking at either man, she shook her head, holding back tears, and charged out of the motel room wordlessly, leaving a very confused Sam behind and a very concerned Castiel.
Sam looked at the door, eyes wide, eyebrows raised high. "Cas, what—" he started out, then went silent, turning back around to see an empty room. The book was sitting on the table. Cas was gone.
It was freezing outside and she was in the highly impractical sleeveless, above-knee dress—but she didn't care. She just had to keep moving. She charged blindly through the parking lot and toward the road, vision made blurry with angry, shameful tears. She couldn't stop herself, she just needed to get away. From him, from what had happened. From the pain, from herself, from everything. She was distraught when she thought of all the ruin and wreckage in her life, all the mistakes she'd made. Maybe this was her curse.
With startling abruptness, she ran into something solid and felt herself being stopped mid-step—then was temporarily shocked into stillness as she looked up and into the face of Castiel, who looked down at her with a face full of pained concern. Coming face to face with him was too much.
She felt almost like she could collapse, her emotions were so all-consuming. "I'm so sorry, Cas, I'm so sorry," she sobbed out, covering her face with both hands, bowing her head, wanting to escape the impossible guilt and humiliation. "I t-thought you, that you wanted it, I thought that we were—that you wanted—" she looked up at him through tear-filled eyes. "I'm sorry," she blubbered. "Please, please, forgive me, I thought you really wanted it, I d-didn't think that you were that drunk and I, I wanted you, I wasn't thinking clearly." She stumbled out excuse after excuse as he stared at her with a strange, confused expression. "I used you to get what I wanted," she rambled blindly, getting more and more hysterical by the second, "I didn't think of how it would affect you or how it's not a natural thing for you to do or what it might do to you or—"
"Alex! Stop." He had tilted his face down, trying to peer into hers, and his features were distorted by a horrified expression. "You think you're the one in the wrong here?"
She was so startled by his question that she couldn't even reply for a second. "A-aren't I?" she asked, taken aback.
He seemed equally taken aback when she asked that, and then almost offended. "How could you be?" His voice and expression implied that he didn't even acknowledge that as a possibility.
Alex blinked a couple times, getting even more confused than before. His eyes wandered the space of her tearstained cheeks and his hand raised, he used the backs of his index and middle fingers to wipe away the tears. His eyes followed his fingers, and her gaze stayed on him, her confusion not lessening at all, but a small wave of comfort washed over her at his gentle touch. His gaze flickered to hers guiltily, and his hand froze then withdrew, as if he was realizing what he was doing.
He looked down, shut his eyes for a beat, and let out a heavy breath through his nose. His arms hung at his sides now. He was silent for a moment, and Alex was breathless and confused, hoping, teetering on the edge of absolute heartbreak. He finally spoke, in a low, quiet voice, his eyes hesitant to meet hers. "Alex… I did want it. I thought that was obvious. How long I've pined for you, how long I've wanted…" he trailed off and swallowed. The admission made her heart jump and stomach roll, even though he sounded conflicted when he continued. "I just… I shouldn't have."
She didn't understand. "Shouldn't have wanted it or shouldn't have done it?"
Cas looked burdened, every muscle in his face tense with grief. "Alex… I am… thousands and thousands of years old." And that reminder of fact suddenly smothered the hope she'd felt. She was forced to remember that the man in the trench coat, the man she'd fallen in love with... wasn't a man. That they weren't supposed to love each other, that he wasn't even the same species. His eyes were heavy with the weight of countless centuries, and she felt how impossible this was, heard his message loud and clear: even though he had wanted it, even though it had happened… it shouldn't have. "I'm not a human, Alex," he continued, looking at her, his eyes pleading with her to understand.
All she could do was nod and look down, attempting a smile to cover her true emotions and keep the brokenhearted tears from coming. "I know, Cas. I know."
He shook his head, his agonized expression mirrored hers almost exactly. "This isn't even my body," he said, each word driving a stake of pain further into her heart. But then he said something she hadn't expected. "I had no right… to do that." His voice caught oddly. "To take… take that from you." He swallowed, a muscle tensed in his cheek.
Stunned, Alex studied him urgently, realizing his distress went a lot deeper than she'd thought. And suddenly, she could see light at the end of the tunnel again, saw a million-to-one chance that maybe they could get past this. "You're upset because I was… because it was my first time?"
He looked guilty and upset. "It shouldn't have been with me."
His statement offended her almost. "I wanted it to be," she told him pleadingly. He looked down and away, his face a mask of misery. Alex bravely sought his gaze, craning her neck a little, trying to get him to look at her, trying to make sure he knew he was wrong. "Cas… you didn't take anything." She briefly thought, in the back of her mind, that she was insane for continuing to pursue this and him. But she did anyway. Maybe startling them both, she reached down, taking hold of one of his hands gently. He looked down at her hand in his. "I gave it to you," she told him quietly, her emotions nearing the surface again. But this time tender ones. Profoundly immovable ones. His eyes jumped up to hers, and the amount of emotion on his face was overwhelming. Even though he'd seemed so old a moment ago, he now looked young and inexperienced, like a teenage boy. And she recognized again how tonight had not only been the night she'd lost her virginity. He'd lost his, too. The very thought left her speechless for a minute. Her body still felt warm with the afterglow. "I mean, remember," she said softly, trying to sound lighter than she felt, trying to make him feel better, trying to fill the suddenly awkward feeling silence. "It… it was your first time too, right?"
His expression changed a little, softening. It was a rhetorical question that she'd asked, but he answered her anyway. "Yes." She felt his hand tighten around hers, just a little, and the reality of it hit her anew: she'd been with an angel. Their first times had been together.
Her body tingled with a rush of memories: his breath in her ear, his hands wandering her body, the moment of consummation… and the term 'making love' came to mind—even though she'd always laughed at it before—nothing else seemed to fit. For a moment, he'd been hers completely. For a moment Heaven and Earth and all the reasons they weren't supposed to had just melted away. She was flustered, recalling how he'd been beyond passionate with her—tender and careful and giving, like all he'd cared about was giving her what she had needed and wanted.
Alex was suddenly overwhelmed, unsure what an angel could see in her worth loving or worth wanting to please. A minute ago he'd said that her first time shouldn't have been with him, but she suddenly wondered why he had wanted that with her. How was she worthy of this? Of him? What did he see in her? She had nothing to offer him except herself. And she didn't know why he'd want that. But even though she didn't know why he saw anything in her, she still knew he did. You could tear it all down, the universe, the laws of nature, entire civilizations, whatever: take it all away but she knew Castiel would always care about her. She just didn't know why.
"What is it?" Cas asked her, his eyes narrowing in concern, and Alex looked away at the empty road and dark sidewalk, wanting to hide from him and also burrow into him all at once. Her emotions were going haywire, and she was suddenly so very tired.
"I just… where do we go from here?" she asked brokenly, looking back at him with eyes that pleaded for an answer, a clear solution. A cut and dry answer that would take away all the unknowns and misunderstandings. But Castiel looked at her openly, a helpless kind of sadness on his face.
He looked as confused as she did. "I don't know."
Watching from about thirty feet away, Sam hung back in front of the motel door—he'd grabbed his jacket and made to follow after his clearly upset sister, then stopped when he'd seen that Castiel had met her in the middle of the deserted road. Sam had stopped, unsure if he should give them space or go to them and demand an explanation. He'd settled on staying back, but he watched them closely. Alex was upset and Sam could tell that something had happened—maybe she and Cas had argued or something at the Vatican. It didn't matter—whatever had happened to upset her, Sam wasn't going anywhere until he made sure that his sister was okay. He wasn't used to her going all Dean on him like she had a minute ago.
So he stood there, waiting, not really even sure what he was witnessing—he couldn't hear them at all, but he could see that Alex had calmed down. The pair had been speaking intently for the past couple minutes, appearing anxious or emotional about something. They were currently staring at each other silently… and then, what little space had been between them disappeared. Surprised, Sam wasn't sure who initiated the embrace—only saw Alex bury her head in Cas's shoulder as Cas wrapped his arms around Alex protectively. Sam was even more shocked to see that than what he'd seen when the two of them had been making out under Famine's influence. He was witnessing an enormous amount of visible trust and an intensity, an intimacy. Sam felt his eyebrows raise up high.
Cas was an awkward guy, or at least, that's what Sam had thought before. But right now it was very, very obvious to Sam that he'd underestimated the angel. Cas held Alex tenderly, in the way that a man held a woman he loved—and Sam could see how much the angel thought of his sister: it was in the gentle way that his hand cradled Alex's head, in the tilt of Cas's head toward Alex's. Sam stared openly with a softening heart, understanding that he felt touched by what he was seeing.
And that's when the sharp sound of a gunshot cracked the air in two. Sam's heart leapt into his throat, he saw Alex jump and for a second, he thought my god she's been shot—he was already shouting her name and running. He got to Alex and Cas, who both looked confused and still held each other tightly, looking up at Sam in surprise and confusion.
"Are you all right?" Sam demanded frantically grabbing his sister by the shoulders, assessing her and glancing at Cas, too—
"Fine, I'm fine," she said, looking around in alarm. "Where did that come from?"
Stern and frowning now, Cas looked at the bar. "It came from there," he said, nodding toward the little building that was plunked beside the motel. As soon as he said it, Sam charged that way, and he didn't even know if they were following, all he could think was Dean… oh my god, Dean. He just knew his brother was either getting shot at or the one doing the shooting.
The tendency to not think things entirely through was one of Sam's weaknesses when he thought one of his siblings might be hurt or in danger. Such was today. Sam reached the door to the bar and practically knocked it down as he slammed it open and barged inside, then froze at the scene that waited inside. Paul was shot and crumpled on the floor against the bar. He wasn't moving. Jane trained a pistol on him, her hands shaking badly.
"Just give me the gun, Jane," the pastor was coaxing, standing between her and Paul's body.
"I had to do it, David." Jane didn't sound remorseful. She sounded dangerous.
"What the hell is going on in here?" Sam asked cautiously, his steam fading as he laid eyes on Dean, who crouched beside Paul, putting pressure on the gunshot wound, but it looked like it was too late. Paul was unresponsive.
"He was compromising the flock. He deserved to die." Jane spat contemptuously, gun still aimed in Dean and Pastor Gideon's direction. "He was a sinner."
Sam's eyebrows raised at the audacity the woman spoke with and he opened his mouth to reply—and then heard the angry voice of his twin behind himself. "Isn't murder a sin?" Before Sam could react, Jane's head swiveled sharply to stare Alex down. There was a snarl on the red-haired woman's face.
"You," she spat, "have no right to say that to me. You and your brothers got my son killed."
It all happened so fast. Jane lost it, swinging her arm around to bring her aim right at Alex—and Sam couldn't move fast enough, it literally happened in one, maybe two seconds: Cas suddenly appeared out of thin air in front of Alex and the sound of another shot rang out loudly even as everyone in the entire establishment jumped in shock—maybe from the loud sound, or maybe from the shock of seeing a man appear out of thin air. Jane lowered the gun, stunned. "How—" she started, but was cut off when Sam tackled her, sending the gun flying.
