Author's Note: Thank you so very much to my readers, as well as to my reviewers. I appreciate any and all feedback, whether it's a mere "kudos!" or "meh. not bad." Seriously. Thanks, guys! FYI, translations will be located at the bottom of the chapter (though most of them will be cited and translated on the spot during your read). As you might note, this installment takes place several months before the events of chapter one.
Buckle up. It's gonna get bumpy.
SACRIFICE
come with me and walk the longest mile
for not a year later it's got you lying on your back
you should have chained up all the doors
and switched up all the locks
how many times have I prayed
11 MONTHS AFTER THE FALL
"Summon Meg? Why the hell would you ever wanna do that?"
Castiel glanced up from his assortment of supplies. Three pairs of eyes stared skeptically back at him, though it was Dean who had spoken up. The hunter looked impatient, guarded and disapproving. Castiel had expected as much from him on the matter. After all, Dean often expressed condemnation wherever Meg was concerned, so it came as no surprise. Perhaps if he understood her as Castiel did, his opinion would change. But then, he rarely heeded Dean's counsel these days. If anything, their roles had reversed and now Castiel often did the opposite of whatever Dean tried to get him to do. "She told me that if I ever needed her, to call."
"You don't need Meg."
Did he not?
Castiel was harder, less put together.
It had been a slow descent to witness. The former angel was depressed, angry, and had begun drinking himself into an apathetic stupor almost every night. Gone was the trenchcoat, the suit—in its place ratty old jeans, a threadbare tee shirt, and one of the brothers' unused jackets. He rarely slept—the act was intended to be peaceful after all, and Castiel's dreams were not. Over the past many months, he'd worked himself into a passionless rut. He was callous with everyone, bitter. He needed a shave, probably a haircut, and apparently had given up coping with humanity on his own if he was looking for his favorite partner in crime.
Meg was the light at the end of this oppressive tunnel. He knew somehow, inherently, that if he had her at his side, he could do this. Meg would pick him back up—she'd done it before. He just had to find her.
"Does he not kn—?" Kevin was elbowed so hard he thought Dean might have broken something vital. With a pitiful huff, he kept quiet and left.
"Don't you need to know a demon's real name for a summoning spell?" asked Sam, attempting to stall.
Castiel's expression was approaching amusement, and he gave a vain snort. "You think I don't know her real name?" He looked to each of them in turn and eventually sighed, as though they were giving him a migraine. "I won't bring her here, you don't have to worry."
Camp Chitaqua. It was fast becoming a sanctuary to survivors and a home base to every hunter in the area and neighboring states. The idea had started in the bunker and then Sam had scoped out some old land of Bobby's nearby—vast and sustainable enough to start putting up cabins and a perimeter fence. More and more weapons and supplies were being brought in every day, and they'd start growing their own crops soon if things continued on the way they were going. They didn't know that, when the seasons ended, these plans would fall apart. Everything would fall apart.
Dean's bark of laughter was harsh and loud. "So then what? You're gonna leave and run off with your little pet demon? Buddy, you'd have been better off with April, and that bitch tried to kill you."
Castiel ignored him, slinging the duffel over his shoulder as he headed for the door.
"Cas—" That was Sam. Attempting again to dissuade him.
"Meg's dead."
The words were delivered like a gunshot.
Castiel froze in his tracks, fingers tightening around the doorknob so hard his knuckles splashed white.
As an angel who had done more wrong than right, Castiel knew of despair. Knew it like an old friend. But something was very wrong with him now. He felt as though his chest was shrinking, as though his very human heart was becoming crushed by the force of the ribs around it. He was certain that the ground was tilting beneath him, and he could no longer be sure of his own footing.
He felt as if he couldn't breathe. As though all the air had been sucked out of the room.
Castiel turned, his vision strangely fuzzy.
"What did you say?"
He heard his own voice come as if from a distance, but his eyes were fixed on Dean's face, unmoving and unforgiving.
His friend might have looked guilty, might have even looked sympathetic at one point, but it was quickly repressed. Dean was harder these days, too. "I said, Meg's dea—"
Castiel didn't even hear the rest of the sentence. It was drowned out by the roaring sound in his skull.
Meg was dead. Meg. Meg. Dead.
Meg was dead?
No. Dean was lying. Dean was wrong. His lips parted to speak, but no words followed, his voice somehow gone.
"Shit."
That voice was Sam's again. Soft with compassion, rife with pity. Castiel wasn't looking at either of them anymore. They had been there, he realized. They had been there and they hadn't stopped it—hadn't even cared to tell him until now. Did they even slow down? Did they even look back? Castiel suddenly hated them both with an abrupt, irrational strength.
Except no. Meg wasn't dead.
She wasn't. Dead.
Because if Meg was dead, he couldn't do this. If Meg was dead, she wasn't alive.
"No."
His voice? It didn't sound like his voice.
"I don't know what to tell you. We both saw it. Crowley killed her while you ran off with the tablet. So… put on your big boy pants, deal with it, and move the fuck on." Dean knew he was being unreasonably harsh, but if Cas spiraled down any further than he already had, it was possible they would never get him back, that he might never recover.
Castiel couldn't even look at them. Not now. Not with those words hanging between them. He stood in the same place he'd been standing five minutes ago, not sure where to even put his feet. Throughout it all, he listened with isolated sorrow, feeling like he was somehow an outsider to his own body. In light of his sudden emotional state, the irony of that sensation was lost on him. His thoughts swam listlessly.
"Cas, I'm sorry, man." Sam, again. There was true remorse in the larger hunter's eyes. He wondered what more he could say, if there was any magic word or phrase that could help alleviate the struggling look of near-torment behind the human face in front of him. More than once, he came up empty.
Dean looked like he might have felt something approaching empathy, but it was outweighed by frosty confusion. "Why are you so broken up over this? You had half a fling with the little—"
"You know nothing about what she was to me, Dean Winchester." Everything came rushing back to him in a torrent of fire. Blind fury simmered at the edges of his mind and, for a moment, he was almost as imposing as he was when he'd been an angel. "She was more than just—" Castiel broke off abruptly, temper fracturing as the words failed to find him. His eyes darted around, lost, mind racing. He didn't know how to put it into words, nor what he was even trying to say. Almost all fire left him, though the crater of pain burrowed only deeper into his chest. His shoulders sagged, defeated without cause.
It was as if there was a block on his mind suddenly. One angry tear slid halfheartedly down his cheek, which he was too dazed now to even notice. What was he mourning so deeply? He felt robbed of something—her, unmistakably, yes. But there was more he was missing. Something he was forgetting. It was on the tip of his tongue. It was right there, but he couldn't grasp it.
Sam and Dean both looked at him as though he'd lost his mind.
Perhaps he had. It wouldn't be the first time.
Castiel visibly regrouped himself, vying for composure. "Crowley?"
The effect was immediate on the brothers.
"Don't you fucking dare."
"Cas, you can't—"
Crowley was still imprisoned in the basement of the bunker, insurance against Abaddon, a useful informant, and the only hope they had to deciphering Metatron's spell.
Dean looked reluctant but violent, and Sam quickly intercepted him, putting himself between Cas and the door instead. "Don't do this, man. We need him. You know that. Just give us some time to—"
"Get out of my way." Castiel's low warning was cut from ice and serrated like a blade.
"Goddamnit, Cas. Did you hear what I just—"
"I'm not going to kill him, Sam, I'm going to look for her!"
Both hunters started at the unexpected retort. "The hell are you talking about?" Dean spoke up from behind them.
