So Lets Talk

Two stand side by side.

They stare out into the boundless, sightless skism before them. They stand side by side but never together. Together is for lesser beings, those that carry weight and need, and no understanding of what lies beyond their own limited horizons. So the two stand side by side and always alone.

It would speak of great travesty to say they are of opposition; to say they are black and white, fire and ice, hope and desolation. It is a sharp lesson to learn, perhaps one of the hardest of them all, that there is never truly a good and evil. There is no right and wrong, no simple path to take. Humanity is so tragically skewered that way.

So instead stand the two, side by side. They are separate ends of the chess board and yet identical pieces coloured the same. One is of nothingness and the other is everything. One is boundless, unaged eternity; the other is heavy handed immortality, weathered by time.

One says, 'you spoke my name into the either.'

'I did,' the other replies comfortably.

'For a purpose? Or were you simply stretching your petty need to infuriate?'

'My, my, some harsh words today.'

'No more than is deserved.'

A little swallowed chuckle bubbles forth, its rich and dark and not at all pleasant. 'Ouch. And here I thought we had an understanding.'

'An understanding? Please,' one turns to face the other and it can't be called pity, can't even be called disgust, and hatred is too human a thing. 'Conditions have been set.'

'And I'm honouring them. A man of my word.'

'Hardly a man.'

'Potato, potato. Human expressions are always so fixated on gender pronouns. Point is, I always honour a deal. You should know that well enough, Naomi.'

Her face pulls slowly into tightness, all patience lost.

'Why did you seek me?'

'Straight to business like always,' this one is something misshapen; one who fears nothing and yet still feels humanity pressing against it. 'Just thought I'd inform that your little … subject has been seen wandering the earth.'

The conversation changes to sharp silence, biting as hard as frost. Silence that in unreadable, incomprehensible. The other, who more feels the biting ticks of time tries again, adding a coy lilt in the hope it tickles annoyance.

'All on his lonesome, I heard tell. Just him and the nasty world, until he found his way to humanity that is,' a small gesture is made, perhaps a shrug if more inclined. 'I also heard no one is watching him.'

'We see all,' Naomi says.

'Yes, yes, all-seeing, all-mastering, blah blah. I mean, no one is actively keeping track of him.'

'I am aware.'

'Ah, and are you aware of the company he now keeps?'

'Yes.'

'Really?' a reverberation of faint surprise. 'I didn't think you were that stupid.'

Naomi is endless eternity, light and unbroken horizons. She looks at the other and sees only bitter clasping ideals, tastes retribution and hears contorted thoughts. Retaliation hangs in the balance. Words of power waiting to be spoken, pulsing syllables that carry the weight of armageddon. But instead she changes dynamic and says;

'This is all you wanted?'

'I guess,' a nonchalant tone, and the figure turns to look into abrupt thin air.

'Should work on your people skills,' it mutters to the nothingness.

Late morning pulls itself sluggishly through thick skies. It stretches fat limbs and breaths out scents of sickly sweet. Sam Winchester stands outside the dim world of the motel room and soaks in the sun. To his face is clasped a phone, which he speaks tonelessly into.

'Sure, Garth… So, you didn't know she'd turn up at our door?' he doesn't bother to hide his scepticism.

It been twelve hours since Dean walked away.

'Right… I get it,' he admonishes quietly. 'Just trying to help, huh?'

A worn shoe toes dirt into dust with a morbid kick.

'Maybe next time a little warning…?'

The impala waits quietly next to him, a vigilant watcher over their temporary hold. Sam clicks open its door and reaches over the warm dash. His searching fingers find their familiar treasure, the giant feather that has become a strange security to him.

'I'm trusting she'll stay confidential- Yeah, I believe you, thats why I said I'm trusting,' he sighs. 'Okay, Garth. Signing off now.'

Short goodbyes are muttered, clipped promises to look out for Kevin, to keep them updated with any news, to keep safe. The phone is dropped into a pocket and Sam turns his tired face to the sun. His fingers twirl the feather slowly, its feel and movement soothingly familiar. The sunlight glints over its faded stains.