"Hey, hey!" Rob was shouting.
Dean stood up, pointed a finger at Castiel and then Alex, barely looking at either of them in the rising chaos. "Cas, get her outta here, now!"
Alex opened her mouth to protest but it was too late. She and Cas were already back in the motel room—Cas had moved them without touching her again, his back was to her, and he reached out a hand, steadying himself against the room partition. And Alex went still in fear. "What's wrong?" she asked in a dread-filled whisper. He turned around slowly. He was frowning slightly, looking down at his chest in confusion. A perfect circle just a little smaller than a penny had been punched through the trench coat, right above his heart—and bright red blood blossomed out onto the beige fabric.
Her breath caught, her chest twisted, her stomach dropped, her entire nervous system burst into fire with alarm. "Oh my god—Cas!" Alex rushed across the short space between them, grabbing hold of him, looking at the bullet hole and then his face in complete shock. "You're shot!"
"I'm... fine," he said, but he sounded unsure, and his expression was slightly pained.
"Fine?" she repeated, aghast. He looked a little woozy, he blinked oddly, twice, and she realized she needed to pull it together for his sake. "Okay, just…" Alex tried to think clearly. Castiel was shot, but he was an angel, he would be fine, right? Maybe not though, he wasn't as invincible as he'd been once, he was cut off from Heaven, he'd lost many of his abilities—shit, shit! Just keep your head, she commanded herself. Treat the wound, figure out how bad it is. She breathlessly told him to, "sit down, sit down," as she maneuvered him over to a bed and sat him there, staring at the blood seeping out onto the trench coat. Appalled at the sight, automatically doing the only thing she knew to do, which was to put pressure on the wound, she looked at him in alarm. "What were you thinking?"
He looked up at her without hesitation. "That I was saving your life."
She was taken aback by his simple and sincere answer. By the realization that he had saved her life. By the fact that he had taken a fucking bullet for her. And if she hadn't loved him before, she sure as hell did now. Warm blood seeped underneath the palm of her hand where she shakily applied pressure. "But now you're…"
"Fine," he repeated. She looked at him like he was crazy, wondering how someone with a bleeding chest wound, angel or not, could be fine. "Alex, I may be cut off from some aspects of Heaven, but this bullet wound… it's not fatal to me." He grimaced just a little. "It is, however, surprisingly painful."
"I'm so sorry, Cas," Alex said, pained by association, by the thought that he was hurting because of her. She scanned around the room quickly. "Okay," she mumbled, holding her clean hand against the side of her head. "Okay. First aid kit."
She put his own hand against his wound and indicated he keep pressure on, then left him sitting on the bed and hurried over to where the duffel bags had all been tossed, wiping the blood off her palm against her dress skirt haphazardly as she crouched down and began frantically rummaging through Sam's bag. She knew there was a first aid kit and some medical tools in her twin's bag somewhere. Cas watched her quietly. She found the kit and then went to her bag, pulling something out of the very bottom—a flask.
Alex came back to Cas and handed him the flask—the irony of this wasn't lost on her. "I have to take the bullet out," she told him quickly. "It's gonna hurt a lot. This… might help with the pain, a little? I don't know. It's worth a shot." Cas took the flask from her slowly, looking at her questioningly. "It's absinthe," she explained diffidently, glancing at him as she raked through the contents of the first aid kit. "Pretty strong stuff… my secret stash that I was saving for—" she let out a hard breath, "a special occasion." She shook her head ruefully. "Drink up." After visiting 2014 and seeing a Cas who had been into some pretty screwed up crap, Alex didn't like giving him the absinthe—it was a full flask, too—but she also knew taking out a bullet hurt like hell and it would help if he could get a little wasted again.
Castiel looked at the flask in his hand, hesitating… thinking of the visions of the future he'd seen where he'd been an alcoholic and a complete wreck… wondering why he hadn't thought of that grim future before right now. It might have been helpful to think about it before he'd done the things he'd done in the past twenty-four hours. Maybe when he'd been about to drink an entire store of liquor. Maybe when he'd been about to have intercourse. Things he couldn't take back or undo. He didn't see any reason to avoid this, either, anymore. He was walking straight down the path he'd been trying to avoid all this time, and there seemed little choice in the matter anymore.
He raised the flask to his lips, tilted his head back, and drank deeply, draining the entire thing. As the alcohol burned his throat, he was viciously reminded of last night when he'd downed bottle after bottle of every kind of liquor at the store. He finished the flask off, unsure if it would abate any of the pain radiating from the hole in his chest. He felt mildly muddled again in any case. Was it because of the alcohol or the pain?
Alex laid a pair of silver medical tongs—hemostats, he thought—onto the bed after quickly wiping them down with an alcohol pad. She then took out some gauze and medical tape, looking at Cas with a tense expression before she came to stand in between his parted knees. Castiel was suddenly very affected by her physical nearness. Memories of what had happened earlier that night, not even twenty minutes ago, suddenly filled his mind. He tried not to look at her and remember what she felt like underneath the skin of his hands, how she'd looked and sounded near the end of it all, how she'd clung to him and made him feel…
"You, uh, you'll need to take your coat and jacket off," Alex told him, eyes flickering up to his. She said it shyly almost. And forced out of his thoughts, Cas began to try to comply, but his whole left side was struggling to move properly, and he couldn't. Perplexed at how one single little piece of metal lodged in the flesh of his vessel could so impede his range of movement, Cas stared down at himself, then startled slightly when Alex began to help him. She pulled his left arm up, tugging the sleeve of the jacket and coat off together, gently. Then pushed at the right side of the clothing, allowing him to extract his arm easily. He looked at her silently. He was now sitting there in his shirt and tie—and a bright red blotch stood out against the crisp white dress shirt. Alex's eyes had gone to it like metal to a magnet—concern and pain flitted across her features again, she wet her lips unconsciously before visibly refocusing. "Shirt, too," she told him, and there was no mistaking the nervous tremble in her voice.
Hyper-aware of every movement she was making, every little thing she did, Cas held stock still as she worked his tie loose. She glanced at him a couple times fleetingly as she pulled it up and over his head—Cas continued to watch her openly as she carefully pulled his shirt out of where it had been messily tucked into his pants—their eyes met briefly, and he wondered if she was thinking of what they had done earlier, too. She unbuttoned each button, starting at the bottom one and working her way up slowly. He watched the way her pulse fluttered in her neck, the tense way her jaw flexed. The way her eyes avoided his now. She unbuttoned the top button of his shirt and finally looked him in his waiting eyes. There was a pause, and then she seemed to remember herself and pushed the shirt away and down, her eyes dropping to the wound in his chest.
"Oh, Cas…" she whispered, sounding so pained. The soft way she'd said his name was overwhelming to him. She ran a few fingers down the skin just beside the wound. Underneath her fingers, his chest rose and fell a little faster than before. Her eyes came to his again, and a sad, cajoling little smile came to her lips. "Even angels bleed sometimes, huh?" And he was shocked—remembering the visions of the future Anna had shown him. Alex had said those exact words to him in the visions. She hesitated now, taking in his expression, seeing that something was wrong. "What is it?" she asked, voice laced with worry.
He shook his head and looked down. He was filled with despair at the thought of those visions of the future and didn't want her to know any of the painful details. "Nothing," he told her, unable to bear the thought of any of it actually happening, even though he'd taken yet another step toward fulfilling fate that night.
She didn't believe his claim of 'nothing' but nodded, reluctantly studying his wound. She made a small circle with her lips and expelled a heavy, dread-filled breath through them. She grabbed up the silver tong tool from beside his knee where she'd laid it and she then leaned close, looking into the wound. "I can see it. Didn't go in too deep." She glanced up at him. "Ready?"
He gave a shallow little nod, racked with guilt and despair but trying to push those things aside for the moment. He focused on her, watching what she did. She took a deep breath, bracing his shoulder with her left hand, holding him still as she carefully opened the tongs and pushed them into the hole made by the bullet. She was grimacing. The cold metal brushing against raw, exposed muscles and tissue hurt, but then he felt the lodged bullet shift as the tongs grabbed it and he gritted his teeth together. "I've got it," Alex said, her face screwed up with concern. "This is really gonna hurt, Cas. Hold on."
Her grip tightened on his shoulder and she pulled the bullet straight out, fast—Cas was surprised when an agonized groan ripped out of his throat. Pain exploded in the vicinity of his chest at the extraction of the small piece of metal. And then it was over, he was breathing heavily, she had already pressed some gauze over the hole and was putting the hemostats down and grabbing the tape. Cas didn't understand why he was feeling so much pain. He'd been shot, stabbed, slammed around in this vessel without feeling much of anything before. But now he felt, and so much. Good things and bad things.
"Hold this," Alex told him, nodding toward the gauze over the bullet wound, and he did, obeying automatically, confused and in pain. He watched her as she ripped off some tape and carefully secured the gauze with it. She looked like she had done this sort of thing before. Many times, actually, she was very precise and careful. Gentle, too. And her fingers brushing against his bare skin sent increasingly familiar feelings of awakening through him—the feelings of pain lessened, and in their place, the stirrings of desire and longing. He shouldn't want this. He shouldn't want her. But he did. So much. He felt himself becoming distressed at his thoughts. There was a war inside of him, two sides pitted against one another. One side insisted he stop playing with fire—it had gone far enough, too far. The other side told him it was already too late and begged him not to even leave Alex's side for a moment—wanted to kiss her again, wanted to feel and know her from the inside again…
Castiel grew flustered, looking away as she put a final strip of tape across the gauze. Her eyes glanced up to his, she straightened up but remained there between his knees. She was looking at him in concern, her eyes soft. "I can't… I can't believe you took a bullet for me."
He frowned faintly, because she shouldn't be amazed that he would sacrifice everything for her. "I'm your guardian," he told her. "I would take a thousand bullets for you."
His words seemed to do something to her—he immediately saw how they affected her—eyes jumping up to his, mouth parting softly, breathing quickening slightly. "You… you can't say things like that to me," she said in a voice barely above a whisper.
"Why not?" he asked, genuinely puzzled.
She looked hesitant to say it, afraid almost, and she shook her head, taking a very long time to reply. "Never mind."
Sensing it was important, Cas looked up at her in concern. "Tell me," he requested fervently, trying to understand what he'd done wrong.
Her eyes locked onto his. He could see how frightened she was to say whatever she was about to say. And he wished he could make it so she never had to be afraid of anything ever again. She swallowed slowly. Her voice was still barely a whisper when she told him. "Because when you tell me things like that…" her voice cracked in anguish, softened to a mere whisper, "how can I not fall in love with you?"