Castiel glanced over his shoulder to level his friend with a menacing look. "You think that waste of filth actually killed her? Meg? Not possible."
"He did, Cas." Sam's voice was soft beside him. He looked as though he knew something Castiel did not. The regret alone in Sam's eyes should have been enough for him to know that any denial would be in vain. "Meg wasn't just fighting for herself this time."
Though it went unspoken, Castiel thought he understood the weight of what Sam was trying to tell him.
There was that sick feeling again. Castiel's mouth went dry.
"No." He shook his head, vehemently rejecting the possibility. "No. You're wrong. And I'll prove it to you."
sitting in the dark I can't forget
even now I realize the time I'll never get
another story of the bitter pills of fate
I can't go back again
I can't go back again
in another time we would be as one
in another place our lives would've only just begun
we walk beneath the sun, we lie beneath the stars
it didn't have to be this way, but this is what we are
Amarantha. Qui vocat te.
It had been several minutes since he'd spoken those words into the twilight, his incantation punctuated by the roll of thunder. Several minutes since striking the match, lighting the herbs, completing the spell. Several minutes, and still he stood alone in this barren wilderness. The anonymity of the dark suited his mood.
He had set up the summoning ritual in a small clearing just outside the camp, the first few droplets of rain spattering against his shoulders in commune. Beyond the treeline there was nothing, yet somehow it was more inviting than the patch of civilization at his back. The darkness beckoned him with its obscurity, a more companionable ally than the thought of facing the approaching dawn. A new day meant failure, it meant he was still alone. The darkness promised something more—a secret hidden in its depths that he couldn't quite unravel yet. It swore it would have him soon.
Castiel counted the seconds.
When eight minutes passed, he reset the ingredients. He again struck the match, and again he spoke the Latin phrase.
"Amarantha. Qui vocat te."
The herbs lit, sizzling under the light rain. His chest cramped with unease. The night beckoned him, mocked him with its vast, empty hollows. The clouds groaned louder.
Three minutes.
Again.
"Amarantha. Qui vocat te. Congregandum coram me."
It was becoming difficult to light the match.
Castiel closed his eyes. "Veniat," he whispered tightly, a terrible ache falling over him like a shroud. His knees yearned to bow, to fall, to surrender completely. They nearly buckled beneath his weight, refusing to afford him steady ground. "Obsecro."
Again.
Again.
Twelve minutes.
The match wouldn't light.
Castiel wiped the rain from his eyes and face angrily. "Meg," he ground out. Tried again. The match still would not light. His stomach knotted, an invisible vice clamping around his throat. Rainwater had gathered in the summoning basin, its contents waterlogged. Castiel swore and kicked it over, feeling as though he were the one drowning. "MEG!" he shouted into the blackness, at the weeping sky. Not even the usual sounds of twilight replied now—nothing but a gaping, vast emptiness surrounding him. No wind, no leaves rustling. Just the unremarkable hiss of rain.
He called for her again. And again. Until he was screaming it, until the phantom echo of his true voice could almost be heard wailing violent against the trees. Were he still as he once was, it would have bowed them over, uprooting several until the forest was left decimated under the desperate need to destroy everything in his path. But his voice was gone and Meg was not answering.
The gathering storm began to drown him out, swallowing his furious cries.
She couldn't desert him… could she?
Would she?
He refused to accept the other possibility, so instead he screamed and shouted himself hoarse in adjuration until he had hardly any voice left. The idea that she'd simply abandoned him was a less painful alternative, but even through his feverish denial, the truth stared him in the face. That night, from the deepest, darkest corners of his mind, a plan was forming. The desperation clawed at him, consumed him, blinded him until he was driven to madness. The downpour that followed did nothing to cleanse him, and with a cruel efficiency it washed away all evidence of the ritual, blood and rainwater meshing over the mud.
Castiel felt the ire drain from him, along with any and all signs of life. It was quickly replaced by a more real, tangible feeling. One that swallowed the remainder of his fortitude like a marauding black hole.
This new feeling promised solace.
It swore he would have her at his side again.
I will stumble and fall
it was over my head, I know nothing at all
I'm sorry that I couldn't get to you
anywhere I would've followed you
say something, I'm giving up on you
the other me is dead
I hear his voice inside my head
we were never alive and we won't be born again
I'll never survive with dead memories in my heart
The door to the dungeon burst open.
Crowley looked up in surprise, faced with the somewhat intimidating sight of his intruder jamming the back of the nearest chair under the door handle in defiance of the alarmed shouts carrying from the other side.
Six solid feet of angry Castiel stared back at him then, and Crowley felt the first stirrings of fear.
"My, my. Something tells me you're not here with the coloring books I asked for."
"Be quiet and listen."
Castiel's voice was a cracked, grating sound, though no less menacing. He was drenched from head to toe, black hair falling in damp spikes over his eyes. Curious, though not really caring, Crowley wondered what had happened to him. Behind them, the sound of pounding carried from the door, adding a worrisome flavor of urgency to the mix. "You have my undivided."
"Where do they go?"
Crowley's brow wrinkled, head canting. "Eh?"
"Demons," Castiel all but snarled, his expression desperate and murderous. "When you die. Where. Do you. Go?"
Realization dawned and, like a shark tasting blood in the water, Crowley offered a hellish smile. "So. The Grimm Brothers finally told Sparkles that the big bad wolf shanked his favorite plaything?"
"Answer the question."
Gone away was the anguish—in its place, something infinitely colder.
"Oh, you don't know half the things she screamed when under my care, mate."
Before he even realized what was happening, Crowley felt his chair lift clear off the stone floor as Castiel hauled him forward into a stranglehold.
"She would never scream for you, stain." Blue eyes, clear and sharp as the sea at the brink of a storm, burned into him like a brand.
Crowley was aware that the little angel of Thursday had lost his grace in the Fall, but holy hell was he still strong. The fierce, dark and penetrative quality of his presence was still just as stifling, his voice no less commanding than it was when he'd been at full power. "No," Crowley choked out, knowing he held the winning hand. "It wasn't me who broke her, you're right." He dealt it with all the care of a sucker punch to the gut. "It was the constantly calling your name with no answer."
Crowley watched with savage glee as the color drained from Castiel's face, stunned dismay washing over him. The demon reveled at the look of horror that pooled in those blue eyes now.
With a loud thud, the legs of Crowley's chair hit the floor.
"I… I was in Purgatory."
"Doesn't matter though, does it?"
No. None of it mattered.
She had needed him and he'd failed her.
know I've done wrong
left your heart torn
is that what devils do?
took you so low, where only fools go
I shook the angel in you
There was the putrid stench of sweat and blood in the decayed, underground quarters. Screams lingered heavy on the air, echoing through the stone halls and nestling against the spines of every inhabitant in a kiss of ice. The promise of death visited every soul, but inconceivable torments overshadowed the light of any hope for escape.
"Castiel."
Every surface was discolored with rust and blood, often black with putrefaction. The ceilings were rotting, leaking fouled water onto the floors and whatever inhabitants found themselves unfortunate enough to be trapped there.
"Castiel?"
Various instruments of torture surrounded her. Meg moved her wrists halfheartedly, fruitlessly, against her bonds.
"Come on, you ass," she said quietly against the dark.
She received no response. Never would.