This is how Dean finds him, distorted by his own haze of sleepless ruin. As his footsteps carry him closer, Sam opens his eyes. His face twisting into every single emotion Dean spent the night guiltily imagining. In the harsh sunlight and the sour taste of sleeplessness, they sting all the more.

'Good night?' Dean can hear the frustration in Sams voice, but its piled over with unhappy worry and concern. What happened? lingers unsaid, where did you go? Are you okay? Tell me whats going on.

'Cas?' Dean asks in response, the unspoken I'm not going to talk about it, don't ask, please don't ask, thrumming loudly behind his eyes. Sam opens and closes his mouth, but then his body goes slack and his gaze sink to the ground.

'He's asleep, has been since you left. Didn't try to say anything, just sat blankly till I got him to lie down, then he was out like a light.'

Dean feels his body nod without it even moving. The knotted ice inside him wants to chide Sam, wants him to snap you left him on his own in there? but how can he say that when the last twelve hours he's lived as a coward? When he would rather flee into a void of non-existence than face his friend?

Sam is watching him carefully, fingers tracing subconscious little patters over the giant feather in his hands. And then, very quietly he says, 'you okay?'

And before he even realises, Dean says 'no,' instead of 'I'm fine'. And then he opens his mouth and a thousand words clamour over his tongue but refuse to spill forth. They clog his throat, build behind his eyes, make his vision squirm. And Sam is just stupidly staring and Dean wants to punch him because he can't help him, can't heal him, can't comfort him.

But then Sam just grabs him.

He digs his fingers into Deans shoulders and holds him still as stone.

Then, with all the worlds compassion in his eyes, he calmly says, 'its because we don't understand.'

Dean blinks at him.

'We don't know what happened,' Sam voice speaks steady. 'We don't know why we should be angry, or who to be angry at. We don't even know what to be angry about. We don't know anything, Dean, and thats terrifying.'

Brushing lightly along the back of his neck, Dean can feel the stiff barbs of Castiels weightless feather.

'But we will,' Sam promises.

Dean stares down at the crumpled paper in his hands. The words that cover it are Sam's hesitant scrawl, as familiar to him as his own skin is. He must have been researching all night. Dean blinks blurriness from his eyes, the silence of the motel room maddeningly deafening.

Lobotomy.

The paper squirms. Dean forces himself to keep reading.

Lobotomy.

An outdated method of pacifying aggressive mental patients.

The procedure - An ice pick-like instrument is forcefully inserted through the eye socket, piercing the bones of the orbital structure, and probing sharply into the brain. It is then whisked back and forth, slicing through the frontal lobes.

The words blur and drift before him. Dean begins again.

Lobotomy… ice pick forcefully inserted through, piercing, probing, sharply into the brain… whisked back and forth, slicing through the frontal lobes…

He is complete and utter nothingness.

Lobotomy... slicing through the frontal lobes...

The function of the fontal lobes - planning, reasoning, judgement, impulse control. They allow us to understand social responses, to recognise consequences for actions, to make the choice between wright and wrong…

...to exhibit free will.

The paper crumples, but the words still exist, inky black monsters hulking amongst the folds. Dean leans his hands on the table and hates. He festers into something detestable. Desperation bleeds into exhaustion, into darkness into oblivion. He wont claw back from this, doesn't want to claw back from this.

But then the silence cracks with a noise so soft it could be snowfall. Dean looks up with empty eyes, and looks across the empty room, looks through peaceful mist to where Cas is faintly watching him.

He is a pinprick star in a universe of inky black. He is luminous eyes that fixate weakly. But he is Cas. The Cas they found crumpled and broken in the rain. The Cas that disappeared when his injuries became to much. The Cas that no matter what happens, how long it had been, what beaten state he's in, always comes back and always ends up irrevocably, fundamentally, and unquestionably Cas.