The minute she said those words, everything in him went quiet and still, even as so much everything surged forth in him that he didn't even know how to begin to process it—he didn't even think about it, there was no protest in his mind. He only moved to meet her, craning his neck upwards to meet her lips with his—his hands boldly went to her waist, and when their lips met, he heard himself make a soft sound of relief or maybe it was despair—he pulled her to him and downward, his arms circling around her. Her knees came to either side of his hips as he pulled her close. He felt her hands skim up his body to hold his face in the most tender of ways.
And kissing was just the pressure of two pairs of lips against each other, love was just chemical reactions in the human brain; neurological processes and pheromones and libido and vasopressin and oxytocin working together to trigger reactions and connections. It was chemistry, plain and simple. Except, it wasn't. Castiel could not downplay anything he felt for Alex to something as simple as science or biology. It transcended everything he'd ever thought or known.
She whimpered softly into his mouth. And Cas pulled away, breaking the kiss. Remembering himself, he searched the brown-green depths of her eyes breathlessly. All the things he knew, all the knowledge he possessed about how wrong this was—an angel and a human—it all seemed flimsy standing against the weight of all the things he felt. He wanted to belong here—anywhere near to her. So much emotion surged forth inside of him. He thought of how there had been nothing left between them at all, of how she'd made him feel: alive... real.
Her eyes fell away from his for a moment, she looked down at his chest with a tense expression, tracing her fingers across the top of his makeshift bandage. She was worried. Her eyes came back up to his. A wavering whispered plea left her lips. "I don't understand why we can't. Or what exactly we're even doing."
The misery she spoke with echoed through him and brought him downward. He could hear how she felt: desperate for things to be different. And he felt the pangs of regret again, realizing how much of a wretched hypocrite he was. He had told her time and time again that they couldn't pursue romantic involvement—he had told himself time and time again that he couldn't allow it. He didn't know what to tell her. He needed her more than he knew what to do with, and yet he knew that being together was what would destroy them both in the end, if those visions of the future were accurate.
He continued to search her eyes, trying to find something to say to her, trying to determine where to go from here, what to do. He was so painfully aware in that moment that the two of them were from two different realms entirely. That the things they had done together in secret, dark places were expressly forbidden, abominable to Heaven. Castiel felt grief building.
Suddenly, the motel door swung open with a loud bang.
A Few Minutes Ago
"Cas, get her outta here, now!" Dean shouted even as he just barely intercepted Rob, who was charging at Sam—he'd just tackled Jane, sending her pistol clattering to the floor.
"Outta my way!" Rob shouted, shoving Dean—who replied with a shove of his own and then a punch to the face.
Rob toppled backwards, collapsing onto the ground as Dean whirled around, heated. "Everyone just calm the fuck down!" he shouted, breathing heavily and glaring, ready to deck the first person who even looked at him wrong.
Pastor Gideon picked up the fallen gun and looked at Jane, who struggled in vain against Sam. The pastor appeared to be shellshocked. He looked at the townspeople that had come with him—three men and a woman. "Everyone needs to go home," he told them, faintly. "Just, just go home." Equally stunned, the four people exchanged looks and then complied and filed out of the bar.
Jane's protesting shouts rang out after them. "I did what had to be done!" she shouted, yanking uselessly against Sam's iron grip. "I protected the flock!"
No one turned back around, the door swung shut, and Jane looked at the pastor, angry and betrayed. "I want to see my son again! Leah said if we did what the angels say, if we purified the sinners out from among ourselves, we'd get to Paradise! Don't you want that?! David, you can see your wife again!"
"This isn't right," the pastor said in a daze of horror, looking at Paul's body, not engaging with Jane's insistent tirade at all.
"You're damn straight it's not right," Dean put in angrily, bearing down on Jane, who shrank into Sam at his sudden approach. "You killed a man, you get that lady?"
"He was a sinner," Jane retorted, regaining some of her defiant bravado, jutting her chin out and staring down her nose at Dean contemptuously. In response, he chuckled darkly. "…What's so funny?" Jane's voice was tinged with a note of suspicion.
"You know, you act all high and mighty and righteous but really, you're just as low as the rest of us. Shooting a man in cold blood—trying to kill my sister?" Dean's smile was gone. In its place was a chilling, threatening stare. "Lady, you pissed off the wrong guy tonight." He wet his lips, leaned closer to her, giving the impression of careful, contained rage. "You know how lucky you are to still be breathing air?" His voice was suddenly a shout. "No one shoots at my sister or my brother and lives to tell about it, you hear me?!"
Dean looked back and down at Rob, who was staring up from the floor, blood running out of his nose and into his mouth. Dean levelled Jane with a commanding glare, making sure she knew he wasn't playing around. "So you and Rob here got about ten seconds to get the hell outta here before I return the favor—are we clear?" Sam looked slightly shocked by Dean's threatening rant, which wasn't over yet. Dean stepped closer again to Jane, lowered his voice. "If you come near me... my sister... my brother again... I won't hesitate to shoot you where you stand. Now clear the fuck out of here before I get trigger happy."
Sam took the cue and let go of Jane, who yanked her arms away angrily, pulled her husband up off the floor, and then gave Sam and Dean dirty looks. Sort of dazed with his arm over his wife's shoulder, Rob looked at the pastor, confused and questioning. The pastor shook his head. "Just… let me handle this, Jane, Rob. Go home."
Jane shot Dean another glare over her shoulder as she and her husband stumbled out of the bar and into the night.
"Bitch," Dean muttered, shaken up and pissed, half-blind with rage.
"That… that wasn't supposed to happen," Pastor Gideon said, hollow and in shock, holding the gun, staring at it blankly.
"Yeah well, it did," Dean retorted, and looked down at Paul's dead body on the ground. He sobered, his anger fading away into deep, painful sadness. He'd thrown a punch and started the entire fight that got this poor chump killed. Adding another stupid, pointless death he felt responsible for to the roster he kept in his mind, Dean glanced at his brother, who was silent and upset by what had just happened. As usual, the only one who could hold it together when shit went down, Dean forced his feelings away and focused on the problem at hand. "What the hell was Jane saying about purifying the flock?" he asked the padre, who came out of his fog slowly.
"She, uh, my daughter, Leah… she said that the angels are angry. That some people in the town were holding us back from reaching Paradise. Paul's name came up and… I..." the pastor shook his head hollowly, he went quiet.
"What, so Leah told you to go out and gun down any poor sons of bitches who weren't compliant with angel rules?" Dean demanded incredulously.
"Dean," Sam put in, coming forward, giving Dean the 'cool it, would you?' look he so often gave. "Pastor Gideon… it's not your fault," Sam consoled earnestly. "It's unfortunate that Paul died, but we can't do anything about that now. We need to focus on figuring out what is going on here with your daughter." Pastor Gideon's questioning look deepened, offset by fearfulness. Especially when Sam's voice lowered. "I have reason to believe she's not a prophet at all."
Dean looked at Sam, frowning deeply—this was news to him. "But... the angels speak to her," Pastor Gideon protested. "She knows things no one else could possibly know, she's saved us from demons."
"Come on, Pastor," Sam reasoned. "Something's wrong here and you know it."
"It's the end of times, it's supposed to be a little rough around the edges," the pastor said, a very lame excuse that he delivered without any real conviction—only a lot of growing uncertainty. "Haven't you boys read the good book? God's wrath is serious business."
"Huh," Dean commented wryly, sarcastically. "Do you even believe that crap you're trying to sell?"
The pastor looked at Dean in defeat. "What else am I supposed to believe?"
Dean smiled facetiously. "How about that God doesn't give two craps about you or anyone else on the planet, and that the angels are all a bunch of assholes who wanna destroy the world, huh?"
Surprise filtered across the pastor's face, and Sam looked at Dean in growing irritation. Sam forcibly stowed his anger at his brother to try and focus on mollifying the situation and the pastor. "Listen. We're going to find out what's going on here, okay?"
The words had only just left Sam's mouth before Dean was yet again speaking out of turn, making the situation that much worse. "Hey, could you us all a favor and stop trying to give the guy false hope? This is just the end of times and shit happens, like he said. Everyone's gonna die, why fight it?"
Sam wheeled on Dean, barely able to keep from hitting his brother across the face at this point. "Dean, could you just—"
"What, Sam?" Dean demanded, almost as if he were trying to get Sam to hit him. "Could I just what?"
"Just shut up and stop talking!" Sam shouted.
Dean gave him an annoyed eye roll. "Yeah, sure. I'll do ya one better," he replied sarcastically then turned and walked out of the bar, slamming the door behind himself.
What the hell was his damn problem!? Sam watched his brother leave, his fists clenched tight—and then he remembered the pastor and struggled to calm himself, huffing in frustration, trying not to let his intense anger control him. "Listen, we're gonna figure this out Pastor Gideon, okay?" Sam then turned on his heel to follow his brother, who needed a smack in the face.
"Wait, what am I—supposed to do?" the pastor asked almost frantically, and Sam paused, turning back around while racking his brain. He was so flustered and riled up that he could barely think.
"Just, just try to keep the people calm, try to keep everyone in their houses, okay? Stay with Leah and if she starts talking about killing people or carrying out God's wrath, whatever, come get us."
Sam went out of the bar, looked left and right, seeing no sign of Dean—and thinking fast, he decided Dean would have gone back to the motel room. Sam hurried around the corner back to the motel room, distressed as hell, barely able to see straight.
He opened the door to their motel room, slamming it, barely noticing anything—not Alex jumping back from Cas, not the wide-eyed guilt on their faces, not Cas's shirtlessness—all Sam saw was that Dean didn't seem to be there and he turned around, desperately looking out at the motel parking lot, searching for any sign of Dean. He saw no sign of anyone. "Great. Just friggin' great," he muttered, thinking of his older brother out wandering the streets with a chip on his shoulder the size of Texas. He turned back around and closed the door behind himself, trying to figure out what to do now.
"What happened?" Alex anxiously peppered him with question. "Where's Dean? You okay?"
"Oh yeah, I'm awesome," Sam ranted, running a hand through his hair while coming into the room. "Leah told the townspeople that there are sinners among them and if they want to get to Paradise, they have to… purify the flock." Sam was pissed. "And to top it all off, Dean's being an asshole and I have no idea where he went now." He let out a heavy breath, trying to calm himself down. He was going to have to take charge and figure this whole thing out if Dean was going to bail like this. Sam turned his attention to Cas.
"Cas, any idea—whoa." Sam stopped short. The angel was shirtless—there was a huge wound dressing across his chest on the left, there was a discarded, bloody white shirt beside him. Sam's expression dropped and he was scrambled for understanding as sudden alarm rose up. "What—" Oh my God. Sam realized as he rewound mentally: Jane hadn't missed his sister like he had thought—she'd hit Cas instead, who'd put himself between the bullet and Alex. Horrified, awed realization dawned. "Holy shit, Cas," he breathed, looking at the angel intently. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine. Well. I'll be fine." Cas sounded grumpy. "I feel drunk again. That liquor was very potent."