She'd been praying to him for months, all with no reply. Her mind didn't even bother to conjure up the telltale sound of fluttering wings to set her at ease. There was just nothing. Meg knew she should have expected this outcome, but the sting it brought her felt too much like betrayal. She berated her own foolishness, hating that ember of hope that had nestled so lovingly beside her smoke. His absence left her weak, and she'd been an idiot to think that perhaps she could know again the comfort she'd once felt with him.
She would never know that he couldn't hear her. Never know that, had he, he would have gone to her in an instant.
In facing Crowley months later, Meg knew she would have stayed behind either way.
She went with a smile, all while assuming he'd merely had better things to do with his time than cater to the whims of her well-being. Had she known that he himself had once whispered her name in the dark, in the hidden realm of that twisted place somehow worse than Hell, maybe she would've fought a little harder to stay alive. To be with him.
"Was he worth it, whore?" asked the King, just before slipping that angel blade between her ribs.
Yes. He was.
That stupid angel was worth every burning, flesh-searing torment she'd endured and so much more.
Meg had always inherently known that, since falling into his arms in that ring of fire, Castiel would be the death of her.
it seems the pain's been traded since I pulled you through
and now my mind's been so jaded
and I would kill myself for you
"You saw her true face, so I can't help but wonder—did you just not care, or did you look on the face of the beast and like what you saw?" Crowley's smile was slow and predatory. "Or… maybe… it was simply less monstrous than your own reflection. Just how many sins did she get you to commit, Castiel?"
The slithering, silk voice curled like smoke along his quarry's spine. Still so much lost to the recesses of the celestial's mind… should he tip over the dominoes?
The numb sense of bereavement vanished in favor of threatening Crowley with more violence. Castiel's angel blade dropped from his sleeve and into his waiting hand. "She may have been a plaything to you, but she meant everything to me."
"Did she? How much though, I wonder?"
"Answer what I asked you."
"Nothing." At the blank look on Castiel's face, Crowley elaborated. "When demons die, we become nothing. Heaven won't take us, Hell already had us. We're too highbrow for Purgatory, so we become the void. Sometimes there're remnants left behind. A fingerprint, like a ghost. Short of that, we're dust in the wind."
"Could an angel bring her back?"
A smirk. "No, but you already knew that."
An angel resurrecting a demon would defy the laws of nature, the law of God himself. It was impossible, though if anyone could do it, it would surely be Castiel. Oh, but he'd lost his halo, hadn't he?
"Adrpan, little angel." Enochian. It meant cast down. It was intended as a challenge. Fall further, it said. "Now. Ask the question you really want to know the answer to."
Could a demon?
"What are you planning to do, Castiel? What exactly are you willing to do?"
Crowley had spoken those words to him before. The memory inspired rage inside of him.
Once more, Castiel seized Crowley's throat in a choking grip, the blade of his sword close enough to draw blood. The demon's wide, startled eyes met his, shrinking back at the promise of pain he dealt with the ominous crushing force of a death knell. "When I bring her back, you will know it. You'll know it as clearly as the fear you know now—the fear of a king waiting to be dethroned. And there will be nowhere for you to run."
Crowley was released with a shove, his chair tipping back from the vigor of it so that he was sent crashing to the ground in a tangle of limbs and sputtering curses.
The door to the dungeon slammed, and he was left alone.
it's unforgiveable
I stole and burnt your soul
is that what demons do?
they rule the worst of me, destroy everything
they bring down angels like you
Sam barely had time to register what was happening before Castiel was shouldering past him outside the dungeon.
"Cas—whoa, hang on!"
He was ignored.
Determined, he raced after his friend. Castiel disappeared into his own bedroom, and Sam burst in after him to the sight of Cas tearing the place apart in search of something. "What did you do to Crowley? What did he say to you? What the hell is—"
"Photo," Castiel muttered to himself. He needed a photo.
Sam ventured further into the room, trying to make sense out of what was happening and wishing to hell that Cas would stop freaking him the fuck out. Or at least take half a second to explain. "Castiel."
Cas knocked over his nightstand in frustration. "Goddamn it, where is it?" he demanded of the room, the uncharacteristic use of language only making his friend more uneasy. Dean's holler of concern carried from somewhere deeper in the bunker.
Sam materialized at his side, gripping his shoulders forcibly. "Cas, shut up and take a breath. Tell me what's going on. Is this about Meg?"
"I found her," he replied distractedly. A lie.
He couldn't let either of them know what he was about to do.
"You found Meg?"
Castiel's eyes fell on his dresser, a spark of hope and recognition calming his storm. Again he pushed past Sam, yanking open the top drawer and reaching inside. When he withdrew, he had the old FBI badge Dean had made for him in hand. His identification, a photo of him… all he needed now was graveyard dirt, a black cat bone, and some yarrow.
Sam felt a sinking feeling claw its way into his gut.
"I'll return soon," Castiel divulged vaguely, and was gone.
From then on, Sam would always suspect. He'd never say anything to anyone about it, whether for his own benefit or theirs, he could never be sure. No matter what happened, what would happen, what might've happened the night Castiel left the bunker to retrieve Meg, Sam knew it was done with the same earnest intent, the very same human weakness that he himself as well as his brother had once displayed. Sam could not fault Castiel for that.
If love was to be each their undoing, then perhaps they had a fighting chance left in this war after all.
the wasted years have passed so slowly
I will not live without you near me
love cannot fit inside a theory
the other me is gone now
I don't know where I belong
dead visions in your name
dead fingers in my veins
12 MONTHS AFTER THE FALL
Soon took longer than expected.
Exhaustion crippled him, a deep and embittered dysphoria poisoning his integrity. He no longer felt righteous, and he'd abandoned all ambition towards decency in the face of getting what he was after. In the back of his mind, his thoughts cautioned him that he had been in this position before, with disastrous results. Just as he had then, he again neglected all reason and did so without care. Perhaps he was no different now than he'd been then. Perhaps he was still the same monster who had opened the door to Purgatory.
His motivation was different though, now. He was not chasing the power-driven desire for a million weaponized souls. He sought only one.
Castiel stood at the crossroads for the sixth time, staring down the scarlet-eyed demon who finally appeared. It wore a young man in a business suit, its eyes glittering with amusement before it even spoke.
"Castiel?"
It sounded surprised.
"I'll assume you know why I'm here, so we can forego the preamble."
"Well, someone's pissy. Yes, I know why you've been snuffing out my cousins. A little petulant, don't you think?"
"Your cousins failed to perform the task assigned to them."
"Right. You're looking to make a deal. Easy to see, too, what with the cloud of grief hanging over that artfully tousled head."
"I didn't summon you to discuss my emotional state, demon."
It spread its hands in a manner designed to appear placating. "Help me out, since I'm a little curious… why would a fallen angel who hates demons ever make a deal for one?" At Castiel's critical look, the dealer shrugged. "It's fascinating. Sue me."
"Make the trade, or I'm leaving."
"What—not even a threat of mutilation if I don't follow through?" The suggestion of hellfire burned behind the red gaze, a mark of hungry anticipation. "Never had a soul like yours before. Give me a moment to bask." The demon narrowed the eyes of its stolen body, studying Castiel's face, trying to puzzle him out. "No take-backs, no changies," it warned, testing the waters. "I mean… you do realize what an eternity in Hell would be like for an angel, right? What they'll do to you?"
"I'm here, aren't I?" Castiel's tone was dry and dead, and the demon began to laugh. "What?"
"I'm just fucking with you. Watching you chase your tail was too entertaining to pass up. I lied," it elaborated when Castiel remained stonily impatient.
