He clenched his hand and smiled as the tingle of grace spread through his muscles. Breathing in and puffing his chest out, he let his wings spread on either side of him, enjoying the way the wind rippled each and every feather individually. He knew he was peacocking, but he really didn't care. The Winchesters weren't praying to him and as far as he could tell, the apocalypse had ended, so he let himself adjust to being an angel again. Somewhere high above him in heaven, his brothers were slaughtering one another in the name of Free Will and he guessed they would continue to do so until Raphael was taken down. But he didn't have the power he needed to take him down as of yet, so there was no point joining in the fight, he'd likely be slaughtered himself and then he couldn't carry on his job of protecting his friends as he was commanded by his father. Slowly, he became more and more aware of his own being, crammed into the body of Jimmy Novak who had long since vacated and found his own patch of heaven as a reward for giving up his body to act as a vessel. But then he felt the tingle of prayer at the base of his skull, making the short hairs at the top of his neck stand on end. He closed his eyes to concentrate on it a little better, expecting to hear the demanding tones of Dean Winchester, or the softer, more caring notes of Dean's brother, Sam, or maybe even the heavily accented Redneck voice of Bobby Singer. But the voice he heard instead was a drawling woman's voice, the one that pierced through all his defences and reached right into his grace. He was in the air and back on solid ground in a fraction of a second, the scent changing from pine and forest to damp, mould and abandonment. But through it all was a current of pumpkin, bonfire smoke and sulphur. "Hello Meg." He greeted her before opening his eyes and seeing that swirling mass of dark, thorny beauty within the feminine vessel. "Peacocking for me, Clarence?" she smirked, looking pointedly at his wings, spread wide on either side of him. Something in his mind clicked, a conversation he hadn't had but knew all the same. He decided to ignore it for the moment. "I thought you had planned to lay low." He told her, folding his wings back against his body as he walked forward to stand in front of her. "Calling me to you is like shining a beacon directly onto yourself is it not? What do you want?" "Maybe I just got lonely." she purred, moving forward a little and placing her hands on his chest. "Maybe I want you here to strut your peacocking self around in front of me for a bit of entertainment. Gets boring, you know, laying below the radar." Wrapping a sudden, strong arm around her back and pressing a hand to her forehead, letting his grace caress her, he scowled down at her. "You're a demon, Meg. I am an Angel of the Lord. I could smite you where you stand." He growled, struggling against his own compulsion to destroy her there and then. "Keep talking dirty makes my meat suit all dewy." She joked, widening her eyes a moment as if in a challenge, then pushing herself away from him, of course, him letting her go. Something within him just did not want to hurt her. Not really. He sighed in frustration, wondering how she managed to get under his skin every time, but feeling more frustrated wondering why he enjoyed the sensation. He sat down, shuffling round a little until his grace was sitting more comfortably in the confined space of his vessel and his wings were supported a little better. Since gaining a vessel, he found they caused him more backache than before, a distinctly unpleasant sensation. Meg was watching him as he rearranged himself, a look of curiosity on her features and her body relaxed. When he was finally sat back still, she walked towards him and sat down at his feet. "What do they feel like?" She asked him, almost tentatively. "Your wings." He started a little at the question, not because it surprised him, as far as he was concerned it was her way of making small talk. But something in the back of his mind told him she had made this enquiry before, only... he hadn't been able to show her. "Heavy." He answered, truthfully. He sat forward a little and pulled one out, letting it stretch out a little so they could both see it more clearly. He ran a hand through the downy feathers, trying to find a way to describe them best to her. "Soft. A little oily too, like a duck's feathers which I suppose makes sense as it would keep them waterproof. My grace is... amazing. So much power compacted into one body, I feel like I could do anything at all, like I'm completely invincible. Although of course I know I'm not, just as much as you do..." He paused in his trail of thought. He felt like he'd told her those words before, but last time he could only describe. This time... "Would you like to feel them?" Her eyebrows flew into her hairline in her surprise at the offer. At the same time, her hand twitched and he wondered how long she had wanted to do exactly that. "Why would I want to?" She scoffed, however, but he could detect the insincerity in her voice. "I'm a demon, I don't care. I was just making small talk." "Meg, we're alone here. You don't