He followed Cas's scowl to a silver flask laying on the bed—Alex's, he recognized it—and Sam swooped in, picked it up, sniffed, then made a face and a disgusted noise. "Absinthe?" He asked, looking at Alex with eyes that were already lecturing her before he even opened his mouth. "Alex..." he started.
She rolled her eyes and headed to the kitchenette, too aggravated to hear it. "I know, I know."
Realizing there were more pressing matters at hand, he dropped the subject and the flask, too. The sink began to run as Alex washed the blood off her hands. "All right, listen, we gotta figure out what's going on in this town," Sam said intensely, "before more people are killed."
Moving stiffly and clearly in a good bit of pain, Cas turned toward Sam a little as Alex shook her wet hands vigorously and came to stand beside her twin. "This Leah Gideon is a false prophet. I think I know who she is," Cas said, and he looked at the book that he had brought back from the Vatican—it sat where he'd left it on the coffee table. Alex followed his gaze and went and got the book, taking it to Cas wordlessly. Wincing, the angel laid the book on his knee, balancing the spine there as he paged through. Alex sat gingerly beside him, holding one side of the book to keep it from falling off. Again, Sam was stilled by the sight of the two of them near each other. Alex seemed uncomfortable under Sam's gaze and kept her eyes on the book purposefully. Jesus, Sam thought in awe. The guy had taken a bullet for Alex.
Cas was focused on the book in front of himself. It had yellowed paper and middle-English looking text filling the pages. Inky black and white illustrations filled some pages. Cas flipped through it slowly, with one hand, then seemed to find the page he was looking for. Sam came closer to peer down over Cas's shoulder and into the book. He saw an illustration of a woman riding on a seven-faced beast filling the right-hand page, and above the artwork The Whore of Babylon was written in red letters.
"The woman will be made drunk on the blood of the innocent," Castiel read, "and with the blood of the martyrs. And she shall come, bearing false prophecy, turning the citizens of earth against one another other." He looked up at Sam. "She rises when Lucifer walks the earth. This creature has the power to take a human's form, read minds."
"How can you be sure that's what Leah is?" Sam asked.
"I'll have to see her with my own eyes," Castiel replied, shutting the book and putting it on the bed beside him, prompting Sam to move back a little. "I'll be able to see her true face." Cas stood up and didn't seem too steady on his feet.
Sam wasn't sure if he should steady him or stay back. "Maybe you better wait a little bit…?"
Alex, who had stood up right after Cas did, spoke up. "Cas… I just dug a bullet out of you. Can you at least put your clothes back on before you shazam out of here?" She gave him a matter-of-fact look. "You can't just go around town half-naked." She picked up his shirt then her expression faded as she saw the bright red stain. "It's all bloody."
Cas took the shirt in his hands and suddenly, the blood disappeared—the shirt looked brand new. Sam's mouth dropped open. "How do you do that?" Sam asked, awed once again.
"It's a simple manipulation sequence of the atoms in a specified area of matter," Castiel explained, blasé as he put his right arm into the sleeve and pulled the shirt half-on. He sounded as if he were commenting on the weather out of boredom.
Sam was deeply impressed—then pausing, thinking of something. "Wait—can't you heal yourself?"
Cas glanced in Sam's direction but didn't look directly at him. "Not anymore," he answered heavily, and began to struggle with the left sleeve of his shirt, grimacing—Alex helped to guide his hand into the sleeve gently. Sam saw how Cas looked at her then, and he wasn't sure how to even begin to describe the quiet and subtle adoration that filled Castiel's face. Alex was re-buttoning Cas's shirt for him as the angel's arms hung at his sides. Sam inexplicably felt like he was witnessing a private moment and he averted his gaze, then watched out of the corner of his eye. Alex replaced Cas's tie and tightened it carefully, and Sam saw that her hands lingered a little longer than necessary on the knot, the gaze the two shared was intense as hell. Alex glanced Sam's way and then stepped back from Cas, who gathered his trench coat off the bed then told Alex, "I won't be long." He disappeared with the soft sound of wind and wings.
Always startled when he did that, Sam blinked then looked at his sister, who appeared to have been through hell and back. "...You sure you're all right?" he asked her after a couple silent beats.
Her reply was distracted and her eyes distant. "Yeah, uh, it's just... crazy night."
"You're telling me." Sam fixed her with a concerned, questioning gaze, debating himself on if he should ask. Morbid curiosity won out. "So, hey, what hap—"
The door of the motel room opened loudly and the twins turned to see Dean coming in with Paul's blood on his hands and a sour expression on his face. Alex's distraction fell away. "Dean! You all right?"
Sam fixed his brother with an accusing stare and asked his question even before Alex's was finished. "Where'd you go?"
"Hey, hey, enough with the twenty questions," Dean muttered darkly, ignoring them and walking over to the kitchenette sink. "Just give me a damn second." He began to wash his hands, letting out a heavy gust of air. "All I know is this is a bad time to be in Blue Earth." He shook the water off his hands and turned, looking at his siblings with an unhappy expression. He opened his mouth to say something. And then the soft sound of angel wings alerted them to Castiel's reappearance. The angel stood at the far end of the room near the bathroom door.
"That didn't take long," Sam commented in mild surprise.
"It's her," Castiel announced.
"It's who?" Dean asked loudly, frowning intently.
"The Whore."
"The Whore?" Dean repeated incredulously.
"We'll need to kill her," Castiel said, coming closer into better light.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay, back up two seconds, Cas buddy," Dean said irritably, "What are you talking about and w—" He suddenly stopped talking, his sharp eyes on Cas's chest. "Are you... bleeding?" The bullet hole and bloodstain had stayed there on Cas's trench coat and Dean stared openly.
The angel looked aggravated by the question. "It is not of import," he told Dean in a strange, clipped tone.
Officially shocked, Dean looked at Sam and Alex for an explanation. "What's wrong with him?"
"He's... a little drunk. Or hung over. Not really sure which," Sam supplied.
Flabbergasted, Dean looked back at Cas. "You're drunk and you got shot?" As soon as he asked it, realization dawned over his features. His stunned eyes went to Alex, then to Cas, and Sam saw the lightbulb go off in Dean's head. "Cas did you… take a bullet for Alex?"
"Yes," Castiel confirmed neutrally. Dean blinked rapidly several times, speechless, then looked at Alex, who appeared to feel guilty. "I'll be fine," Cas said, his expression stern and businesslike. He didn't appear to want to discuss the matter any further. "We need to talk about what's going on here in this town."
"Yeah, uh, sure," Dean said, taken aback but doing his best to roll with it. "Uh… I'm all ears. What you guys got?"
"It's Leah Gideon. She is not Leah Gideon." Castiel took the book he'd left on the bed and crossed the room with it, sitting down on the couch and laying the thick volume onto the coffee table. He tapped the page. "Book of Revelation calls her the Whore of Babylon. She's behind everything that's happening in this town right now." Dean and Sam both went to sit near Cas as Alex hung back. "She rises when Lucifer walks the earth and has the power to take a human's form, read minds, control certain forces of darkness," Cas continued, then paused heavily. "The real Leah was probably killed months ago."
"So Leah isn't Leah," Dean surmised in deep thought. "Why all the demons attacking the town?"
"They're under her control."
"And the Enochian exorcism?" Sam questioned.
Castiel frowned. "What?"
"Rah bah zu na ooh zow tay," Alex recited from memory. Cas immediately became amused, a surprisingly boyish grin suddenly playing on his features.
"What's so funny?" Dean demanded suspiciously.
"It's—well, it's fake," Cas explained, trying to hide a smile. "It actually means, 'you, um, breed with the mouth of a goat.'" He looked at Sam and Dean, whose faces were blank. Cas peered up at Alex, who was leaning against the partition and mildly amused at the revelation—Cas chuckled softly, glancing at Dean again—and the smile faltered under the what the hell is your problem look Dean was giving him. Cas looked at Sam, who looked equally unamused. The angel deflated a bit. "It's... funnier in Enochian."
Dean looked at Alex, who was still trying to cover up her smile and he rolled his eyes. "You two dorks are so lame." He briefly studied Cas and the bloodstain on the trench coat, then visibly let it go. "So the demons smoking out—that's just a con? Why? What's the endgame?"
Castiel thought hard. "What you just saw: innocent blood spilled in God's name. Her goal is to condemn as many souls to hell as possible. And it's just beginning. She's well on her way to dragging this whole town into the pit."
"You said we had to kill her?" Sam asked, remembering what Cas had said a minute ago.
"Precisely."
"Alright. So how do we go Pimp of Babylon all over this bitch?" Dean got a strange, puzzled look from the angel for that one.
"I rarely understand your strange choice of words, Dean," Cas complained, then narrowed his eyes in thought. "We'll need a stake made from a cypress tree that grew in Babylon."
"Great, I've got one of those in the back of my car," Dean muttered sarcastically.
Cas looked at Dean sidelong. "I can get it for us, Dean. You don't have to be so cynical." Dean was taken aback by Cas's comment. The angel stood up right after saying it, crossing the room to the kitchen. He took an empty glass off the counter and filled it with water. Dean and Sam watched him with increasing surprise. "But there's the issue of who will kill her," Cas said, turning around and sipping the water. Alex watched him discreetly, thinking he must have remembered how she'd shown him that water could help sober him up.
"What do you mean, who'll kill her? One of us," Dean said, his tone implying Cas was an idiot.
Cas gave the oldest Winchester an impatient glance. "I don't think so. It's not that easy."
"'Course not," Dean commented dryly, pulling the heavy book off the table and flipped through it like he was looking for something.
Cas continued to explain. "The Whore can only be killed by a true Servant of Heaven."
"Oh yeah? And who'd that be?" Dean didn't bother to camouflage his snide tone, glancing up at Cas from the page.
"Not you," Cas answered matter-of-factly. "Or me. Sam, of course, is an abomination." Sam looked offended, but Cas didn't notice. "We'll have to find someone else."
There was a short silence, and then Dean looked up from the book at Sam, then Alex, then Cas. "Why not Alex?"
Cas looked startled. "What?"
"Yeah, says here a pure soul can be a Servant of Heaven, in some cases," Dean said, raising the book slightly off his lap in indication. Sam craned his neck and saw that Dean had found the page titled The Servant of Heaven. An illustration of a floating man with arms spread out in a welcoming, saintly gesture spread across one of the pages. "I'm just saying," Dean said, "she's ganked some pretty bad sons of bitches in her day, and look at this checklist."
Alex had darted over and was looking closely at where Dean had indicated:
A pure soul is whole, human, and belongs to a virgin. Those who possess a pure soul are often found to be a Servant of Heaven, should their intentions be pure and divine.
Dean looked at Alex, who was trying not to wither away as she realized. Holy shit. Crowley… Lucifer… the pure soul crap she'd totally forgotten about until just now… oh my god. "Pure soul…" Dean was saying with a nonchalant shrug, looking at Cas again. "She matches the bill."