Castiel's answering growl was fierce. Anger and frustration clouded him and he advanced on the demon. "I'm giving myself to you, leech. Take this soul, take whatever you want, just bring her to me!"
The demon shrugged, arrogance swelling in its chest so that it leaned in a little. "Sorry. Not allowed, Clarence."
Castiel's reaction to the name was a physical trigger and his anger exploded outwards in brutal reply. He lashed out, one hand gripping the back of the demon's skull and the other driving the tip of his angel blade up through the underside of its jaw and into its brain. There was a predictable flash of brimstone and Castiel twisted the blade once to silence the creature's scream.
Furious and even more desperate than before, he cast the corpse roughly to the dirt and stood there panting. He tried to get a handle on his emotions and bottle the rage. He'd killed so many already and not one would deal! Vermin. He would slaughter a hundred more until he found one willing. In the meantime—what? More sleepless nights, more existing in a world that kept trying to spit him out, and more of the pointless circles he'd been running. Anguished, Castiel tipped his head back towards the sky, closing his eyes in defeat.
There was a quiet tsking behind him and he immediately stiffened at the sound.
"You're breaking all my toys, Castiel."
He turned slowly, already knowing who the voice belonged to. "Abaddon."
Her fiery hair spilled over her shoulders under the moonlight like flame. Her gaze was deadly, calculating, looking over him as one did a meal. She positively reeked of dark power, poised like a predator before him. "How the mighty have fallen, and all that. Where's your grace, precious?"
"Gone. I have a soul now."
"And already trying to bargain it. That must be some kind of record." She gradually drew nearer to him, eyes combing him over more closely. "Still... I almost admire you right now."
"You can have my soul for Meg."
Abaddon visibly bristled at the name. A scowl marred the cold beauty of her face, and she looked as though she were fondly remembering a pet that had turned and bit her. "Amarantha. Lucifer's most loyal... until the day she met Castiel. Stupid little angel who led her astray. She would have become a Knight, if not for you." Abaddon discarded all nostalgia, her expression chillingly stern. "No more deals, didn't you hear? We take what we want." She circled behind him. Castiel tracked her with his eyes. "I could kill you right now," she mused, considering it. "You're so weak now and the stench of humanity pollutes you."
Castiel's own stare was coldly satisfied. "You know, I hoped I'd get your attention." He revealed the sidearm from inside his jacket, and Abaddon could practically smell the devil's trapped bullet waiting in the chamber. Her chin throbbed at the reminder. "Either lose today, or have me in ten years."
"Depends," she replied. "How fast are you with that thing?"
"I've been practicing," Castiel retorted pithily, daring her to tempt him.
Abaddon chuckled callously. "I like this moxie, Castiel."
"You won't like my impatience," he promised, not even needing to indicate the already decomposing corpse at their feet.
Abaddon shook her head at him. "All this for a black-eyed little girl. A traitor with a pretty face. And you've seen her true visage, you know she isn't really pretty at all. What a peculiar thing you are," she remarked. It was clear she couldn't quite figure him out and that it bothered her.
"You're not the first person to say those words to me."
"Oh, yes. The little Power who stood up to the devil. Lucifer, himself. My, my, that made the papers." Abaddon scoffed, angling away from him in disgust. "After you locked him away, Daddy gave his favorite soldier an upgrade, didn't He? But now you're human. You're currency, no matter what side of the war you turn to." A fine eyebrow arched for her hairline as she turned back to consider him. "But the best part of the story has yet to come. An angel falls in love with a demon. That's maudlin, even for Heaven's little outcast." The Knight wore a sneer of distaste on her ruby lips. "What's worse is I think she may have loved you, too."
Castiel's resolve faltered unexpectedly at the words, and it was clear he wasn't prepared for them. It set him back a step. "I don't love Meg. I'm repaying her for saving my life. For her protection over me when I needed it."
Abaddon already looked bored. "Please. Don't try to con me, Castiel, and certainly quit conning yourself. An angel doesn't save a demon unless for love. An angel doesn't trade his grace, his human soul, for anything but love. While we're on the subject, here's a plot twist for you: you'll never get your grace back if you go through with this. Ever think of that?"
He hadn't. "What are you talking about?"
"If you stain that grace's vessel with a deal, it can never return to it."
Castiel nearly scoffed. "You're wrong, or lying. Dean made a deal and Michael could have still inhabited him if he'd said yes."
Abaddon had clearly been expecting that and looked on him with a lordly satisfaction. "Dean wasn't an angel." She laughed, low and needling. "A fallen angel marked by a deal is no longer an angel at all. It becomes a human bound for damnation. Tainted. And since neither a human nor a demon can become an angel...? Do this, and that vessel you wear will reject your grace forever."
Castiel weighed the news heavily, allowing the reality of it to sink in.
The silence around them became almost deafening.
"We sleep safely at night because rough men stand ready to visit violence on those who would harm us," Abaddon recited, turning her eyes to him slowly. "I wonder if those were her final thoughts—thinking her savior would come for her?" Her hand rested in a falsely comforting way over his shoulder and Castiel hid the reflexive chill that washed through him in response. "You're brave, Castiel. But how brave?"
He met her eyes unflinchingly. "Are you going to take it, or not?"
Abaddon's smile was wolfish, her perfect teeth forming a white crescent in the near-darkness. "Oh, I will. And I think it's adorable that you think you'll survive for ten years. Not with what I have planned, sweetheart."
"Finish it already," Castiel growled, blue stare icing over in wintry resolution.
"Mahorela," Abaddon promised, drawing him into a brutal, searing kiss.
Dark Heavens, rang the oath.
but you asked me to love you and I did
traded my emotions for a contract to commit
and when I got away I only got so far
you tied my soul into a knot and got me to submit
so when I got away I only kept my scars
your fear it moves me
your weakness I taste
you want me, you love me
and I hate myself
After the crossroads, Castiel was mentally adrift, new and uncharted emotions surrounding him. Limbo, he'd later realize. Meg did not appear directly before him as he had hoped, so he was uncertain of what he was supposed to do. How did one behave when they'd just given up everything for the person who was still nowhere to be found? Miserable with tribulation and having nowhere else to go but back to where he'd started, Castiel returned to Camp Chitaqua, ignoring the few surprised greetings he received as he headed for his cabin. He shut the door quietly behind himself, considering what he would say to the others.
Tossing his jacket over a chair, he decided that would come later. Now, he was tired.
How long would it take? Would she even remember him? He hadn't been specific. There were so many questions swimming in his head that it began to ache.
Castiel turned, and there she was.
Sitting on his bed, hands folded in her lap. Staring at him like he might not be real.
Emotion swept over him like a current, unbidden. Something like agonized relief, something like fondness, rose inside him. The breath died on his lips and he felt a warmth that hadn't been there in a long time.
But there was pain in her eyes. "What the hell did you do?"
Her voice. Strong and dulcet like a battered cello. Castiel stood there, staring at her on his bed, not knowing whether to give in to the impulse that itched to gather her into his arms, or do nothing. Perhaps yell at her for getting herself killed in the first place.
"Meg." He said her name on a sigh. A weary sense of peace filled him, his lips tipping in something that resembled a smile. He knew then in that moment, irrevocably, that it was all worth it.
She got to her feet. Boots, jeans, studded belt, leather jacket, talisman necklace—just like he remembered. Dark curls spilled over her shoulders chaotically like a tangle of thorns. Eyes still as sharp as arrows. "Answer me, Castiel! What did you do?"