have to hide from me." He reassured her quietly. His eyes caught hers and locked in place, showing her the truth of his words. She gulped, obviously warring with her own curiosity and want versus keeping up her demonic demeanour. In the end, curiosity won. Scrambling to her feet, she came to sit next to him, on the very edge of the sofa seat so she wasn't resting against them. Slowly, she reached out, watching the raven black wings for any sign of movement, threatening or not as she approached. Castiel held his breath as he watched her, wondering what it would feel like to have someone other than him or his siblings touching this very angelic part of his body, a part that not even his friends had touched. Of course, being human, neither Sam or Dean could see his feathers, but being a demon, Meg could see beyond the veil to this part of him. Finally, her fingers made contact and her thorny darkness rose to meet his bright, angelic grace. He'd expected it to hurt them, a war of the two polar opposites colliding together but instead, they wrapped around one another, testing, tasting each other before settling down together in a unity neither of them expected. Both demon and angel gasped and sat still for a moment, his hands clasped in his lap, her finger tips hidden by the soft, tiny fibres of feathers and wing. Slowly, gently, she began to move, following the natural flow of the feathers and letting them caress the pads of her fingers. They were even softer than she had expected, almost feeling like they weren't there, but the slight tickling and the tingle of his grace meeting her darkness let her know they were. * * * * * Clarence Novak was actually smiling a little in his sleep, a sight Meg Novak had not seen in months, not since his condition had worsened. She leant against the doorframe of their bedroom, enjoying the sight of him resting so peacefully. His skin wasn't clammy and sweat covered, his breathing was slow and regular, his brow wasn't furrowed, for all intents and purposes he looked like a normal, perfectly healthy man. But she could just glimpse a patch of uneven hair at the back of his head, the edge of one of the bald spots caused by the accident that had started it all. Clarence grunted suddenly, like something had caused him a sudden, mild pain and she wondered what his other self... this... Castiel... an angel for crying out loud was doing with her husband tonight. She wished she could know, wished she could follow him into these dreams and hallucinations, wished she could see what he was seeing, feel what he was feeling. But she knew it was a side of him she would never see and it made her uncomfortably sad. A knock sounded at their front door and she left the bedroom to go greet whoever had called round, feeling like Clarence would actually be safe without her constant vigilance for once. The silhouette on the other side of the door's glass panels was tall and broad, only able to belong to one person. "Hey Dean-o." She cried as she opened the door, smiling up at the 6foot 1 figure of Dean Smith, his hair artfully spiked as always and his emerald eyes glinting in the dull light of the winter's morning. "Hi Meg. Is he still in bed?" Dean replied, getting right to the point. "Sleeping like a baby, would you believe? Come on in." She invited, stepping back so he could enter her house. He shucked his boots off at the beginning of the hallway as she wandered into the kitchen to set a kettle on to boil. Dean shuffled in, pulling out a chair at the small dining room table that was pressed against the back kitchen wall and sitting down facing her, one arm resting on the table itself and the other on the chair's back. "Sam called last night." Dean informed her. "Said Clarence had another episode. Want to tell me about it?" Meg paused, putting down the freshly boiled kettle on the counter beside her and tilting her head down to stare into the cafetiere, watching the water she had already poured bubbling and mixing together with the ground coffee in the bottom. "He ended up in the back fields, muttering about Lucifer and the apocalypse again." she told him, picking the kettle back up to resume pouring water into the mixture. "I was gone for literally sixty seconds to pee and when I came back, the door was wide open and he was outside in nothing but his pyjama pants." "We always knew his condition would worsen Meg. It wasn't a case of 'If', it was a case of 'When'." Dean explained with sympathy. He couldn't even imagine what she was going through. He was terrified too, but Clarence was just his best friend. This was Clarence's wife he was talking to. "Yeah I know." She replied, carrying the two steaming cups of coffee over to the table, then heading back to grab a sugar bowl, cream jar and two spoons, placing them on the table and then sitting opposite Dean. "I just wish we knew what's triggered it to suddenly get so much worse. It wasn't so bad when he was just dreaming these things. Why have they suddenly become hallucinations? Why are they suddenly so much more real to him now?" "Could be the cold?" Dean suggested, shrugging his shoulders. "The type of brain damage he has is a complete