Sam looked like he was having a difficult time accepting that, side-eying Alex sort of intently, then Cas, who set down his water with a loud crack. "Dean," the angel said loudly, his voice harsh with sudden anger, "Your sister was gunned down just two days ago and died—she was shot at today and would have died if I hadn't been there and you want to put her in harm's way again?"
Dean was quieted at the outburst, by the reminders of how close his sister had come to dying recently. How she had died recently. And maybe he was so humbled by what Cas had said and his own guilt that he didn't take into consideration how strange it was that Alex didn't argue or tell them to fuck off and of course she could take care of one goofy little Whore of Babylon. Her eerie silence went unnoticed by Dean, who instead looked at Cas, oddly chastised under the angel's scowl. His eyes went to the bullet hole again and he clenched his jaw, realizing how much he owed Cas. "Well then who?"
Cas shook his head. "I'll find someone. First, I need to get the weapon." He looked at Alex grimly, his expression going odd. "I'll be back later." And the angel disappeared with nothing further.
There was a thick silence. "Dude sure is overprotective," Dean commented wryly to Alex, trying to be funny and maybe make some temporary peace—he knew he was a little hard to be around right now—but he just got an are you fucking kidding me look from her. She appeared tense, drawn, and troubled beyond her years. Beside Dean, Sam was leaning over his knees with hands clasped, staring at the floor with a stiff jaw. The three of them were all completely silent, and after a couple seconds, Dean put his face in his hands, overwhelmed with life, with responsibility, with this situation they were facing during the apocalypse crisis.
He was beyond tired, beyond exhausted. He barely had anything left to give and yet life kept demanding more and more of him. Being around his siblings was a constant reminder of how screwed up he was, how much he had to lose, how much of a constant failure he was. He could feel how unhappy and disappointed his siblings were with him, and he just couldn't take it. Not when he remembered himself at five years old and being the one who'd taught the two of them how to walk—watching them take their first steps and being there to catch them when they fell. Not when he remembered how Alex always used to run to him when she was in her pre-school years, knowing he'd catch her and whirl her around in big circles. Not when he remembered Sam coming to him for help with math homework, and then telling him he was the best big brother in the world. It hurt to remember all that stuff because right now he felt like the two people he loved most in the world were depending on him, but he couldn't even depend on himself anymore.
Feeling overwhelmed with growing despair, Dean stood up and grabbed his jacket. He heard Sam stand up too. "Dean, don't leave again," he pleaded, to which Dean turned back and held a reassuring hand out, then glanced at his sister, whose expression was unreadable.
"I just—I just need some space, okay?" Dean worked hard not to sound as broken as he felt. "I'll be in the car." Sam's expression still begged him not to go, but Dean left anyway.
And so the siblings went their separate ways.
Dean would go to the Impala and sit in the driver's seat, a place where he felt like he'd spent half his life. He would stare straight ahead all night, alone, but by choice—sleepless and depressed, questioning his entire life and wrestling with the choice he had to make. Trying to figure out a way to protect his family, but not sure if it were possible anymore.
Alex would go to the shower. She'd sit down underneath the stream of hot water and wrap her arms around her legs—thinking dismally about the pure soul she'd forfeited, wondering if she ruined a chance to defeat the devil and save her brothers. Wondering what the hell was going to happen with herself and Cas after that night. She'd think how unfair it was that Paul was dead. She'd despair at how distant she felt from Dean. She'd briefly worry about possible pregnancy then remember how she hadn't had a period in years and dismiss the idea.
And Sam. He would watch his siblings go in opposite directions and remain uncertain of what to do. He'd go to the couch and crack open a book and stare at it unseeingly, unable to concentrate, unable to think straight. He'd remain unsure as to why Dean was being so horrible, unsure as to what had Alex so upset. Sam would think about the way Castiel had looked at her and how the angel had saved her life that night.
When Alex came out of the bathroom, dressed in a pair of jeans and her old gray hoodie, the twins wouldn't speak a word. She would just crawl into one of the beds and curl up, facing away from him. And Sam would accept her silence sadly and wonder when his family had become such a disastrous wreck. He'd wonder how to fix it, then wonder if it were fixable at all.
A solitary figure in a tan trench coat stood on a rocky bluff where a lone, forgotten cypress tree overlooked the city of Babylon. At his side, Castiel held the bare end of the branch he'd broken off. He gazed at the beauty of creation around him. The sun was just beginning to rise, casting a soft pink glow over the barren, rocky landscape and the still-sleeping city. He lost track of time, he lost track of everything. He could only think of Alex, could only curse himself for his fault in destroying her status as a pure soul—and was horrified that he hadn't even thought about that until Dean had said what he had. Cas debated with himself, thinking hard about how to make it right, or if it could be made right. He tried to trace back through the time that he'd known Alex, trying to pinpoint exactly when the way he thought of her had turned into something impossible to walk away from.
He thought briefly about how Dean might react if he found out everything Castiel had done with Alex. Nothing that he didn't deserve, he thought wryly, and he saw Alex's face flash before him in his mind's eye. His heart sank in self-loathing. How had he dared to do what he'd done? And why did he want to do it again? To crush her against himself and bury himself inside of her, find that peak of perfection and bliss, hear her moan for him. He shut his eyes, unable to stop himself from thinking these wretched, dishonorable, tantalizing things...
His body felt awful, his head was beginning to hurt and pound as if there were someone repeatedly hitting him with a blunt object. His chest hurt, too, where the bullet had buried itself. Still, that pain almost made him feel better. It was a reminder that he had finally saved Alex instead of failing her. But the momentary triumph wasn't enough. He'd stopped a bullet, but he'd seen the future where he'd put one in her. It haunted him. His logical side told him that staying away was the answer, yet every other part of him screamed in protest at the thought of leaving. As the wound in his chest pulsed in pain, he thought about how he would do anything to be the one whose life ended in 2013. That if at all possible, he would trade places with her. And maybe somehow he could. Perhaps knowing what the future held, he could circumvent it. It was a small hope and a foolish one, but it was all he had. He had done what he'd done in present time and now he was left to live with the consequences. But how could he make this right? He'd dishonored the woman who he loved.
Loved. He bowed his head. He didn't even know how to love, and yet his spirit confirmed this truth time and time again. That love was the thing tying him to her, the thing growing in him from the first time he'd laid eyes on her almost three years ago. And he supposed that was the fated moment that had damned both of them—that gray October day when he had first seen this beautiful little dark-haired human with eyes like secrets.
When Castiel looked up, he became aware of how long he'd been standing there—the sun was now well above the horizon—and pushing his torment aside, Castiel went back to the motel. His wings invisibly rended the air apart as his molecules sailed through space and time, his Grace carrying him back to where the Winchesters would be waiting.
"I have the stake," he announced as he arrived in the motel room—and then he realized the motel room was dark and quiet. His human eyes adjusted and he recognized Alex's sleeping form curled up on one of the beds. On closer examination, he saw that she wore jeans and a gray hoodie now. Her hair was damp and she looked peaceful and beautiful. A wave of sadness rippled through the angel.
"Hey, Cas," Sam said softly, almost startling the angel, who turned around to see Alex's twin was sitting on the couch with a book.
Cas approached him then set the stake down, suppressing his thoughts for the moment. "Where's Dean?"
"Out in the car being a loner," Sam said, trying to chuckle, to sound light. But to Castiel, Sam sounded defeated and hopeless. The hunter set the book he'd been holding down, then shook his head. "He's been really... different lately, Cas."
Castiel sat in the chair next to the couch and studied Sam intently. "Different how?"
Sam thought a minute. "I dunno. It's like there's no fight left in him. Like he's given up on everything."
Cas frowned, paused, trying to understand Sam's somewhat vague statement. "What are you saying?"
Sam shrugged his hands up uncertainly. "I'm not sure. Guess I'm just worried." He let out a heavy breath. "You know, sometimes I forget that he went to Hell and was there for decades, torturing souls." Sam clasped his hands together, looking at them morosely. "He's so much more brutal than he used to be. Maybe that's why, huh?"
The angel thought for a long, dark moment. "Hell is a terrible place."
Sam turned, looking at Cas fully. "You saw him there, didn't you?"
Cas watched Sam silently, recalling the Dean he'd seen in Hell. He felt himself souring. "Yes." Cas couldn't tell Sam the details, it was too awful to comprehend. So he remained vague. "Dean was... broken in every way imaginable. At the time, I didn't understand why Heaven demanded his rescue." Bittersweet, the angel almost smiled as he thought about everything the Winchesters had changed his mind about. How intrepid and determined they were, but especially Dean. He looked at Sam again. "But I understand now."
Sam was quiet and thinking hard. "Be honest with me, Cas. Do you really think Dean and I can really find a way to cut this whole Michael-Lucifer battle royale thing short?"
Cas looked at Sam, meaningful in a quiet way. "If anyone can, it's the two of you."
There was a humble, touched pause. "Thanks, Cas," Sam finally managed. He cleared his throat. "Should I, uh, go get him?"
Castiel shook his head. "No. Not yet. You all need rest."
"Yeah. Sleep sounds good," Sam said, chuckling again in that airy, slight way he had. "Haven't had any in a day or two." There was a long silence that ended when the middle Winchester made a face like he was trying to figure something out. "So… you just gonna… hang out here all night?"
Cas looked at him in slight surprise at the question. "I'll watch over you," he said, as if Sam should have known that.
But instead, Sam's eyes narrowed a little bit. "… Right." He looked over at Alex's sleeping form over on the bed, then back at Cas, and his voice lowered a little, his tongue darted out to wet his lips. "Hey, Cas, don't take this the wrong way but… I gotta do this, man. After everything I've, uh, seen. I have to." Cas frowned, not understanding what he meant. Sam leaned a little closer over his knees, his expression intent and assertive. "See, Alex is my sister—and, I know I've done a crap job of looking out for her in the past but—I mean, it's still my job, you know?" Sam looked like he felt a little awkward and unsure of how to word himself. "And I'm not judging or anything, I just wanna know—are you and Alex…?" He trailed off then decided to rephrase himself. "I guess I just wanna know what your intentions are."
"My… intentions," Cas repeated, eyes narrowing in confusion.
"Yeah," Sam confirmed hesitantly. "I just don't want to see her get hurt. And that might seem wrong coming from me…" Regret and shame filtered across his face. He pushed it aside. "But… when it comes down to it, she's one of the most important people in the world to me."
Castiel bowed his head a little. "Yes. Me too."
Sam's expression wavered, hints of surprise and appreciation filtering across his face. "Yeah. You, you took a bullet for her tonight, man. I believe you." He thought for a long, quiet moment, then looked over at Alex again, and his expression became a little tighter, almost sad. "But protecting her from crazy people isn't enough. You don't know her like I did, Cas. This tiny kid who could never say a word. She had no friends, a really harsh childhood… pretty much everyone disappointed her, hurt her, let her down..." He glumly shook his head. "Myself included." Sam's eyes flickered over memories and he grew regretful and weary. "I just… I want her to be happy. And be okay."