It only hit him then that she was angry, upset with him in a devastated sort of way. Castiel had no answer, left speechless by her outburst. Meg put both her hands on his chest and shoved him, hard.
"Say something!"
Castiel stumbled, his back meeting roughly with the wall. He was wearing only a tee shirt and jeans and the way he struck the side of the cabin gave her pause, but the rage and desolation otherwise blinded her to it. Castiel was looking at her like she'd lost her mind, his expression one of stark confusion.
"I saved you."
"What the fuck were you thinking?!" He stared at her, flabbergasted and now very concerned because Meg was crumbling. Why was she reacting this way? "You don't die for me, you piece of shit!" There was a strange, foreign note of desperation to her angry cries. Dread, he realized. An unmistakable, explicit sorrow fell from her and it stunned him. "Do you have any idea what's going to happen to you? What you've done? No, of course you don't, because you never fucking think!"
Castiel gazed down at her intently, not backing up when she closed in. After a beat of tense silence, he collected himself. "I owed you a debt." Even as he said the words, they felt wrong and he knew he was a liar.
Meg, of course, was a liar by trade and saw right through him. Her lip curled in a snarl. "Fuck you, Castiel. Maybe I was happy being dead."
A cold, vast emptiness stared back at her. "I wasn't."
"How like a Winchester," she muttered acidly, shaking her head. It took some effort to ignore his piercing look, though she was satisfied her words had cut him.
His brow drew together in quiet anger, in a dismay so profound it shook him. "Meg—"
"You stupid..." she trailed off in a hiss. "Damn it, you're better than this!"
"No, I'm not."
Meg rolled her eyes, ignoring the stormcloud brewing in his. "Bullshit! You're Castiel. Angel of the damn Lord. A Seraph! Guardian of puppies and prevailer of all things stuffy and righteous. Don't for one second—"
"And you are a demon!" he shouted back, getting in her face and using his height to intimidate and corner her. "What right did you have to die for me? What was I to you but a means to an end? If anyone between the two of us has a right to be angry, it is me!"
Castiel was suddenly colliding with the wall again, tasting blood from the punch she'd given him.
"Don't you ever talk to me like that again," she growled from above him.
Castiel regarded her with halfhearted contrition, though the heated look he wore in no way diminished. "I'm not going to fight you, Meg."
"Damn right you're not."
Castiel picked himself up off the floor, cradling his arm which had struck the wall with a disturbing amount of force. "That's not what I mean," he told her, lowering his voice but not the urgency.
"Stop," she warned him. "I don't do speeches."
There was something inscrutable about his expression and Meg ran her eyes over the harsh lines of his face, silently daring him to challenge her.
"Yes you do. I've heard them, and they mean something to me."
I've figured one thing out about this world. Just one. You find a cause and you serve it. Give yourself over and it orders your life. I'm talking as in: reason to get up in the morning. I know what I'm supposed to do. And it isn't lose the only angel who'd go to bat for me.
Castiel spoke over her budding protest, his livid tone a testament to how provoked he was by her rejection of his actions. "I am still on your side. I'll protect you, and you'll live, Meg. If it's the last thing I do. You can fight me, you can hurt me, but it won't stop me from being there when you need me most. I won't fail you again. I trusted you with my life once, in case you forgot." The tense line of his body softened a little. "Stupid as it was."
Did he even realize what he was saying?
"You idiot," she murmured.
The usual smokiness of her voice was gone, leaving behind something vulnerable and aching. She cursed him silently for the way he'd instantly restored her faith in him—those terrible moments as Crowley's prisoner long forgotten. How dare he give everything for her.
"What else would you ever expect of me?" asked Castiel, and those impassive stormy eyes locked with hers and refused to let go.
"Fight."
"That's all I've done."
He kept his eyes on her until something in Meg's opaque study of his face made him look away.
"You've done something to me," he imparted vaguely, not understanding and yet completely understanding the sway she held over him. Something stalled in the air the moment their eyes met again, and Meg unconsciously listed forward a bit more as she tried to decide what to do. Something in Castiel's expression was a vivid reminder of how he'd been before—of how they had been, once.
"Bringing me back was a mistake."
What would ever possess him to place such trust in her, to the point where he would sacrifice so much? The silence in the room only amplified the way his breathing deepened, the way her clothing rustled as she took yet another step into his space.
"I will never believe that."
The words were said with such conviction, his voice low and thick and so laden with everything unspoken between them. Something about the tense look in her eyes should have warned him that she was about to do something.
"Mistake," Meg muttered again before reaching out and seizing him by the front of his shirt. He didn't even seem surprised when her other fingers dove into his hair and pulled him back against her, their bodies pressing flush to one another's as she kissed him hungrily. His arms were around her in an instant, large hands traversing her sides, the small of her back, the curve of her hips. He dove into her like a starving man. The feel of her lips was painfully passionate, as heady as the memory of how he'd kissed her once before, when there had been hellhounds chasing them.
The warmth and solidness of him everywhere against her was so beyond stunning. Her teeth nipped and tugged at his lower lip and she tasted the blood—but there was no burn like white acid on her tongue. Just the regular bitterness of blood.
Meg drew just enough away to speak breathlessly against his mouth. "What's happened to you?"
She'd been so distracted by her anger that she hadn't noticed his light was gone.
Castiel made a sound of implicit suffering. "Everything," he managed, the word swallowed by her lips. Erase this, all of it, he thought desperately, knowing she would.
There was something very wrong with him, but Meg ignored the part of her that desired to find out exactly what it was. She needed to know him again, relearn him again.
Her fingers pulled at his hair and she invaded his mouth. Castiel's arms drew her tighter into him, needing to feel her everywhere and all at once. He'd missed her—missed her. How could he mourn something he'd never known? How could he revel at the familiarity of this intimacy, the relief at her touch, as though it were a reunion instead of an introduction?
Castiel took the front of her leather jacket roughly in his hands, pushing it down off her shoulders, and Meg threw it away with haste. Her fingers slid beneath his shirt, scratching and pressing over the warm flesh of his chest and stomach, thinking how she'd once mapped the strong planes and ridges with her mouth.
No. That never happened, she reminded herself. The bitter taste of regret made her even more desperate. Her nails clenched hard into his shirt, almost ripping the material apart. She raised it over his head and tore it off of him, giving him barely enough time to raise his arms. Castiel grasped her by the hips, lifting her into the air with a strangled sound of desire. Meg made a needy sound, tangling her legs tight around his waist. Something rattled on a shelf and toppled over when she was slammed back into the wall and Meg didn't care if it was payback from before or if he was just as inconsolable to the situation as she was. She gasped into his mouth, still needing more of him. Her nails dug harder into his back and with a groan, he leaned into her.
Her shirt was torn open and cast aside somewhere with his. Castiel pressed against her heaving chest, relishing the delicious feel of her soft skin on his, fingers tracking a path down the center of her body until he felt the ridge of scar tissue left behind by the fatal stab wound. Something inside him twisted at the agonizing reminder, needing to wash it away and yet needing to show her what it meant to him. Meg chased his mouth with hers, but he withdrew and did something that shocked her.
Lips finding the point of her pulse, murmurs spilled from Castiel's mouth onto her skin. The Enochian words were endearments he'd have never thought to use before, and they passed his lips unguarded. But Meg reacted to them like she actually knew what he was saying. Needing for him to stop, the words devastating her and rebuilding her all at once, she drew his face back to hers, determined to fall with him. Determined to find what had been missing, what she'd been craving, to see what effect this would have on him as though it would make or break her. Death had opened her eyes in new ways, in old ways. So much was different and yet everything was exactly the same.