mystery to us all, both as his friends and as medical scientists. You know as well as I do he should have died that night." "I'm glad he didn't." Meg said simply, studying her mug of coffee intensely. "Was last night like his other episodes? What was different this time?" Dean asked her, obviously trying to get back to the matter at hand, trying to make her study what had happened objectively so she didn't disappear into a desperate sink hole of the why's and the how's of his condition. "It took a few minutes for him to realise he isn't actually Castiel, that he isn't this... invincible being and that things like the cold can actually hurt him. But once it dawned on him, he was happy enough to do as I told him." She took a sip of her coffee, burning her lips a little on the hot liquid but relishing the pain as a way to ground her to the here and now as she thought about the fear she felt from the night before. "While he was talking about what he'd seen with Doctor Wesson, he still firmly believed he was Castiel, describing everything as if he had done it himself. But I sat chatting with him after we hung up the phone and he began differentiating himself, saying 'Castiel did this' and 'Castiel thinks that' rather than using 'I' and 'me'. I've never really heard him switch in the middle of a conversation or stay as himself for long periods of time since the accident. Would you take it as a sign he's getting a bit better?" She looked up suddenly at Dean, hope sparkling from her eyes in a way that wrapped around Dean's heart and squeezed painfully. He hated himself for having to break that hope she had. "If it is a sign, then it's a miracle. I know Sam made a new appointment for the two of you to go and see him soon, I'd like to get him through the MRI while he's there so we can get a proper look at what's going on with him physically. We can sit and talk about what's going on mentally with him until we're blue in the face, but it won't give us any more of an idea about whether the abscess has grown or not and whether there is still fluid pressing on his brain." "Well it's nice to know the two of you enjoy such riveting conversations about me while I'm sleeping." Came a sudden voice from the entrance to the kitchen. Both Meg and Dean turned to face Clarence who was stood watching them both, pyjama bottoms riding low on his hips, hair scruffy and dishevelled and sleep written all over his face. "Good morning to you too, bed head." Meg smirked, getting out of her chair and moving to pour a cup of coffee for him. Dean stood up and faced his friend, who moved a little more into the room so the two men were stood right in front of one another. "So who am I looking at today?" Dean asked, a little nervous of the answer. Clarence sighed. "You are looking at Clarence Novak, human, vulnerable and in desperate need of coffee and bacon before I do this." Clarence grumbled back, narrowing his eyes at Dean as if daring him to disagree. Dean held up his hands in surrender and took half a step back as Clarence followed his wife to the counter and downed the mug of coffee she had poured for him. "Hot." He stated, sticking his tongue out and holding the mug in her direction. "More." "Not even a please?" Meg scolded him, but she turned to grin at Dean who returned the expression when Clarence began searching through the fridge for bacon. Dean Smith sat at the kitchen table, happily watching the married couple working around one another to cook breakfast. It was almost like they were dancing, fluid like movements around one another as plates began to be filled with food for the three of them to share. As they worked, they chatted, just simple small talk, conversations about the weather, who they thought was going to win the Superbowl this year, Dean's partner, Lisa, and her son Ben who Dean had officially adopted only last year. Soon enough, the room was filled with the scent of fried food and the sound of oil crackling as their food cooked. Then, Dean got to see something he had heard plenty about but never actually witnessed himself. At the time, Clarence had been keeping an eye on the bacon, checking underneath to see how it was browning and making sure it didn't spit on Meg. One moment he was regular Clarence, relaxed, smiling and chatting away. The next, he was completely ridged, his shoulders stiff and high, back straightened into the posture of a soldier, face blank, like he was an entirely different person. Dean watched him closely before getting Meg's attention and gesturing to him. "Clarence?" She asked, moving over to rest a hand on his shoulder. "You with us?" Suddenly, he jerked and shivered, looking down at her and then back at the bacon before smiling at her once again. "Sorry, I must have spaced out." He told her, bending to kiss her on the cheek. She returned it to the part of his skin she could reach, then wandered back over to the table with buttered bread and the cafetiere. "I'm going to go dress." she said, pulling the shirt of her pyjamas down a little, feigning self consciousness and giving a wide eyed look to Dean before she left the room. Clarence turned to smile affectionately at her retreating