Twice Shy
By: Abby Ebon
Summary: a Doctor Who/Supernatural, Ten/Castiel, the wreckage of our lives, prompt, from comment_fic.
Castiel has met the being known as the Doctor twice.
"You will go among them and spread discord." These are his Orders, and then – when Castiel is young, he thinks nothing of following them. His brothers fear that if they do not triumph at the end of this War, there will be no more of them. They have allied themselves with monsters and manipulators, and perhaps if Castiel were older he would see enough to make connections and find the irony, he does not.
Time Lords are older then Castiel's own people, they who are called Angels, for they have forgotten any other name. It is the Time Lord known as the Doctor that Castiel finds himself standing beside when all is said and done and the Time War rages without end or beginning around them. They are within the Void of Time, and here they can not touch or see or bring harm to any but themselves.
"What are you doing?" Castiel asks, as he runs with the Doctor who is serious and full of pain inside.
"Ending it, ending all of it…." The Doctor struggles, for he is in pain and his face is drawn and lined, Castiel feels pity though he knows he should not. He does not offer help, for the Doctor does not trust him, and Time Lords are telepaths and if Castiel touches the Doctor, he fears the Doctor will know and hate and judge him. It should not matter what the Doctor thinks or feels about him, but it does. It frightens Castiel, this knowledge.
"No you must not!" Castiel cries out into the Void, for he has so few brothers but the Doctor…here, they are safe, but the Time Lords are not, the Time Lords had taken the burden of putting the Time Wars on their own world, and the Void is linked their, and if they close the Void of Time here…it will destroy all of golden Gallifrey and the Time Lords…they will be not scattered across space and time, but lost. Without them, without that mental bond that is like static between Time Lord and Time Lord, the Doctor will be forever lost, forever lonely.
The Doctor does not listen to Castiel, does not even hesitate, yet Castiel is aware that the Doctor knows what he is doing, killing his own people, sending everyone into the Void of Time. This is the last of the Time Wars fought by the Time Lords, and it is inaptly named.
Castiel holds onto the Doctor's hand as he does it, and when it is done, the Doctor turns to him and there is knowledge of what all of what Castiel is in his eyes. A traitor to their friendship, a betrayer to his people, and the Doctor let's his hand go even as Castiel knows he is forgiven for all of those sins by this Time Lord who has lost so much, his tears streaming down his face. Castiel flees, but is aware always that the Doctor could have stopped him, but did not.
In the second time they met, the Doctor waits for him.
"Castiel...?" The Doctor says in the dark, searching, and Castiel is found – but his is not alone. A light switches on, and Sam and Dean meet the last of the Time Lords with guns pointed and eyes narrowed in suspicion, but the Doctor only laughs softly and shakes his head. There is something morbid and closed about him.
"Cease this." Castiel says to Sam and Dean, his eyes on the Doctor who opens his arms and shrugs, defenseless; welcoming a death that the Winchesters may bring him.
"Let them try, it would do no one any harm. I can not be hurt now more then what I have been…" The Doctor rambles, and though it is the Doctor, Castiel sees him as being younger then what he has ever looked. It is the way of Time Lords, to not die – to save them selves by regeneration of their own ancient genetics – yet their own mind is whole within them. The younger the Time Lord looks, Castiel knows, the less he can regenerate safely. One day a time will come when the Doctor will die, but it is not this day.
"You are no Angel; you could not survive a death wound given by mortal means. Have you come to see the end of this war, Doctor? To save them… again…?" Castiel asks softly in warning, because he does not want the Doctor to say no, that he has come to see the end and it is forever. He does not want the Doctor to have changed so utterly.
"Does it surprise you that I would be here when there is need of me?" Tilted head and stormy eyes regard Castiel, who says nothing. He has looked for the Doctor on this planet for centuries, why he took exile here, to watch and wait. He does not know what side he is now on. He does not know if he has been here for so long waiting for this day that is the end of the world, or for the Doctor to save him again.
"Once, we were enemies, Doctor. I can not forget that you may hate me out of spite." It chills him, that possibility. The Winchesters are silent and deadly at his side, they watch and listen and learn, as he had all these years – but he has always been alone, and so too has the Doctor.
"I don't hate you, Castiel. Once, in the War That Never Was, there were those who wanted to control all of time and beyond, wanted to manipulate life and lives 'for the better'; and then there were those optimists who vowed that always life would find a way and did not need watching or guiding or Gods or Demons or Angels. It was a hard lesson to learn, but learn it you did. I do not know if it was worth winning, anymore." Yet those beings existed, and were terrified that one day they would be cast aside by life, unneeded and unwanted as the Time Lords themselves. The Doctor won, and he is now the last of the Time Lords, and he says it was not worth the winning. Castiel has always disagreed for in that Time War, he learned what it meant to live a life that he took for granted.
Now it is that Dean and Sam look to him as if they do not trust him so much as when they knew nothing of his history.
"Will you help me now, at the end of this world?" Castiel asks, and he feels young and needy again. Perhaps he has always been so, but been waiting for the Doctor all along.
"Not the end, Castiel, there is never ever a 'the end' like in a story book. This is only a turning point, a birth, but I will help to make it easier, to take away the hurt." Perhaps that is all it is now, all it ever was, the whole of Castiel's life are turning points, and it is only worth the Doctor's while to see these two of them.