Meg moved against him and they swallowed each other's cries. Her cool skin was almost a relief against his. She reached out and raked her nails down his chest, tracing the curve of lean muscle and scarred flesh left over from a sigil. She remembered him telling her how he got it. Another scar that lay beneath his flesh drew her eye, impossible to miss, though he himself would never see it. The dark mark on his soul that spoke of the lengths he was willing to go for her.
His soul.
Meg knew in that moment that Castiel was human.
He was a man. Flesh and blood.
Sacrifice had marked them both, and the realization shook her. With renewed hunger, she deepened their kiss, making it impossible for him to breathe without tasting more of her darkness. Her body lifted into his eagerly and Castiel seemed to come apart in her arms. He couldn't seem to get close enough. Securing one arm around her waist, he used his other to push off from the wall, turning them to collapse with her on the bed.
Meg's hips arched and her legs tightened around him, her hands falling to his waist and working at the buckle of his jeans. Castiel's hands were gentler now, though no less urgent. Meg trembled underneath him, an almost constant litany of soft and desperate noises urging him along.
Soon, their broken moans and choking gasps mingled to drown out the growing uncertainty between and surrounding them, because yes, he was just like she remembered, and she was everything he imagined her to be. With the rising heat between them, Castiel could barely focus his tangled thoughts, but, somewhere in those moments, he recognized that this was as close as he'd ever been to touching what he'd been missing for so long.
He cursed himself for not having the willpower or the strength to stop this from happening, even as, at the same time, he desired a thousand more moments like it.
This wasn't why he brought her back.
Or perhaps it was precisely why he brought her back.
He couldn't be sure of anything anymore. His emotions would be fascinating if they weren't so destructive. Because how did he know that touching her there would elicit such a reaction? That kissing her here would have her practically screaming? That when she moved like that, he would crumble like the walls of Jericho in her arms?
Meg's entire body hummed with relief as she stared up at him. His hand pressed over her heart and he leaned against her, resting his weight gratefully in her embrace.
When he spoke her name—her true name—Meg was not stunned that he knew it. Her entire being responded to his call, reacted as though he'd spoken it a hundred times. Fleetingly, he considered how odd it was that not even he could recall when he'd come to know it. Lost in the haze of pleasure and bliss, Castiel would forget those small revelations, deciding that finally having her in his arms was enough.
I breathe you, I hate you
you course through my veins
because I want nothing else
I bleed you, since I've healed you
your pain escapes through me
I see you and I feel you
oh I hate you, but I'd die for you
now I'm rising from the ground
rising up to you
filled with all the strength I found
I need to know now
can you love me again?
"You just couldn't find it in you, could you? To let me rest in pieces."
His lips trailed across her bare shoulder, soft brushes of skin and eyelashes. "No," was his quiet reply.
Meg sighed and shifted towards him. "Come on. I was gone and you could go do your angel thing. It was better that way."
"No, it wasn't."
Naked and wrapped in the sheets of his bed, it looked as if she belonged there, as if she was born to make an imprint in his mattress, on his heart, and Castiel couldn't stop staring at her. He was still terrified that if he touched her, she'd disappear again. Tempting the thought, he ran his fingers through the hair at her temple, contemplating a dark curl he held. "I prefer your hair this way."
"So do I. If I was brought back as a washed out blonde, I might've shaved my head."
Castiel's nose wrinkled and she laughed. The sound was low and dulcet, a balm on his fading concerns. Meg's fingers trailed over the muscles of his stomach, her smile sly.
"What? A buzz cut not appealing to you?" she drawled, sliding against him to settle into his side.
Meg felt the huff of laughter rumble through his chest. "I think you would appeal to me in any form."
"Good to hear." Her nails dragged lightly over the ink beneath his flesh, just above his hip. "Dig the tattoo, Clarence. Mid-eternity crisis?" Meg's smile had its usual wicked tilt, though her lip quivered a bit. She hesitated then, dropping her needling tone and becoming more serious. Her darkness again searched out his light—that grace she'd never been able to look away from and that constantly drew her in. Instead, she saw nothing. Just the shell of a broken man, another fallen hero. "You're not an angel anymore, are you?"
It took him a moment to reply, the confession somehow lodging in his throat. "No."
Meg propped herself up, her dark eyes combing over his face. The tangled lengths of her hair fell in a curtain over his chest, and Castiel thought she looked exquisite. The dawn was just barely stealing through the shades on his window, bathing her in a morning glow that belied what she was. Her lips were still pink and swollen, faded bruises peppered over the milky expanse of her skin. Castiel thought the bite mark on his shoulder would probably still ache tomorrow. She was looking at him in a way he didn't think she had before, features softer somehow.
"Humanity's gonna kick the shit out of you," she told him, the words somehow holding no derision. Castiel's short grunt was without humor, but indicated agreement. Meg's hand trailed down from his shoulder, over the arm she'd unwittingly injured. Now that the heat of the moment was over, she could tell it was hurting him, even if he didn't show it. Her thumb slid over the warm skin of his bicep, regret making her frown. "How long has it been? Since you fell?"
"A year."
"Hm. Cookie for you, for sticking it out this long."
"I'm not sure how relevant pastries are to my sudden mortality, but I don't think having one would make me feel better."
Meg stared at him like he was both the bane and highlight of her existence. "You have got an ass where your head should be," she told him, affectionate exasperation coloring her tone.
He looked so utterly confused by that that he didn't even attempt to reply.
Meg chuckled, looking down at him with a fondness that belied the cut of her words. "You're lucky you still get my motor running like this." Her smile was sharp but genuine, and she ran a finger along the strong line of his jaw. "Humanity suits you. More corruptible this way."
Castiel gave a short laugh, glancing up at the ceiling as though it held an answer. "I was perfectly corruptible all on my own, if memory serves."
And what good were memories, anyway, Meg thought sorely. She regarded him with rare, naked intimacy. "Violence begets more violence. We're all villains in some way, Castiel." She knew that he still felt the weight of every reprehensible thing he'd ever done. Sure, he'd fucked up, but it was time to move on. "The world is full of monsters, no matter where you look. Sometimes they're the thing you're fighting, sometimes it's the thing you see in the mirror. We do what we must, devil take the hindmost. I couldn't help what I did in Hell. Sure, it was my fault for landing there, but the rest? Not on me. It is and it isn't."
Raptly, his eyes slid over her face, drinking her in as though he were committing every line of it to memory. "That shouldn't make sense."
"Does though?"
"Yes."
"Mm."
His hand rose to brush against her neck, fingers trailing gently until he was cupping her face. Meg felt herself unconsciously leaning into the touch. He was looking at her so strangely, so intensely. As though he were trying to see through her, into her. Castiel's thumb ghosted over her cheek, wistful.
"I can't see your true face anymore," he said quietly.
"Lucky you."
Castiel considered this. "Not really," he said, candor lacing his tone. "I rather admired it. I think I might even miss it."
That surprised her, stealing the witty retort right out of her mouth. Meg stared at him, not sure what to do next. "Then how do you even know it's still me?"
He smiled a little, an almost teasing glint in his eyes. "I know."
Meg's eyes narrowed at him. She poked him hard in the chest. "How?"
Her predictable impatience made him chuckle. "I don't know... I believe a part of me will always see who you are. There's a... familiarity I feel towards you that I can't always explain. Something that makes us kindred." At the dubious look she gave him, he went on more seriously. "You're still there, Meg. Even if my eyes no longer work as they used to. And... I find that I need you now just as I have before."
