Chapter Two – The Second Terrace: The Envious
From what I've sown, this is the straw I reap:
O humankind, why do you set your hearts
there where our sharing cannot have a part?
~ Canto XIV, lines 87-89
For the first few days of their journey after picking up the angel, Benny began to truly doubt the hunter's sanity. His methods of moving through the terrain – and its inhabitants – hadn't become any less vicious or manic, even now that the angel was with them constantly. A few times, Benny watched the man capture and shake down a monster, the words "Where is the angel?" on his lips without thought; before the sentence could leave his new meal-ticket-slash-friend's mouth, the being in question would lay a gentle hand on the hunter's shoulder and bring the man out of his trance of adrenaline and panic with a round of disoriented blinking and a shake of his head. Without fail, these were the nights that Dean barely slept, his body trembling and turning endlessly on the forest floor as the angel watched over him, consumed with frustration at his helplessness. Benny couldn't help but wonder if the strain of it all hadn't scrambled the hunter's eggs a bit.
In the end, he didn't say anything to the man though, because he couldn't really justify that it was his place. And if he were truthful about it, at least to himself, the vampire couldn't say he wasn't a little bit jealous. As tangled up and crazy as the relationship between the mentally-fried hunter and his bucket of Hot Wings was, Benny didn't miss the signs of ruthless devotion in Dean's manner, as if every atom of his being was dedicated to bringing the angel back to the waking world unharmed. What really sizzled the vampire's bacon was how little that self-righteous hypocrite seemed to deserve the hunter's loyalty. The angel bandied between a never-ending stream of whining apologies and meekly suggesting that they leave him behind at the end of each day. As if the nonstop murder frenzy they'd endured just to find the feathery bastard were beneath his mention.
Leave him behind? That would suit Benny just fine. Ungrateful jackass.
Since there seemed to be little chance of that actually happening, Benny had no qualms about needling Dean's fairy godmother at every possible opportunity. When they stopped to make camp as night closed in, the hunter had come over to clap a hand on his shoulder and laughingly commiserate about a story Benny had told earlier in the day; as Dean made free to chuckle and rough house with him, Benny caught a sidelong glance of the angel giving him a livid glare. At first, the vampire had written it off as part of the seraph's ingrained hatred of his race … until he noticed that the fierce gaze intensified every time the hunter smiled at or touched him. Before awareness set in, he'd nearly passed it over with the rest of the angel's sour attitude, but when he connected it to the myriad of pained gazes he'd caught Castiel focusing on Dean any time his compatriot directed his attention elsewhere, realization hit Benny quick and complete. He nearly laughed aloud at how absurd it was; because the angel was still glowering at him, Benny didn't hesitate to poke the bear, as it were.
"Hey, Hot Wings—"
The angel scowled further. "I told you not to—"
"—why don't you make yourself useful for a change," the vampire teased sleekly. "Flutter off and get dinner for those of us who've actually contributed today, would you friend? Remember, I like my meat nice and fresh?"
Lowering his brow, Castiel growled in response. "I am an angel, not an errand boy; especially not for a walking abomination such as you."
"No?" Benny responded easily. "I've heard you rather enjoy dancing every time your hunter here snaps his fingers."
Castiel strode forward, hands clenching into fists at his sides, before Dean stepped between them.
"Cut it the fuck out, you two," he snapped, "before I knock your heads together."
He turned to the frowning angel and patted his arm.
"I'm not hungry, Cas, but I would appreciate it if you would do a circle of the clearing and sweep for big-nasties, okay?"
"Of course, Dean," Castiel answered, sparing the vampire a withering glare before stalking away into the trees.
When the angel had gone, Dean whirled back to Benny with an annoyed grimace.
"Think you could let up on him for five frickin' minutes? He's still a bit cuckoo-for-cocoa-puffs and I'm getting really freaking sick of feeling like I should be sending you to your rooms without dinner."
"Or placating a jealous girlfriend, maybe?" Benny put in, simply because he couldn't resist.
"Jesus, sometimes-" he started, pinching the bridge of his nose as he settled against a tree's roots. When the insinuation landed, Dean sat up stiffly. "Just what the hell are you trying to imply?"
Benny smirked and held up his hands in mock surrender. "Nothing, friend," he said with a laugh. "Not a thing."