Cas nodded, his eyebrows moving together just a little in deep thought. "I understand."
Sam shook his head, looked at Cas in a way that demanded the angel's full attention. "I don't want you to 'understand', Cas," he said intensely. "I want you to promise me." He paused for effect, not taking his gaze off of the angel for a second. "That you won't hurt her or walk out on her. If the two of you are gonna… pursue some kind of relationship or whatever… you gotta promise me, man. You gotta let me know that I can trust you with her."
Cas was surprised—not only at Sam's straightforwardness in addressing him like this, but at the sheer amount of respect and love he could hear that Sam held for Alex. Cas had a new appreciation for Alex's twin, who was currently waiting expectantly for Cas's reply. The angel took a deep breath and answered Sam's original question. "My intentions are to always keep her safe, Sam."
Sam didn't look like he was satisfied with that. His eyebrows were still raised expectantly and Cas paused heavily, deep in troubled thought. He couldn't explain to Sam the entirety of the situation or how complicated it was. How Alex was the most important thing to him, how he loved her and shouldn't. How she consumed his every thought and desire. How he had all but fallen from grace with her in the Vatican earlier that very night. How he didn't know what to do or how to proceed from here, only that he had to keep moving forward.
You gotta promise me, man. You gotta let me know I can trust you with her.
And with every good intention despite his many doubts and fears, Cas looked up from the floor, to meet Sam's waiting gaze. He spoke it aloud: "I promise you, Sam."
Sam let out a heavy breath, shoulders relaxing visibly. "Yeah. Okay. Good." He looked at Alex again, and Castiel followed his gaze. "Good," Sam repeated. And Cas felt even more uncertain than ever, sitting there in the quiet darkness, trying to determine his intentions for the human asleep across the room from him.
It was light outside. What time is it? Alex opened her eyes groggily and squinted, realizing she was curled into her arm—she must have knocked the pillow off the bed, she did that all the time. She turned her head up and she saw Cas sitting there beside her on the bed, a hand on his face and head, like he was trying to soothe a headache. Waking up fast, Alex was blinking the sleep out of her eyes and pushing herself up in the span of two seconds. "Cas, hey... you okay?"
He looked at her, clearly not feeling himself. "Everything hurts. My head especially."
"O-oh..." Alex nodded with a little wincing smile, knowing exactly what the issue was. "Welcome to your first hangover."
"I don't like it," he complained pitifully.
She resisted the affectionate urge to reach out and ruffle his hair. "No one likes it."
A loud Sam-snore broke the silence and Alex craned her neck sideways. He was asleep on the couch sitting up and cross-armed, his mouth wide open and head sagging toward his shoulder—the perfect time for a prank if Alex had been in a different mindset. She noticed a piece of a pale tree branch on the coffee table in front of her sleeping brother. "You got the stake, huh?" she asked Cas, glancing back at the angel who was clearly suffering badly from his headache. Getting an idea, Alex got up and walked across the room.
"Yes," Cas answered her, watching her curiously, his preoccupation with his head pain lessening. "What are you doing?"
She fiddled with the motel coffee pot and poured some grounds into a clean filter. "Making you some coffee," she said, pushing the brew button. The machine began to groan. "Helps with hangovers."
"I'm past help," he said dismally, prompting Alex to look back at him appraisingly to see if he were joking or not. She didn't think so—he looked positively depressed.
"You're being a little over dramatic, aren't you?" she asked, trying to keep her tone light and teasing, but he only looked down. She went over and sat down on the bed across from him. "What's wrong?"
He shook his head, his gaze on the floor in avoidance. "Nothing."
Alex studied him closely. "Nothing?" she prompted in a tone that suggested she didn't believe him. He glanced up at her, those bright blue eyes locking on hers and captivating her. Suddenly reminded of when those eyes had stared into hers last night—and everything else, the knowledge that she had been with him—the memories of what he'd done to her—she became flustered and looked away.
"So, uh, w-when did you get back?" she asked, fidgeting and glancing at the coffee maker, silently urging it to brew faster.
"Several hours ago."
She felt the awkwardness abate a little as she thought of him sitting there beside her for hours, feeling bad with a headache but remaining close and watching over her. She then noticed that the bullet hole and bloodstain were gone from the trench coat. "Is your… is the wound all right?" He nodded distractedly, not concerned about it one way or another. He wouldn't really look at her.
Frowning softly in concern, Alex watched him for a minute, then glanced back at the coffee pot, which had enough coffee in it now to at least pour a cup. She got up, bothered that Cas was closed off. But maybe she should have expected as much after what had happened. God, what had happened. She tried not to remember it, because it was so erotic and Sam was just a few feet away and the memories of Cas last night made her feel fuzzy and warm and Jesus, get a hold of yourself, Alex. She poured a mug of coffee and took it to Cas, who accepted the mug and stared at the steam rising off the dark liquid. Alex sat back down across from him, looking at him questioningly, her more X-rated thoughts fading away as she saw how miserable he looked.
"I've been thinking," he said tersely in that quiet, low voice of his, and his gaze faltered away, his brows knit together, his eyes scanned back and forth over the floor by his feet. He held the mug with two hands as his elbows rested on his knees. He finally looked back up at her in earnest uncertainty. "Should we... should I marry you?"
Alex's jaw dropped. "What?" She sat back a bit as if the question had physically blown her backwards. Had she heard him correctly? Her voice lowered into a whisper like it was scandalous. "Marry?"
He seemed even more confused at her shocked reaction. "Isn't that... what you're supposed to do?" he asked. "Would it make things right?"
Not what she was expecting to hear. "Make what things right?" Alex was aghast. Did he think because they'd had sex he was obligated to walk down an aisle…? She couldn't believe her ears.
Cas looked sickened and resigned, his next statement blew her even further away. "Alex, I defiled you."
"Wha—?" Alex again couldn't find words. Sam snorted a little, startling the couple—and they watched as Sam shifted, smacking his mouth in his sleep a couple times before he settled back down. Alex leaned closer to Cas, speaking in an even lower whisper now. "Defiled, Castiel?"
He looked down at the black coffee mug in his hands, uncomfortable and reluctant. "I took your innocence. Your… purity."
Alex made a face. "...Are you fucking kidding me?" He had to be shitting her. "My purity? Come on Cas. Have you met me? I've ripped apart hundreds of things that go bump in the night—I steal, lie, cheat, kill…" She stopped and thought about it, the things she'd said sinking in. She shook her head. "I am not some… innocent, delicate petal. I was never a 'pure soul'." She looked at him doubtfully. "How could I have been?"
"You were," he said simply. "And now… you're not." It seemed he'd been thinking about it all night. "It's entirely my fault." He sounded very final and jaded and he sighed unhappily then raised his mug up to his lips, sipped the coffee, and frowned. "This tastes very awful."
Alex stared at him, speechless and a little annoyed, unsure of how to even begin to respond, a million and one thoughts swirling around in her mind. And then the motel door opened and in walked Dean. He looked like he hadn't slept. The first thing he did was kick one of Sam's legs out from under him and tell him to, "Wake up, Gigantor."
As Sam's bleary eyes opened and he caught himself from falling over, he muttered "huh wha?" and then protested with a complaining groan. "I just fell asleep."
Dean turned his attention to Cas. "When did you get back?" he asked, neither hostile or friendly.
"A little bit ago," Castiel replied vaguely. Alex eyes darted to him—she didn't miss the fact that Cas had just fibbed to Dean about how long he'd been there. Smart guy.
Dean didn't catch the lie. He just crossed his arms, raised his eyebrows, and pursed his lips. "You got the magic tree branch?" Cas indicated the stake of wood that was on the coffee table. Dean swaggered over to it, then picked it up and turned it over. "Okay, so who ventilates this bitch? Could the padre do it?"
"Pastor Gideon?" Sam ran a tired hand through his bedhead hair.
"Yes. More than likely he's our only option," Cas agreed as he stood up, coffee still in hand. Alex watched him from where she still sat on the bed. He looked so everyday, like this could be him in the mornings. Every morning. She was suddenly imagining him reading the paper and sipping at coffee and looking at her fondly across a table, where she'd be sitting with a bowl of cereal, wearing some pajamas. She didn't even own a pair, but maybe someday she would...
"All right, so go get him," Dean told Cas a little rudely, and Alex's little daydream fizzled out.
Patient as ever, Cas set his mug down. "I can't. The Whore is with him right now—I already checked. We'll have to be careful. Approach him when he's out of her grasp. If she finds out he knows… or that we know… it won't be good for anyone."
Dean looked displeased. "Great, so we sit around and twiddle our thumbs all day waiting."
"Yes, precisely," Cas replied, then added in, distractedly, "though the thumb twiddling is unnecessary."
"It's an expression, Cas." Dean said in a decidedly patronizing tone.
Fed up with his attitude, Alex gave him dirty look. "Could you be a little less of a dick?" she asked bitterly. "You're giving me a headache."
Dean's eyebrows raised in a falsely surprised expression. "Oh, am I?" Glibly, he swept his arm out. "Door's right there if you don't like the conversation."
She stared him down—wounded, unsure of why he had to act that way—and trying to cover up her pain, she muttered something like "fucking douchebag" under her breath then took him up on his offer, surprising everyone when she left and slammed the door behind herself.
Alex sat on the back of the Impala. The sky was overcast, and the day was chilly. The air carried a damp feeling with it, and the grey clouds overhead seemed heavy with rain that wasn't falling yet. Alex wanted to scream or hit something. She had never been so frustrated with so many things all at once. Dean, currently in first place for the dick of the year award. Cas, ambivalently proposing marriage because he apparently regretted having sex with her or… something. Sam—well, Sam was actually on her good side right now.
She took in a deep breath, closed her eyes, then let the breath out. She remembered how sometimes in the past—a past that seemed so simple and wonderful in comparison to the world now—sometimes Dean would park the car in the middle of nowhere then the three of them would sit on the hood and watch the stars. Maybe throw back a beer or two, smoke a joint. Just exist together. Usually nothing was said. Those used to be her favorite times, especially when she'd been mute. When it was just them, the galaxies above, and a quiet, deserted country road. Back then, she'd known that she was with the only other two people in the world who knew what it was like to be her. They had all just gotten each other. Dean sometimes nudged her, pointing out a shooting star or a planet, knowing it would make her smile. She opened her eyes finally to a bleak world that paled in comparison to her memories. Where was that Dean? Who was this angry, cagey, restless, hopeless man who was increasingly unrecognizable to her? Where was the older brother who used to crack a grin at her in the mornings and tell her 'mornin' sunshine,' and call her baby girl and sweetheart and tiger when she got down in the dumps? Where was the Dean who used to get upset if someone even so much as looked at her mean? Why was he pushing her away like this?
She heard footsteps shuffling toward her and she knew it wasn't Dean—he marched—and it wasn't Sam—he loped. Cas. She turned her head slightly. Cas came to a stop beside the trunk beside her. "Are you all right?"