Castiel knew the way he saw her ran so much deeper than he could put into words. He could still see her in the same way that a blind man could still fall in love. He felt her, could feel her, in every way that truly mattered. With the heart.
Their eyes locked and Meg shook her head. "You don't need me," she said, moving to get up. It was dismissive. Like the word, the idea of her own importance, left an unsavory taste on her tongue. But Castiel had reached out to grab her by the hand, and Meg let him stop her.
There was a defensive note of urgency to his tone, even though he spoke at her gently. "I have needed you. I tried, Meg. Doing this without you. I couldn't. I..." His brow drew together introspectively, his own thoughts still a mystery to him. "Wouldn't."
Meg felt something spark inside of her. She was supposed to be done, and yet here he was, making her catch fire again, breathing life into her again. She hated him a little for it. But then, as trite as it sounded in her head, he was special. She'd known the second she laid eyes on him in that ring of fire that there was something different about him.
Castiel was looking at her like she was a rare gem he'd been searching for, as though she was the only trace of water in the desert he'd been mired in. He sat up a little, wanting them to be on equal ground. "I'm not giving up on you, either," he told her, needing her to know it. There was a time when Meg had never given up on him—had believed in him when no one else had. "I won't betray you, Meg. I won't let you down again."
"Who the hell asked you?" she whispered, gaze retreating away from his.
Castiel's head fell to the side as he considered her. "You didn't have to ask. Isn't that the point?"
When he had awoken in the hospital, he had made no call, no plea. He had turned and Meg was there.
"You took care of me when I couldn't even ask for help. Then when you needed me, I failed. What was I supposed to do?" It was partially a demand, but the terrible need in his eyes was arresting. There was still something so powerful about him, a different kind of light that could never be extinguished.
Meg saw the raw, unfettered emotion and sighed. What was it about him that, no matter how many times they were torn apart, he was always right there and fighting his way back to her? "Move on?" she ventured at last, halfheartedly lifting a shoulder.
Castiel stared at her intently, registering her words, before finally shaking his head. "No. I can't do that."
Damn him.
"We go, we go together, huh?" Meg relented, a grudging acceptance making her need for flight dwindle. His presence was grounding and again she found herself trapped in his orbit. Castiel recognized the way his actions still plagued her and he did feel remorse for it. Still, it wouldn't change what he had done, nor would he undo it if he could. He leaned into her, hand grasping tighter under her jaw, his eyes shouting the words he spoke quietly into the space between them.
"I will burn with you."
Something inside her fractured, like a violin string drawn too tight. Wretched veneration filled her like a cleansing rain and she shook her head at him. "Fucking martyr," she sighed, though the harrowed affection in her eyes painted a vivid portrait.
It was Castiel's turn to sigh. "If I can save one life in this world, after all the pain I've caused, it will be yours. I needed it to be yours."
She'd saved him so many times. Wasn't it time he saved her?
"Well. Lucky me, then." Meg was visibly uncomfortable with where the conversation had gone, but she'd plastered a devil-may-care smile on her face all the same. She pressed a finger into his ribs, prodding for a subject change though she disguised it well. The way her voice cracked was the only thing that gave her away. She made sure to let her eyes rove over his form longer than was necessary. "Really, really lucky."
The suggestive tone was obvious even to him and Castiel regarded her antics with amusement. "I feel somehow relatable to Adam, when Eve offered him the apple."
"High praise," Meg approved, dark eyes glittering. "Forbidden fruit always tastes better."
"In my experience," Castiel conceded.
"I'll bet." Meg's smile was wicked. "A reaper, huh?"
Castiel averted his eyes with a snort at her deliberate needling. "Not one of my finer moments." Meg was clearly enjoying his pain and he narrowed his eyes at her, considering. "Does it bother you I was with someone?"
"Bothers me that I wasn't the one to kill her."
Though her quiet rage was potent, Castiel somehow saw through her unspoken defense of him. "I wanted it to be with you," he offered, "if that means anything."
It did mean something.
The effect was evident in her expression, the way her fingers curled a little tighter over his before she eventually realized her transparency and quickly released him. Meg felt an unexpected though not unpleasant chill. As a demon, nothing should have been able to shake her. She frowned at the display of dependency, but argued silently that she had been waiting for this moment, for so very long.
Castiel was bemused by her sudden and unusual hesitancy. The reticent uncertainty was foreign on her and he wondered at it. It looked like she was summoning the nerve to say something else.
Meg tempted her luck, though refused to look at him as she did. "You know... when you said you remembered everything, I thought..."
So, which Cas are you now?
She'd needed to know. Still needed to know.
I'm just me.
Was he?
Really? You remember everything?
If you're referring to the pizza man, yes, I remember the pizza man. And it's a good memory.
No, Castiel. That was just the first drop of ink on their page.
Why are you so sweet on me, Clarence?
Testing him. Seeing what the pieces looked like.
Him staring back at her, wishing he had the answer that seemed to elude him.
I don't know.
Another memory skirted across her thoughts. Of the gentle amnesiac who had devoted his life to healing those in need of it.
Always his memory.
I could jog his memory.
She could have. After all, she thought bitterly, they went way back.
Castiel's brow drew together, not understanding what she was referring to or the reason for her sudden mood shift. "Meg?"
Meg visibly backtracked, something vulnerable shining in her eyes, and she retreated from him in a way that left him troubled. "Nothing. Never mind. I was just gonna make fun of you for all the times your crazy ass made me play twister with you at the hospital. Joke's on me, though, since you don't remember shit."
It was the closest she'd ever come to telling him the truth—telling him everything. She could barely admit to herself what they were. It was too painful a reminder now that it was gone. Meg almost wished she could have had the same lobotomy he'd had.
The angels had buried some things so far down in his mind that not even the tablet could free it for him.
Meg wondered how much of his mind was still broken. How many pieces still missing.
Castiel was still staring at her in visible concern at the emotional retreat. He didn't think this was about his brief proclivity for board games. "Have I said something wrong?"
"No, Cas. Just... trying to find a way to be less pissed at you."
Oh. He seemed to accept that response, chagrin coloring his expression. "I don't regret it. No matter what you say, I never will."
Meg sighed. "Yeah, I know." She leaned into him, over him as she pressed him back into the sheets. Her fingers slipped thoughtfully through his hair as he watched her, unused to such gentleness from her. His arms tightened around her a little, drawing her closer until she finally laid down across him, her cheek flush over his chest. His breath felt warm against her skin, but the way he flexed his fingers against her sides reminded her that, once, he could have very easily killed her.
"I'm a demon, Cas," Meg said vaguely, cagily. "We know what it is to be torn apart and put back together. Again and again until there's nothing left but to obey an order."
Her words were a comfort, though he couldn't pinpoint the reason for her saying it. They implied so much more than she was letting on.
It only cemented the notion that no one would ever understand him like she did. It felt almost childish to admit such a thing—even to just himself. But it didn't make it any less true. With her, he could breathe a little easier. Didn't feel as though he was constantly suffocating in his own skin. This body that was now his. Having her was a blessing, as ironic and twisted as it sounded. Castiel felt somewhat ashamed by it, but was too relieved and at peace to care. He was still a walking disaster, but at least she had experience in picking him up out of the dirt and getting him back on his feet.
It's a gift, she'd say, that velvet voice she had twisting into the sarcastic drawl he'd never admit to revering.
"If you brought me back just to be your nanny..." Meg began in grumpy forewarning, as though she'd been company to his running thoughts.
