Fragments of Memories
"You know it's a little weird…" Castiel mused quietly; mostly to himself though Dean was conveniently nearby to hear him, "I can't remember the last time I just sat inside on a weekend."
Dean looked over at him, glanced up from Castiel's fidgeting fingers on the table to his calm expression. It wasn't a statement that required an answer, so he didn't give one, instead he rose from his spot on the couch and moved from the living room to the kitchen. Standing behind the soft-spoken man he'd come to know over the years Dean rested his arms around Castiel's shoulders. He leaned down onto Cas and let his weight lay there, hands crossing over his lover's chest and around his sides to hold him, head heavily left against the other's. It was a gesture to show he was there, that he was listening, and just to give Castiel the sense that he was loved.
Castiel smiled and leaned into the familiar pressure, closing his eyes and relaxing. Sometimes Dean knew exactly what he needed without even a hint that there was a problem.
Small Problem World: Part 3
Dean sat across from himself, both hunter and priest looking fairly unimpressed with the other as Sam and Castiel conversed between themselves about the latest goings on. Dean watched his partner as the other Dean watched his brother, then back to each other, then back to the other males in the room and so on and so forth until they couldn't quite remember why they were glaring in the first place. The priest sighed and leaned back, rubbing his eyes tiredly. Time didn't seem to be going by fast enough and even then, he didn't know how long they'd be waiting.
"What if something happened to your friend?" He finally blurted out, looking at his counterpart who only hardened his expression further.
"He's fine, just taking his time." The gruff reply wasn't good enough and Dean was about to say something more when Castiel spoke over him.
"It's something to consider," He lifted his hand to stop his Dean from making a scene or complaining more, "We're here for a reason. It means something isn't right in this world which means whatever you're used to might change."
"He's right, Dean." Sam shrugged as he received the 'whose side are you on' face from his brother, "Maybe we should go look for him?"
"Where we gonna start, huh?" The older hunter snapped agitatedly, "He flew off to Greece for Christ's sake. Want me to start phoning my pals over there to ask if they've seen a guy in a trench coat that may or may not have gone to an old ruin?"
Sam lifted his hands in defeat, not bothering to say anything more on the subject. Castiel looked between them and smiled a bit, the corner of his mouth twitching upward as he realized what he was seeing. "You're worried about him." He said more as a statement than a question, his head tilted as he eyed the other Dean curiously.
"What?" That same, rough tone laced with an anxiety that most people would chalk up to a bad mood, but Castiel knew better. "No-"
"I can hear it in your voice, Dean. Don't lie to me." Cas kept a straight face as he spoke, eyes piercing into Dean's until the other looked away. "I've heard it before, you're worried about him and you don't know how to deal with it so you get angry."
"Yeah, whatever." Was the only reply Castiel received, earning a bit of a laugh from Sam. They shared an amused glance but Cas didn't say anything more on the topic. He wished he could explain how he knew, how he could recognize that sound anywhere. He'd heard Dean's voice too many times in his life; too many times there was the long and strangled crack in his tone as he tried to find a way to express himself. Dean had never been good at it, had never really been able to deal with his loved one when they were hurting, with his own uselessness. Cas could see it so easily and there was nothing he could use as an example that wouldn't be too revealing to his own partner.
Part of him wondered why he was hiding it, why he wouldn't tell Dean who his husband had been, who he'd given his life to. But the rest of him answered that question pretty quickly, it'd be too complicated, it'd get in the way of the job they had to do, it'd make things harder than they needed to be. Not that it wasn't hard for Castiel already but it'd be easier if it weren't hard for Dean at the same time, spare him the mess.
The other Dean fiddled with his over coat, sifting his hand into the back of it a few times before groaning tiredly, "Can we at least go look for Sam and Jet?" He looked at Castiel with the hint of lost patience in his face.
Before Cas could answer, however, there was a loud knocking at the door followed by a familiar voice, "Hey, open up!" It was Sam, sounding much younger than the hunter sitting at the table only making the brothers look at one another in a way that said more between them than their guests could really read.
Castiel smiled and motioned toward the door, "I think that'd be Sam."
Dean grinned, dropping his uniformed coat-edge and hurried to answer it, swinging the door open to see his brother's face light up with recognition. "Hey Sammy," he breathed a sigh of relief, neither hesitating to move forward into a hug. Dean rubbed his hand through Sam's hair as an attempted gesture of normalcy, something that he used to do when Sam was sick to comfort him. "I'm glad you're alright." He glanced up from over Sam's shoulder at the grin on Jet's face, his best friend giving a quick little wave of acknowledgement.
Before answering Sam had closed his eyes and took that moment to enjoy the sense of safety he felt with Dean there. "Mostly, yeah." He smiled half-heartedly before lifting his hand from his pocket, "Except for this." Castiel peered up with wide eyes, not prepared to leave the shelter of Sam's sweater.
Dean looked down and gawked at the sight, a 15cm (6in) tall Castiel perched on his brother's palm. The little angel looked almost mortified at being taken out into the light of day, curling in on himself and ducking his head, eyes still focused up on Dean's face.
"This isn't the same Dean," mini-Cas spoke after a moment, his voice still surprisingly low despite his size, "You're a dimension traveller as well then?"
"CAS!?" hunter-Dean bolted from his seat to his angel's side, unable to decide on a reaction to Castiel's size. "You're… you're so…" he gestured to the angel a few times with a lack of words to carry the rest of his sentence.