She wasn't all right. "I'm…" she trailed off. Cas waited and Alex grew introspective. "Dean wasn't always like that to me," she said, unsure how else to say it. She looked at him, trying to be brave despite the fear. "What's happening to him, Cas? To my family?" She chewed the inside of her cheek anxiously for a second as she looked away again, scowling at nothing particular. "I haven't even told them about what happened in Heaven."
"You mean seeing your father?" Cas prompted after a second.
"I mean, even if I'd had the chance—" Alex stopped short and soured. "I kind of don't even wanna talk to Dean." Even saying that broke her heart. "I don't even wanna look at him right now." She stared into far distance, at the closed diner across the street.
"I can tell him for you," Cas offered. He sounded so heartfelt and sweet but unsure. "Do you want me to?"
Touched and surprised, Alex softened, looking at him with the beginnings of a smile when she saw how genuine he was. "Really?" That actually did make her feel quite relieved.
"Of course. Consider it done." Cas thought a moment longer, rueful about something. "Things must truly be different between Dean and yourself."
"What do you mean?"
"You used to tell him everything."
And Alex remembered that Cas had watched over her for much longer than she usually gave thought to. Knew her life better than she thought he did. It made her feel strange. But he was right, and she nodded sadly, criss-crossing her legs to sit like that, shrugging her eyebrows up briefly in an ambivalent expression. "Yeah. Now I don't wanna tell him anything." She couldn't even begin to put into words how upsetting that was to admit. So she pushed the thought away and looked at Cas, who stood there with his hands hanging at his sides, his shoulders slumped. She temporarily let herself forget about Dean and she smiled fondly at awkward-as-usual Cas, then patted the spot beside her on the trunk. "Sit, Cas," she coaxed. "Don't just stand there like a telephone pole."
He looked a little uncertain but complied, and his legs hung over the end of the car. Alex watched as he looked at some birds that had gathered on a telephone wire strung across the motel parking lot. And she suddenly blurted out, "Can angels even get married?"
He frowned in thought, his eyes drifting downward and into middle distance. "I'm not sure. I… didn't think that far ahead." He looked at her sidelong, and she saw the guilt that he felt about everything. "I just thought… it might fix it."
"I don't understand what there is to fix," Alex said softly, staring at her lap tensely, feeling the sadness return. "Do you really regret it that much?"
He took a long pause to reply. "I should regret it. Who I am... it goes against everything." His jaw clenched a bit. "But I don't feel regret as much as guilt, I suppose." He sighed wearily. "I'm sorry Alex. I can't imagine my emotional incompetence is easy for you to deal with." Overcome with compassion and understanding, Alex just reached over and held his hand briefly, giving it a squeeze. He finally looked at her, and she gave him an encouraging little smile.
"Cas, if anyone gets the feeling of not doing things right… it's me." She tried to think of how to say it better. "I overthink like crazy. You do too, pretty sure."
He nodded faintly, seeming to feel a little better. "So what I did... last night. It was all... correct?"
Alex grinned self-consciously, put on the spot because yes—it had been amazing. "I'd say so," she said, almost playful despite her abrupt hot-skinned shyness.
And there on the trunk of the Impala for only birds on a telephone wire to see, an angel from Heaven and a twenty-seven-year-old hunter exchanged a bashful smile—Cas appeared distinctly boyish when his mouth quirked up to one side just for her, and unconsciously, Alex's cheek moved down toward her shoulder as she tried to suppress her smile—it was an action that made her appear demure. And both were quiet for a minute, together in a surprisingly comfortable and also mutually thrilled silence. Because despite all the adversity and inner turmoil they faced, they both realized that the other didn't regret what they'd done together, only regretted the difficult circumstances and unknown future and huge obstacles they faced.
Alex's thoughts gravitated back to earlier subject matter and she sobered a little, even though remnants of the smile Cas had inspired remained. "I'm not the marrying type, Cas," she told him, then halted. "Or at least, I don't think I am." She hadn't even really thought about it, honestly. She'd grown up just hoping someone would someday look at her twice—she hadn't even gotten to the wedding fantasies like most little girls did. And she didn't really think Cas was proposing traditional marriage anyway. She got that an angel was bound to think sex outside of marriage was wrong or something… so this was him trying to make an honest woman out of her in the only way he knew how. And that was endearing despite being a load of garbage at the same time. She couldn't really take him seriously about it, but it still spoke volumes of how much he cared. It led her to ask the question she'd been sitting on for a little while now. Asking it was scary, but not asking it would be worse. "Cas... did you ever stop to think maybe we're... I don't know. Supposed to be together? Even if it's just for a few years?"
And the instant he looked at her, she knew he had. "But you'll die," he said softly.
Alex wasn't fazed, she barely reacted; she'd expected him to say that. She knew that was the one guarantee in this life… a one-way ticket to the end. "Everyone dies, eventually."
He looked at her sadly. "Not me."
The motel door slammed and Dean's gruff voice sounded off behind them. "Hey, get off my damn car."
Turning, Alex frowned. "Where you going?" she asked sort of guardedly, seeing his jacket, keys, and moody expression as she slid off the back of the car. Cas followed suit.
Dean barely looked at either of them. "To get some friggin' food," he replied, and slammed the door, started the car, and drove off without any further anything. He wouldn't come back for hours and hours.
While Dean was missing in action and off who-knows-where, Cas, Alex, and Sam shared a strange, tense, distracted day, waiting for him to resurface. Cas checked a couple times on the pastor and each time returned, shaking his head no, that Leah was still with him.
To pass the time and keep their minds off their own individual miseries, Sam and Alex taught Cas how to play poker. The angel was mildly reluctant to learn it, commenting that it was a sin… and then he thought about it for a second and gave an almost cynical chuckle, agreeing to be taught after all. He did surprisingly well, winning a couple times to the amusement of the twins. He even seemed to like it once he learned the rules. Sometime toward noon, Alex fell asleep next to Cas as the three of them played another hand of cards. Her eyes blinked sleepily and head nodded down onto his shoulder and both men looked at her in surprise when that happened. Cas and Sam's eyes met—and Sam didn't say a word. Alex slept for almost five hours there against Cas, who didn't move once, but did ask Sam a couple times if so much sleep in the middle of the day was normal for her. He was obviously worried about her state of exhaustion. And Sam thought that was sweet, but still felt a little weird about all of it. He tried to keep himself busy while Alex used Cas as a human, er, no, angel pillow—he read some books, made some notes, paced around, thought about going to find Dean, but decided to stay put.
Hours passed. Dean didn't return until near sundown and wouldn't tell them where he went, only demanding that Cas had to go get the pastor.
"No," Pastor Gideon said, shaking his head for longer than needed. He sat across from Dean and Sam in the motel room. "She's my daughter."
"I'm sorry, but she's not," Dean said. "She's the thing that killed your daughter."
"That's impossible," the pastor told him immediately.
"It's not impossible," Alex replied somberly. She stood at the end of the couch nearest to Sam. "Listen to your instincts, Padre." How many times had the Winchesters had this same conversation? With countless mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers who were struggling to accept that their loved one had become a demon, a creature, a ghost. Pastor Gideon, who Cas had finally managed to catch when he was not with Leah, was putting a shaking hand to his face in grief.
Sam continued the line of reasoning Alex had started. "Deep down, you know it's not her," he told the pastor. "Look, we get it—" Sam said empathetically. "It's too much. But if you don't do this, she's going to kill a lot of people. And damn the rest to hell."
Dean picked up the stake and held it out the Pastor Gideon, who looked positively horrified. "It's just… why does it have to be me?" he asked. They'd already explained in detail, but he couldn't seem to accept any of it. And who could blame him? This was an impossible ask.
"You're a Servant of Heaven," Castiel said from where he leaned against the partition.
"And you're an angel," the pastor protested, turning around halfway to look at Cas.
"…A poor example of one," he replied somberly, and his eyes flickered up to Alex. Dean, still holding the stake out to the padre, missed the significance of that shared look between his sister and the angel.
The padre turned back around and looked at the boys and their sister. It was like he was begging them to please, please, find someone else. Anyone else. "You're sure I'm the only one who can do this?"
"Yeah," Dean confirmed grimly. The pastor looked away, putting his face in his hands again. Dean looked at Sam, prompting him to say something with a jab of his hand.
Sam gave Dean an impatient glance but did what his brother wanted. "We don't have any other leads, Pastor Gideon. Everyone else here in town is falling apart," he gently pleaded. "You can save people tonight. A lot of people. Please."
The pastor looked at them again, hesitating, but appeared to be resigning himself. "She… she has been different," he admitted weakly. "And today, she, she threatened me. Said she'd name me as the next sinner if I didn't shut up." He looked grieved, at the point of tears. "Leah would never do that. Not my baby girl. She would never." The broken way he said that last part sent a hush over the room. Maybe the pastor had known longer than he truly realized. He looked at Sam, then Dean, his face a mask of torment. "What you're asking me to do is… insane—you understand that, right?"
"Believe me, Padre," Dean said heavily, his eyes glancing in his brother's direction. "More than you know. We'll be right there with you, okay?"
"All right," the pastor agreed brokenheartedly. He took the stake up, looking at it sadly. "I'll do it. I'll do it."
Watching with a silent, conflicted expression, Cas let out a heavy breath and walked out of the room, his hand to his head. Curious, Dean watched his back as he walked out of the motel room, then redirected his attention to the padre. "Great. Good. Listen, you take a few minutes, get yourself together."
Alex craned her neck, looking out the window even as Dean followed Cas with a bag slung over his shoulder.
The angel was outside the motel, sitting on a bench in the neon cast of the motel lights, his hand on his head like he was in pain. "Whatcha doing out here, angel wings?" Dean asked, walking around to the back of his car and opening the trunk to put one of his bags there.
"Trying to recover from a headache," Cas said irritably.
"Ah," Dean said, remembering what Sam had said about Cas being drunk or hungover. "Gotcha." He shut the trunk of the Impala, put his hands in his pockets, and walked up to the driver's side of the car, leaning in. He looked at Cas long and hard, reluctant to admit how much he owed the guy. But he knew he needed to thank him. Cas deserved at least that much. Even if Dean didn't like it and was pretty damn convinced that the angel was bad news for Alex overall, today the guy had been the difference between her being alive or not.
Dean cleared his throat. "So listen," he said grudgingly. "I owe you big time. I know that. And I'm… just… thanks. I don't think I can ever make it up to you."
Cas's hands were now loosely clasped in front of him, and he didn't really seem to hear Dean at all. "Dean," he said lowly. "There's something I need to tell you."
Oh shit. Dean was suddenly filled with a horrible foreboding feeling, he just knew Cas was gonna open his mouth and say he was in love with Alex. Voice lowering in caution and forewarning, Dean looked at Cas dangerously. "What."
And then Cas said the furthest thing from what Dean had expected. "Alex saw your father in Heaven."
Dean almost did a double take, his glare falling away. "Wait, what?"