Castiel actually smiled, touched by the familiarity of her being annoyed with him. "I brought you back to be... you. If you don't want to stay, don't feel the need to just because I signed away the one valuable thing I have left. There's no debt. You owe me nothing. I just... needed you alive, I think." His voice grew soft. "So I could at least tell you that I was sorry."
Meg did stay, though. And showed no signs of ever leaving.
And trust Castiel to bargain his shiny new soul away just for some half-ass apology. She hated him for getting under her skin and into her heart, hated herself for always being a sucker for a lost cause.
Meg was accustomed to fallout.
She'd sold her soul for a love that left her on the altar.
Then there was Alistair. Azazel. Then Lucifer.
I'm doing this for the same reasons you do what you do, she'd once told Sam. Years ago, when she'd been nothing more than a soldier of darkness. Loyalty. Love.
So many missions that failed her, so many masters who abandoned her.
But the fire he inspired in her never seemed to die. Castiel was a single candle in a hurricane, but maybe he was the hurricane too. Maybe she was the candle. Meg had no idea of anything anymore.
Instead, she focused on the tangible—the steady rise and fall of his chest beneath her, the possessive yet tender way he kept her tucked into his side, his finger drawing lazy circles on her shoulder. Meg knew he was a fool for thinking that simply having her with him would fix everything that was wrong with him. Still... no matter the reason he brought her back, she would follow him anywhere. She would look after him.
They had made a promise to each other long ago. Meg had no intention of ever going back on it.
"I have no idea what the hell I'm doing anymore, Meg. All I know is that I need you here, showing me how to... live."
She could do that.
While Meg and Castiel might have found themselves in a good place, Dean and Sam were hardly ambivalent about putting a demon up at the camp.
"Do whatever the fuck you want," Dean said, his bark of laughter void of all humor as he turned his back on them and marched off. He didn't even bother arguing, though he made it abundantly clear that if Meg made one wrong move, she'd be put down hard.
Sam was less spiteful about it, though no less reluctant. His face when Cas delivered the news to him seemed to say: Fine. But I'm going to look at you sternly.
Castiel still had so many questions. Most confusing and overpowering of them all: what exactly was she to him?
His, was the only answer he ever found.
I'd give up forever to touch you
because I know that you feel me somehow
you're the closest to heaven that I'll ever be
and I don't want to go home right now
you don't believe in space, you don't believe in light
you don't believe that anything is well beyond your might
we walk across the sky and beneath the ocean floor
we're never going anywhere we've never been before
That night, as they lay entangled with each other in the cabin—no longer his alone, but theirs—something immeasurable happened.
They'd been discussing the possible whereabouts of Crowley, after learning that the King of Hell had been released following his assistance in expelling an angel named Gadreel out of Sam. Their conversation turned to other topics as she looked over the contents of his room, asking after bobbles and items he'd cared enough about to keep. She'd also noticed the large bow sitting in the corner, and Castiel explained to her that he'd found it while on a raid and that he was trying to learn it. Eventually, his sentences began trailing off, his words becoming mumbled, and Meg recognized with some fascination that he was falling asleep.
She wouldn't know that this was the first night in a long time that he was able to really sleep, falling into the sensation even though he still despised the vulnerability of it all.
Castiel was lying on his side, faced towards her, his eyes closed. There were no frown lines, no furrowed brow. Just a youth rekindled in the face he wore and that now belonged to him.
Meg didn't think he was quite asleep yet. The question had been afflicting her almost all afternoon and so she took advantage of the potential honesty of his answer when he was most susceptible to give it.
"What if one day I'm not here to take care of you?"
"Mm," came his tired grunt.
"Cas, I'm serious."
"Find you."
The words were said partly as a sigh, his voice sluggish and his breathing slow. Meg was determined to get a real answer out of him. "And if there's nothing left of me to put back together?"
He didn't say anything for a long time, and Meg figured he had finally fallen asleep.
"Unicorn."
She immediately started, feeling like someone had just tossed holy water down her back. He couldn't possibly...
Meg stared at his tranquil face, sleep-ridden and weighed with exhaustion. She'd have thought he was fucking with her if he weren't so obviously not. She had to have heard him wrong. Or Sam had told him, the little shit. Well... big shit. She'd literally piss in his cereal if he had.
Then there was the fact that Castiel was out cold and possibly just spewing nonsensical drivel.
Meg leaned in close, careful not to jostle him. "Pickles," she murmured against his lips, experimenting.
He grunted softly, frowning. "Th' clown do'sn't wan' any. Ducks stole 'm."
Meg buried her face in his chest and snorted, trying to keep her shoulders from shaking. If he had any idea how she was entertaining herself right now, he'd have cursed himself blue for ever bringing her back.
"Fix you," he whispered then.
Meg instantly stopped laughing, the words lancing through her as powerfully as if they'd been an angel blade.
I don't feel like I am strong enough
I don't feel right when you're gone away
the worst is over now and we can breathe again
I want to hold you high and steal your pain
The demon considered the despondent angel, lately so unforthcoming as he sat without expression on the side of the hospital bed.
"I'm broken," he'd said.
Meg was surprised he'd spoken at all, and she looked up from her magazine without a word, dark eyes studying him. His eyes were on her, a rarity to begin with, and she couldn't discern the look in them. He appeared so powerless in those scrubs, so unlike what he was and of what he'd been capable. The sight was wrong, and he appeared to recognize this, in the only way he could.
After awhile, his eyes retreated from hers to gaze on the floor, his head hanging between his shoulders.
Meg set down her magazine, easing forward until she was knelt in front of him. She stared up into his face, and Castiel's eyes flicked to her, trace confusion there as though he wondered why she'd willingly be near him.
"I guess I'll just have to fix you, then."
with you, I'd withstand all of hell to hold your hand
I'd give it all, I'd give for us
I'd give anything, but I won't give up
Meg was no smith, but she knew what it was to be forged.
From damned human being to master torturer. From soldier to pariah. A demon without a Hell who cared after an angel. Castiel had been broken so many times and every time he was reassembled there were pieces missing. She had always been so crippled by the fear and realization of what she could never have. But, somehow, he'd found her. He dove headlong into Perdition after her, knowing that this time a part of him would not be coming back. He would remain at her side, unfailing.
It was almost like redemption.
Meg felt a strange desire overcome her then. Feeling suddenly vacant without his touch, she hesitantly sought out the warmth of his skin, curling her fingers over his. Castiel made a soft sound, reflexively tightening his hold on her.
"Mara. Ol aishh ol malpirg."
To anyone else, the flowery words would have been merely a pleasant sound to hear. But he'd spoken those very same words to her before.
Something inside her came alive.
The air between them cradled an easy quiet, and Meg felt the very first stirrings of hope. When nightmares plagued him of Hell, she was there to remind him that the only relic of Perdition he had to fear was her.
Neither of them knew how much worse the world would become. Neither knew that Croatoan would decimate earth within a few short months. Neither knew how the camp would be torn apart in another year. So much lay ahead that would not only lay waste to their fortitude, but to each other.
But they had this night.
I'd breathe in fire and ash
and I'd die a thousand deaths
all for the sake of love
TRANSLATIONS
Latin:
"Amarantha. Qui vocat te. Congregandum coram me." / Amarantha. I call on thee. Gather in front of me.
"Veniat. Obsecro." / Come. Please.
Enochian:
"Mara. Ol aishh ol malpirg." / Mara. My woman of fire.
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