And Dean unravels back into himself.

'C's?' his voice is almost a whimper.

The angel stirs. He's almost lost under blankets, just dark hair and half vacant eyes, but Dean can see his head tip feebly as though he wants to raise it. A flash of pain, hard and sudden as lightning, then the head sinks heavily back onto the pillow.

Dean is already moving, his feet a warring drumbeat against the stillness and the silence. As he drops to his haunches by the bed a bandaged hand appears, half clawing, half gripping. There is hesitance there, as though Castiel isn't even sure what he's reaching for.

Dean hunches before him. Cas smells of antiseptic, of sterilisation and gauze and tape, strange synthetic smells that whisper worlds of hospitals and death. And all Dean can think of saying is; 'hey…'

Castiel meets his eyes. 'lo Dean,' he murmurs, and its everything Dean needs.

Relief floods cautiously over him. 'Hey,' he says again. 'Hey. You've been asleep twelve hours or so,' its important to tell him, important he knows, so he feels safe, feels secure.

Cas responds with silence, a wan stare filled with blankness.

'You okay?' Deans throat feels like sand. 'You in pain?'

A slight shifting is the only response.

Dean licks his lips, unsure what to say or even how to say what few jarring words spring to mind. He hopes the angel is just sorting his thoughts out, letting his mind start to sluggishly work after long, bottomless slumber. Somewhere low in his stomach is clawing fear that Cas will disappear again, that he'll be left with the strange half-waking shell of the past few days. The one that screams in pain and shudders with unknown nightmares.

'The doctor lady left supplies if you need anything,' he ends up commenting.

'No morphine,' Cas croaks suddenly.

Dean leaps on the opening. 'No? Thats fine, Cas, no morphine.'

'No control,' Cas says carefully, as though its important. Dean frowns for a moment, struggling to comprehend the hundred words Cas is trying to cram into just three. But then Castiel blinks slowly, his fearful pupils bleeding into stormy oceans, and Dean understands.

'Got it, Cas,' he murmurs, 'we've got painkillers that won't knock you out, okay?' He knows how it feels, to have the world lurch and spin and your body feel disintegrated. 'We wont do that again.'

Castiel nods and the cocoon of blankets pull hesitantly away to reveal more of his face. The bare skin of his neck looks raw and paper thin. Wherever bruises do not linger, Cas' flesh stretches pale and clammy. Driven by impulse, Dean moves to touch. His fingers brush where jaw meets ear, skimming damp hair and curling gently around the back of his neck. Castiel is ice cold, Dean can feel him trembling.

'Dean?' Cas mumbles, the touch foreign to him, how many times has Dean ever reached out? 'What-?'

'You're freezing,' Dean states, like it wasn't stupidly obvious.

Castiel blinks. 'Don't feel…' he says slowly.

Dean slips his hand more firmly around Castiels neck, trying to ignore the clammy feel, the way Cas' breathing pattern quickens. The angels eyebrows pinch softly as he watches, trying carefully to not disrupt bruised skin. Dean wants to touch his forehead, press a warm hand against the cold; wants to offer gentle comfort in the same way you do for a sick child. Except the womans voice still echoes stay away from his eye.

'You don't feel cold?'

Cas slowly shakes his head. 'Feel churning,' he begins, and then suddenly lurches forward.

Deans hands shoot out. 'Woah!' He grips him tightly, one hand on shoulder to steady, the other pressed against his chest. Castiel had made no sound, made no movement before the jolt, but now he is unravelled into panting trembling quivers.

'You okay?'

'Okay,' Cas says to Deans knees. 'Okay,' the word whispers out between breathes and Dean tries to swallow frantic thoughts. He doesn't even know if Cas is saying I'm okay or whether he's just deliriously muttering acceptance.

'Cas?' he tries, wishes it wasn't so goddamn painful to look the angel in the face, wishes he could see past the horrific bruising and bloodshot eye.