"When she first died, when she became aware of herself in Heaven... your father appeared," Cas explained levelly, not looking at Dean, just staring ahead of himself.
"What, like some kinda hallucination?" Dean asked, beside himself in surprise.
"No," Cas replied. "It was him. Contacting her from across the veil somehow."
Dean wet his lips and held out a finger. "Okay, wait, wait, wait. Hold on." He was getting exasperated. "How do you even know that—and why the hell are you telling me this, not her?"
Cas, unaffected by Dean's rising temper and voice, remained matter-of-fact. "She asked me to tell you in her stead."
"And why the hell would she do that?!"
Cas finally looked up at him, his gaze sad almost. "Dean, consider it. Would you allow anyone else to speak to her the way that you have been?" Those words shocked Dean into stillness and silence. Cas looked away, continuing. "She's upset with you, I believe." Dean stood there lamely. Cas's question and subsequent comment had left him dismayed. "That's beside the point," Cas said, oblivious to or ignoring Dean's shocked reaction. "He warned her, Dean. He was cut off before he could tell her everything, but he said... 'tell Dean it's not over, that the danger isn't gone, that Azazel planned to use you and Sam to—'"
Dean was hanging onto every word in rising terror. "To what?" he asked anxiously, and Cas shook his head, looking disturbed at a deep level and no longer meeting Dean's gaze.
"That's the question," the angel said, frowning again into far distance.
This was nuts. "Okay, even if that was my dad, even if—Azazel is dead!" Dean protested vehemently. "Haven't heard from the bastard in years, I'm pretty sure that chapter's closed!"
"Can we really take that chance?" Cas looked up at Dean dubiously.
Dean's loud anger faded away at the quiet and reasonable question. He maintained a grim and thoughtful silence for a minute—could this have happened at a better goddamn time? The threat of the apocalypse hounding him day and night, the angels after himself and Sam, finding out that Alex had no Heaven, catching her and Cas cuddling on the floor after he'd come back from Heaven—all of that plus having seen 2014… you know, maybe the apocalypse and saying yes to Michael was a pretty good alternative to that whole mess.
Short on answers, Dean found himself looking to Cas for a solution, even though it made him uncomfortable. He looked at the angel in hesitant hopefulness. "You always know about this stuff, Cas. Do you know what my dad could have been talking about?"
Cas shook his head dismally. "No. If there was some plan, it's been kept secret from Heaven."
"Well how do we find out?" Dean asked. "I mean, how the hell did my old man even manage to get a message through to begin with?"
"I don't know." Cas sounded like he was taking it hard. "I don't know anything."
Dean set his jaw, thinking of how disappointed Dad would be. The thought of his father still out there somewhere, suffering and worried about the family and possibly knowing about some danger Dean had overlooked—he almost felt choked. Dean shook his head in bitter disgust at himself and his circumstance. "I always told myself I'd keep them safe, Cas. Look at me. And I let them both get shot to death two days ago."
"And I should have been watching over the three of you more closely," Cas said. Then let out a heavy, guilty-sounding huff. "Or at all."
Dean suddenly recognized something in Cas that he carried, too: that deep, undying feeling of responsibility for everything bad that happened to the ones he was responsible for. And that fact alone made him feel sorry for the angel. Dean looked down at the concrete beneath his feet. He felt incredible, resistant sadness filling him up as he thought about the message Cas had relayed about Dad. "I just... I was always so happy because I thought we dodged a bullet," he said hollowly. "That Al sidestepped the whole 'demon's got a plan for your life' crap. That was supposed to just be Sam."
Again, Cas gave him a hooded glance. "If what your father said is true, we can't be too careful."
He was right. The nerdy little angel was right. Dean shut his eyes for a second, stress level skyrocketing. But besides that, he felt such deep, intense regret. Cas shouldn't be the one telling him this. It should be Alex. And instead of infuriating him, it made him surprisingly emotional. He just wished she would have told him herself. Maybe he'd pushed her and Sam further away than he'd thought. And Cas was right—Dean would sure as hell beat up any asshole who said even half of the shit he'd said to her lately.
As if tuning into his thoughts, Cas looked at him emphatically. "You're under a lot of stress, Dean. I know."
Dean attempted a smirk and a chuckle as he kept his eyes on the ground, walking forward toward the bench. "That's putting it pretty damn lightly, Cas."
He let out a deep breath and sat down beside Cas, leaning heavily on his knees. He got a slightly surprised look from the angel. "Listen. I've been... sorta, out of my mind a little lately," Dean confessed grudgingly. "Ya know, at first I find out I'm Michael's vessel—okay, I can deal with that. But then I find out Sam's Lucifer's vessel... and friggin' see the future where he's being worn to the prom, where Alex is dead... you're some cynical bastard with no hope left... I mean, all because I wouldn't say yes." Dean looked at Cas, full of doubt and uncertainty. "I need you to level with me Cas. Should I really keep trying to ditch out of it? If that's what happens?"
Cas thought about it deeply, his brows knit together closely. "I used to believe that it wasn't possible to change the future. But I think... I hope... that I was wrong about that." He paused. "Do I think you should say yes to Michael? No. There's too much at risk, too much to lose."
Not really what Dean wanted to hear. Well, he wasn't sure what he wanted to hear. All of it sucked, and he felt even more hopelessness settle over him. "Can I really just keep saying no forever?" he asked. "They're gonna start coming after everything I've got. It's only a matter of time."
Cas looked at him with a darkly concerned expression. "I know, Dean. I'll help in whatever way I can." He let out a tired sigh. "I know that your burden feels impossible. But you can't give up."
For some reason, that seemed rich coming from Cas. In fact, it almost sounded like Cas had already given up. "Buddy, aren't you preachin' to the choir?" Dean asked. "You find out God doesn't care and you go off and drink a whole building full of booze and now you're sitting here with a hangover the size of Mongolia looking like you lost a bet... doesn't take a genius to figure out you feel as shitty and hopeless as I do."
"It's the headache," Cas said in a distracted, bad-tempered tone, and Dean, muttering "sure," got up and went to the car to grab a bottle of aspirin.
"Heads up." He tossed the bottle to Cas, who caught it and looked at the label glumly.
"How many should I take?"
"You? You should probably just down the whole bottle."
"Thanks," Cas said stoically.
"Yeah, don't mention it." Dean looked at Cas from the corner of his eye, feeling a surprising amount of empathy for the guy. "Hey, I've been there," he told the angel. "I'm a big expert on deadbeat dads." He shook his head, again wondering about Alex seeing Dad. He didn't like that she'd told all of that to Cas and had been seeking comfort from his arms—but maybe Dean's crappy attitude had pushed her there. He would get to the bottom of all of that, later. Right now just wasn't the time. He refocused on Cas, who looked miserable. "So… yeah, anyway. I get it. I know how you feel, and it sucks."
Cas looked up at him and suddenly seemed young and helpless to Dean. "How do you manage?"
Dean smirked a little. "Well… on a good day, you get to kill a whore." At Cas's less-than-amused expression, Dean rolled his eyes and sighed. "Oh, loosen up, Cas. Live a little." He straightened. "I'll be back with the rest of the gang in a minute or two. Don't go anywhere." Even as he went inside, he passed Alex, who was coming out and shrugging a jacket on over her hoodie. She avoided looking at her brother. She shut the door behind herself, and then it was just her and Cas out in the chilly night.
"You okay?" she asked as she approached, hands in the pockets of her jacket.
He stood up, seeming startled to see her, then looked down at the pill bottle that he held in his hand. "Dean told me to take the whole bottle."
She followed his gaze. "Headache still?"
"Unfortunately," he said, his eyes coming up and capturing hers completely. They hadn't spoken much all day, even though they'd been together most of the time. Sam had been there, or she'd been asleep. And even though they'd reached some kind of truce on the trunk of the Impala, there was still a lot tension and unspoken things—for Alex, anyway.
"I told Dean," Cas said, slipping his hands into his trench coat pockets, his stance mirroring hers. "What you asked me about."
Her eyebrows raised a little. "How'd he take it?"
Cas thought a minute. "He's… overwhelmed."
"Yeah," Alex murmured. Overwhelmed came with the job description of hunter. And after last night and all the confused, jumbled emotions it had come with… Alex was overwhelmed too. "I get that." And she knew she'd have to play question-answer later with Dean, but for now, she felt relieved that Cas had taken care of that for her. She looked at the angel carefully. "And you?" she prompted. "How are you. Really?"
He looked unsure of how to answer, mentally searching. After a minute, he seemed to decide. "I'm overwhelmed, too." His eyes held unfathomable amounts of pain, conflict, and emotion. Alex found herself remembering when she first met him, how emotionless he'd seemed, how unreachable—there was such a startling difference between that Castiel and this one. Hell, she never would have guessed in a million years that this would happen. That the angel in the trench coat—the one she'd shot when she first laid eyes on him—would be the one she'd have her first time with. But no matter what she would have guessed or not guessed; it had happened. And there was no taking it back, ever.
"Listen," she said, voice lowering, her eyes searching his. "I've been thinking about, um, last night." His jaw tightened for a second at the mention of it. "And I just don't want you to regret it," Alex told him emphatically. "Because... I don't." His expression flickered, she couldn't tell if he was touched by her statement or bothered by it. Alex stepped a little closer, still looking up into his eyes. "I'm gonna die someday Cas... I accepted that a long time ago." She knew if she wanted a clear answer, she had to be clear about where she stood. But her heart hammered up into her throat and she was afraid to lay it on the line. The risk of rejection was so very great. But she saw no other option. She didn't have enough pride to stop herself. And she couldn't deny where her feelings had led her: "I… I'd honestly rather live a few years more and be with you than anything else."
The way his face worked when she confessed that. "Alex…" he spoke her name softly.
"I mean it," she told him, having to speak softer for how deep her emotions were becoming.
He shut his eyes closed for a second, his brows knit together, his expression so mournful. "I know you do." And he opened his eyes back up.
Their eyes met silently, and Alex hung all her hope on what she said next. "So that leaves it all up to you, Cas," she said, trying valiantly to smile bravely. "What do we do now?"
His eyes slid up to hers slowly, and he looked afraid. "I am not going to let you die, Alex," he said, his voice full of intention and promise. "In two-thousand thirteen or any other year." And she thought that meant he was going to leave her now, that he was going to walk away to save her—and her heart sank. But then he touched the side of her face and his eyes softened, locking on hers. "I'll find a way to change it," he said with no shortage of great emotion. "If it's the last thing that I do." And she was stunned when he reached for her decisively, a hand tenderly holding her face as he and leaned down and kissed her in an achingly gentle way. Her eyes fell shut as she melted into his embrace.
Inside the motel, Dean shoved some bottled holy water into his duffel bag—never hurt to be on the safe side—then he promptly froze when he glanced up at the window and saw his sister and the angel kissing. He felt all the blood drain out of his face even as the air in the room seemed to disappear.
Son of a bitch!