back, then caught the look Dean was giving him and realised he was about to have a round of 20 questions about how he was doing. Sighing, he turned the cooker off and piled the bacon onto a plate, bringing it over to the table and sitting down opposite his friend. "Help yourself." He said, motioning to the bacon before stabbing his fork through a few slices and making a sandwich out of them, Dean copying his motions. "So what happened just then?" He asked, keeping his eye on Clarence's reaction to the question. "Just what I said... I err... spaced out." Clarence said matter-of-factly, not looking Dean in the eyes. "You've always been a terrible liar, you know that?" Dean told him, smiling a little. Clarence's gaze flickered up to Dean and then back to his sandwich before replying. "I was in the garden again." "The garden of the guy who drowned?" "He was an autistic man when he was alive. His slice of Heaven is an eternal Tuesday afternoon. He spends his time flying a red kite. It's Castiel's favourite heaven." Clarence explained between mouthfuls of food. "When you 'space out', do you still get headaches?" Dean asked, slurping at his coffee. Clarence rested his chin on his hand for a moment before replying. "Do you remember when we were kids? Me and you would always sit way too close to the TV because we didn't want Jo watching it with us and your mom would always tell us off saying we'd get headache from sitting too close?" Dean nodded. "Then there was that night when we were about 13, I came over for a sleepover at your house and we decided to find out if she was right or not, so we sat right up to the TV for an entire night and the next day, we both had raging headaches and struggled to do anything like normal human beings?" By this point Dean was laughing. "Mom went insane at us! Best night ever. I still can't believe we watched an entire series of Star Trek in one night." He chuckled, letting the memory wash over him. "And do you remember the headache after?" Clarence pushed, a smile on his lips but not joining in with Dean's laughter. "Yeah I remember, when you left I was almost sick it was that bad. Jo went and told mom and dad. I was grounded for about a month for that one." Dean said with a shake of his head, remembering the frustration he had felt at his sister for getting him in trouble. "Well that headache? That's my life. All the time now." Clarence told him, looking down at his coffee mug once again, watching as the liquid swirled around inside. Dean's face immediately fell from amused to worried and a little angry. "Clarence, this is the stuff you're supposed to tell us about!" He chastised quietly. "I didn't want to worry Meg." Clarence protested back, looking abashed. "You don't have to tell her." Dean insisted. "I may be your best friend but I am also now your doctor too and that means I operate under Doctor-Patient-Confidentiality about this stuff. Have you been taking anything for the headaches?" "Started out on a couple of Tylenol or aspirin, whatever I could get my hands on. Then I doubled how much I was taking..." "You were taking four Tylenol a day?" Dean interrupted, starting to feel a little better. His headaches couldn't have been that bad. But then Clarence shot the comfort out of the water. "Four Tylenol a pop." He explained. "I took four Tylenol, six times a day." Dean looked at him, horrified for a moment. He rubbed a hand down his mouth and chin, trying to make sense of all the negative emotions the news was making him feel. Then he noticed the wording Clarence had used. "Wait... you started out on Tylenol and aspirin? What have you been taking recently?" Clarence cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Co-codamol, then I got my hands on actual codeine which I took with aspirin and ibuprofen..." "Oh hell Clarence." Dean growled, standing up and rubbing his hands through his hair. "Why didn't you tell me?" He hissed, spinning to face his friend again and glad Meg had decided to stay upstairs to let them have this discussion. "I could have put you on morphine weeks ago! You wouldn't have had to go through all this. We could have done an MRI and found out what's causing the pain." "I had a car accident, Dean." Clarence stated matter-of-factly. "It's caused me to have severe brain damage and mental illness. Do you really think I'm in the right mind to come to you with a problem like this?" As the statement sunk in, Dean began to resemble a puppet who's strings had come loose. His arms flopped to his sides, his shoulders slumped, his face fell and he generally looked defeated. It was the first time he had heard the words from his friend's own mouth and they brought home exactly what they were dealing with. Tears began welling up in his eyes as he looked down at Clarence and he sunk back into his chair as his knees buckled. "Yeah I know you did man." He choked out. "And you're fighting. You're fighting for life and doing such a great job. We're gonna get you there. I promise." "We're going to try." Clarence said with half a smile. Standing up, he walked round the table and pulled Dean to his feet, pulling him in for a hug. "We'll try as hard as we can." He whispered.