"Small… yes." Cas nodded, Sam noting the 'brave face' he was suddenly putting up. It was kind of cute to see from a different perspective. It was becoming a pattern, or at least it seemed to be the case for the only two worlds they'd been to.
"And naked…" the older of the two Dean's continued causing Castiel to flinch a little. It was subtle and only Sam could feel it through his hand, but it had still happened.
"Ah… yes… I haven't found anything yet." Mini-Cas curled his lower lip in for a moment to bite it, his gaze immediately finding somewhere else to focus on as he tried to hide himself further. The little bit of self-consciousness he'd managed to lose came right back to him. "I'm sorry-"
"Don't be," Sam reminded him gently, a hand coming around and shielding Cas' body from Dean, both of them. He looked up at his not-brother brother and frowned, "If you don't like it then don't look."
"Hey I-" Dean was about to find a way to defend himself when the other Castiel nudged him aside.
"Never said you didn't like it, yes, yes we know." He muttered as he leaned over to look at his smaller self, the little angel slightly preoccupied with being grateful for Sam's generosity. "This isn't caused by anything I'm aware of…" He furrowed his brow and gently prodded shrunken-Cas with his finger.
A surprised yelp followed by a smack at the hand was the angel's reaction, Cas glaring up at himself and shifting further behind Sam's hand. "It was from the emerald I went to get, which I had to drop," he looked at the hunters he knew, "My apologies."
"Why'd you drop it?" Sam asked as he walked closer, also wanting to get a better look at the small problem which was evidently as naked as his brother had surmised before him.
Castiel frowned and glared at the hunters who had the same expression of 'why' instead of the concern he'd expected, though Dean's was a tad harder to understand. "There was something about to eat me, I was a little more worried about that than a gem. But if you absolutely must know, yes I feel terrible for dropping it. Is that what you want to hear? That I'm miserable because you didn't get a stupid cursed object?"
"Cas, calm down." Sam hushed him, cradling him a little closer. Castiel wanted to snap back at him with the words 'I'm not some child that needs to be protected or sheltered' but it'd be too much like biting the hand that feeds you. Sam had been so kind to him thus far and he'd really rather not.
"I'm sorry, I just…" Cas took a deep breath and tried to relax himself a little. "I am a little overwhelmed."
"It's alright," The taller Castiel reassured briefly before looking up at the newly arriving Sam and Jet, "So did you see what was after him?"
"Yeah," Jet gestured upward, "It was a black cloud that moved however it wanted. What do you people call that?"
"Aer," Castiel mused, his brow furrowing as his lips pursed together, his mind moving elsewhere than the conversation.
"Eyer? You mean air?" Jet tried to mimic the way the priest had rolled the word on his tongue though failed to do so in the same way. It sounded kind of stupid, and he wasn't sure he understood the pronunciation. "You literally call it air?"
"Aer," Castiel repeated, "It means air, mist, ether, whatever you wish."
Dean stared at his partner for an answer to a question he hadn't asked, waiting for the explanation since Castiel always seemed to give one. The other Dean was much more impatient however, "And?" He snapped, reaching over and snatching his angel back from an unknown Sam and possibly a threat. "What does it do?" Mini-Cas yelped lightly from the suddenly movement but carefully nestled onto Dean without much more of a fuss.
"Nothing, really." Castiel shrugged and moved past Sam and Jet to stand outside, eyes scanning the clouds and horizon line. "I mean, they're a nuisance but nothing dangerous. I've never gone to a world where they were the only things roaming… And just one? That's even more ridiculous."
"Well I only saw the one." The other Cas replied quickly, "Is it really so easy to take care of? Why does it need four of you?"
"Only two of us can actually do anything." Dean corrected with a smirk, earning himself a flat expression from both his brother and friend. "But that aside, Cas, what do we have to do?"
"Bait it and dissipate it with a spell."
"That's all?"
"Yeah… that's pretty much it. I've taken care of a sky full of those things before, I don't understand why I wasn't allowed in this world without a partner, this could have been solved ages ago."
"I don't think it's based on difficulty," Sam looked up thoughtfully, "How many times in the past however-many years have you seen so many you and Dean's?"
The long pause that followed gave him his answer but Sam waited anyway. "I haven't."
"That's probably it, you're here because you're meant to see these two." Sam motioned to the hunter cradling his angel in his palm protectively, little Castiel taking that cue to look up at his Dean curiously.
"That's ridiculous." The priest snapped, refusing to see it, "It's much more likely there's something else here, or this one aer isn't as harmless as I think."
"There's nothing to see between me and Cas anyway," Dean growled, his hands a little less protective around his angel as if to prove his point somehow.
The two Sam's exchanged a glance and shook their heads, nothing more to say on the subject. "So then let's get to planning," The older Sam motioned, "And get that gem back while we're at it."
"Right, what does it want?" Both Dean's asked simultaneously, neither addressing it with any kind of reaction.
"Me." Castiel rose from Dean's palm, getting everyone's attention once again, "It was after me."
Author's Note:
Heya guys, thanks for reading :D Also thanks a lot for the reviews and feedback, I appreciate it!
For those of you who don't already know I'm a bit artistic too so I digitally painted a picture of Chronicles Cas on my deviantArt account, the link is in my profile so just click on my name and it'll take you there.
Anyway hope you enjoyed this chapter, I'm on work placement right now (part of my college program) so things are a little weird at the moment and update times are all over the place. For those of you who didn't figure it out, the 'Memory' part at the top of this chapter is about Chronicle's Castiel before he became a High priest, figured I'd toss bits and pieces in there for fun :) Have a good day guys