'I went to deep,' Castiel mutters. Then he says it again, and again, like his brain is stuck on repeat.

'To deep? Cas?' Dean shuffles his grip, tries to lift the angel so his drooping head will be level with his own. 'C'mon,' he mutters, 'please…'

And then he feels a light touch, something cold and gentle brushing against the skin on the back of his hand. He looks down to where his fingers are bunched against Castiels chest, supporting dead weight. And right there is Cas' own hand moving slowly, languidly, like its held up by string. It wavers and trembles with each gasp, but rests unsteadily over the spot where Dean holds.

While the rest of Cas' body is sickly cold, his chest burns a fevers heat. Dean blinks, scrunches his face in incomprehension, gently lowers Castiel back onto the bed. The angel goes compliantly, limp and heavy again, watching with wide, unfocused eyes as Dean moves his hand over the area. Unnatural, stifling warmth bleeds thickly out through the bandages.

'Whats that?' Dean says stupidly.

'Me,' Castiel mumbles.

Dean swallows thickly. 'You mean your, uh, mojo?'

'Grace.'

'I thought,' Dean mouths for a while and then figures he'll just say it, 'I thought you were human.' Cas refocuses his eyes at this, crinkles a little frown. Dean feels oddly foolish. 'You're, uh, not healing, like before…' he defends feebly.

'I can't heal,' the words are faint but certain, 'but I moved a coin with my mind,' he licks his dry lips. 'I feel pain and hunger, but I can also do this…'

The lights in the dim room suddenly spark into life, brightness so sharp it makes Dean hiss between his teeth. Its a flash, hard and sudden, quicker than a lightning strike. They spasm and flicker, one bulb explodes with a jingling pop.

And then the room is still and quiet once more.

'I'm not human,' Castiel decrees, voice slurred with heavy exhaustion.

Dean gapes, tries to understand what this means, gives up because its not important. Cas is important. 'Still flying the angel flag then,' he agrees faintly.

No,' Castiel speaks like its the only thing he's sure of. 'No, I'm not… that…' his eyes drift closed.

'Not an angel? Dude, you just exploded a lamp,' Dean goes for logic.

Cas says nothing, and there emerges that strange closed off silence again, the same as when Sarah pushed gentle questions over him like rainfall. And Dean knows he's seen it before as well, when Cas was keeping secrets, before purgatory, before insanity, when it felt like a wall of ice had creaked its way relentlessly between them.

He wants to demand, to shout, to shake the angel physically or verbally, like he's done so many times before, damn it I'm not loosing you again, I can't loose you again. But then he looks at Cas, and really looks, and he sees a broken thing thats too hot and too cold, he sees a broken thing thats left too much blood trailing in its wake.

So instead Dean gets up, grabs another blanket, drops it over Cas where it settles with a thump of fabric on fabric. He pulls it over the angel and Cas opens his eyes to blink hopelessly up at him.

'Its okay,' Dean tries to believe his lies. He crouches again, squatting by the bed so they're face to face. 'Just.. tell us when you're in pain. Don't… don't lie around hurting 'kay?'

Another minute shift, Dean watches the tiny flickers; eyes turning inwards, fingers slowly curling around the edges of the blanket, breath that rises and falls in a gentle rasp.

'Can I talk to you?' Dean suddenly says.

Faint surprise circles the angels eyes. 'Of course,' he murmurs.

'Just…' the words burst forth with an unrelenting demand to be spoken, 'what happened, Cas?' All those months ago-' he has to stop before he chokes.

Cas dips his head, lets his eyes drop to stare unseeing at the floor. Its as though he is aware Dean is fiercely studying him, as though he's aware he's something that should be studied. Then he speaks carefully, so ridiculously carefully, like he's making it up or reciting half learned lines. Except Dean doesn't quite believe that, because Cas has pure galaxies burning in his eyes.