Dean sat back against a tree, only really relaxing a little bit. After a few moments, he gazed back into the trees.
Not for the first time – nor, he suspected, the last – Benny felt a pull of envy at the intense and thoughtful look the hunter focused in the direction of the retreating angel. The vampire himself hadn't been the subject of a gaze like that in decades and seeing it again here in this wasteland made him even more determined to get home and revenge his loss.
My blood was so afire with envy that,
When I had seen a man becoming happy,
the lividness in me was plain to see.
~ Canto XIV, lines 84-86
Castiel seethed with anger as he stalked through the trees surrounding their camp. Sensing only the scurrying of small beasts that would be of no concern to Dean's safety, he focused his intuition towards the farther-off threats of larger creatures; they would most likely be drawn to Castiel's presence rather than Dean's, especially given his current emotional state. Despite his nearly unchanging facial expressions , Castiel had already been angry enough to unconsciously ignite two tiny brush fires just by failing to control the energy released from his Grace when upset. He couldn't afford to be so careless, with his conspicuousness or his output of Grace.
Huffing in frustration, Castiel grumbled over the growing influence that this place sunk into his consciousness . The bestial nature of existence here seemed to be appealing to his most primal instincts; some of which he'd been unaware of even possessing before they reared their sullied heads. Ever since he'd joined with Dean and the vampire, emotions flooded him. First relief and guilt – he was unfortunately familiar with those two – then joy and fear, determination, contrition. Castiel found himself woefully unprepared to deal with them, especially this last: envy. He'd always thought that envy was the hallmark of lesser beings; yearning for things you couldn't or didn't have was such a useless, waste of time that he'd believed only fools succumbed to it. And yet, a gaping maw of covetousness gnawed at him as they traversed Purgatory with that smirking abhorrence of nature.
Castiel practically shook with envy at every shared laugh between Dean and the vampire. Swallowing his hunger for the casual camaraderie that they shared – despite Dean's typically rough-tongued banter – the angel knew only too well that his awkwardness rendered him too naïve and guilty to negotiate what seemed to come so effortlessly to humans (and former humans). The more he thought of his own uneasiness and naiveté with the social interaction that Dean managed with ease, the more hopeless the task became to prevent his mind from whirling over the faceless scores of women who'd touched Dean in a more intimate way than he could even understand. The angel felt deranged, but he couldn't stop himself from coveting their innate ability to press close enough to touch his skin, inhale his breaths as they kissed his mouth, revel in and respond to the nearness of their bodies that Castiel had only had a glimpse of in that embrace by the stream. The craving for the capacity that these forgettable women had to know Dean in a way he couldn't burned in him, ate at him, until he wanted to tear from their heads that knowledge of his hunter.
His hunter. Castiel's Dean.
He had raised the man from Hell with his own hands, rebuilt him piece by piece from a shard of his Grace. Knew him, body and soul, because he'd been the one to give both things back to the man. He, Castiel, had recreated Dean Winchester from the tiniest pieces of his tortured, broken spirit, had seen that beneath that fractured soul lay a pure heart and the greatest strengths and weaknesses of humanity, all wrapped into one seemingly insignificant human. The angel felt incensed that beings existed in that world that could not, would not, ever truly understand the marvel of the man they flung themselves at so casually.
He yearned, to his very core, to know this man in every way that existed, and he found himself irrationally hating anyone who possessed the comprehension that he did not. Most of all, he fumed with jealousy of his fallen sister. The envy of it was like fire in his blood. An angel, once, who knew Dean Winchester in that most fundamental of ways. She'd lain with him, had the audacity to place her hand on Castiel's mark on the man's body as she took him, and had flung that carnal ownership in the face of not just Castiel but everyone in the barn that night. She'd known it was Castiel's print on Dean's shoulder, as well. He'd felt the jolt of awareness – both of Dean and of his sister – through his Grace when she touched it, felt the undercurrent of her smug teasing when she kissed him in front of Castiel. He had respected her once, loved her – insofar as he understood love at the time – not just as the general of his garrison, his commanding officer, but as his sister. And now he could only flare up with jealousy.
The angel nearly screamed in fury as he continued pacing an endless ring around their temporary campsite. Livid with envy, the angel howled a challenge to the creatures in the night, aching for the release that would come from combat against a monster just as mad as he.