'I was… recalled by heaven. They corrected behav- they corrected,' Cas releases a small sigh and his fingers tighten. 'I was to be with them again, to hear their voices, and to walk amongst…' a movement that could almost be a twitch, 'then they- I…' theres far to heavy a pause before Castiel continues, as though the empty silence is censoring an explanation no one is privy to, 'and now I am here, and they have no more want of me.'

Dean digests it slowly, tries to find every hidden meaning he can in the words. In the end he still says gently, 'that… doesn't really explain much.'

Castiel blinks at him, face disheartened, but his mouth pulls tight and his eyes prick little movements that tell of blurry thoughts. Dean lowers himself further until he is sat, legs sprawled, leaning against the rickety bedside table as Cas tries again.

'I was nothing and then I was something,' his voice is so quiet now Dean has to strain to hear. 'And I,' the words come achingly slow, 'can't,' he shakes his head, 'the bit in-between.'

'Did they stick a giant metal spike into your brain?'

Dean gasps even as he says it. The question comes out sharp and harsh. Lightning splitting scars over a quiet sky. The silence pounds as Dean bites back his own traitorous tongue, but its to late now. For a second it looks as though Cas wont answer; he looks like he's about to fold shut. But then the broken angel snuffles in a little breath and offers Dean a regretful glance.

'No,' he says carefully.

Dean frowns.

'It was a drill.'

Lobotomy… a drill forcefully inserted, piercing, probing, biting, gouging, gnawing into the brain… whisked back and forth, drilling into the frontal lobes…

Burning acid forces its way up from Dean stomach, he swallows but it rises again, spreading sickly sweet like tar over his throat. Drill, drilling, drill his mind traitorously chants at him, but the words are deep and old. Ancient heartbeats that scream of primordial wroth. They swarm an avalanche towards him, bury him unbreathing. Dean sits in howling silence, bunching and unbunching his fists.

Castiel is watching him, fearful apologies pressing through his expression. 'They were correcting behaviour,' he says faintly, it sounds like a statement he's been forced into believing. 'It's…' the fear waxes and wanes, and it dawns, Cas thinks Dean blames him. He thinks Dean might hate him.

The anger boils away. No, Cas, no…

'The other, after… Heaven is unaware of- It is unheard of.' For all the world Castiel is fighting to talk. His face is helplessly open, like he wants Dean to read it, to get lost in it, to understand it. He swallows and blinks his good eye, the other not quite co-ordinated enough to properly close.

'It's unheard of…' he says again.

Dean just hopelessly stares. Cas is quiet, solemn exhaustion, to overwhelmed to say more that his feeble mind can offer, but in his worry, his need to fulfil, jumbled words still spill forth. They are hopeful honest offerings and Dean feels like he's being torn apart.

'Sor-'

'Don't you dare,' Deans voice returns. 'They drilled into your head, you don't apologies for that.'

For a few moments Castiel does nothing but stare at Dean. The silence lingers cloying thick. Only their shared breaths can be head, calm, measured huffs, in and out, in and out. Then Cas worries his mouth and lets out a tiny sigh that sticks fast in his throat. It hints at weary frustration, weary sorrow, weary pain. Its slight acceptance and timorous hope, but theres something more, something giant, that still lingers unsaid.

Dean's phone buzzes, a short text, on my way back. Its screen is piercing bright in the dimness of the room, and by the time Dean blinks the spots from his vision, Castiel is unconscious again.

.

Oh man, I'm so so sorry for delays, it was honestly not my intent to leave it this long. I'm currently working intensively on a stage production, putting in 9-12 hours a day, 7 days a week (fleurgh) so my brain has turned to mush. Therefore this chapter is also sorely unedited! My thoughts keep going OH GOD I USED TO MANY ELLIPSES MAYBE I SHOULD DELETE IT ALL AND START AGAIN.

God, you guys are amazing for being so patient. Thank you thank you thank you.

(thepoette did some amazing fanart for this story but I have absolutely no idea how to include it here. Links dont seem to work and I'm to brain dead to think harder about it. Anyone got any ideas?)