pieces (Destiel)

White

There was no reason for Castiel to sleep, but tonight he closed his eyes to forget the lightning storm.

The storms in Purgatory had never bothered him until Dean left, but he saw the remnants of Dean's smile in the broken silhouette of trees. He extended his wings, hoping to block the light, but they no longer sheltered anyone but himself. The lightning charged the air; it crackled and snapped around his wing tips. He withdrew them, folding them together across his back, and shuddered.

The cave's floor was wet and cold. He angled his back to the entrance, so he could not see the burn of lightning across the gray.

He was not alone in the cave. There were others that crowded him, had been crowding him. They grew fewer in number with each day, held on to his arms, dragged him between hills, held their gleaming swords aloft and split the sky. Castiel had possessed a gleaming sword, once.

He thought of Dean asleep on Earth, safe within a motel room. Sam was asleep in the next bed, and Castiel peered in through an uncovered window. The window was broken into panes that separated Dean's image into rectangles. Castiel pressed close, regarded Dean through a single pane, so close that his breath left a tattoo of fog on the glass.

Dean appeared as Castiel remembered him in the cabin in Whitefish, asleep without the threat of ambush. Overhead, the sky erupted in a bolt of lightning that shook the ground. Dean's eyes fluttered open, and they met Castiel's. He pushed up on an elbow as his lips formed the shape of Castiel's name.

Cas. How—?

He felt guilty for waking Dean, even a copy of him within a dream, so he raised a hand in greeting and farewell, splayed his fingers into a starburst, and imagined the cave where he had hidden undetected for five nights, but he never returned to it.

+

There was no reason for Castiel to sleep, but he closed his eyes and woke up in a white, white room. He was alone. There was no lightning, and he did not close his eyes again.

+

There was no reason for Castiel to sleep, so he sat motionless in the white room and blinked and found himself walking down a stretch of wooded highway, past a sign advertising a campground. He wondered if he was still insane. It had been months, by Earth's reckoning, since Lucifer had last spoken, but Castiel could still access that part of himself, loosely cackling, no matter how deeply it was buried.

He cast his head side to side to determine his location. The road was wide and flat. It was clearly the twenty-first century, and the air smelled of Earth, not the pungent, decaying stench of an abandoned children long forgotten. The fog of it hung on him: on his clothes, filthy from a year living as an outcast; on every hair and whisker that grew untamed. He had not realized the extent of his body's condition while trapped in that realm, but moving through the fresh air stirred the foul scents his body had trapped. He was certain that he was back on Earth, but if he was wrong, he didn't dare expend what energy he had for something as trivial as cleanliness. No. He must wait and watch and think.

An engine rumbled in the distance. It grew nearer; he heard the increase in pitch and ascertained that it drove at a high speed, would pass him within a matter of seconds. He turned his head just in time to catch the smear of black before the car was ahead of him, pulling away, then slowing abruptly with a scream of tires.

Dean stared at him through the open window of the Impala, shock evident in the dropped curve of his mouth, the frantic notes of prayer:

Cas, is that...can you hear—?

The room was white and very cold. His eye throbbed with unknown pain. He rubbed it, rubbed away a trickle of blood, but he kept his eyes open and thought of green.

+

There was no reason for Castiel to sleep, though his eyes grew heavy for reasons he did not understand. They continued to throb. He collected the blood in his palms and traced his own name on the floor, on the cold white floor beside his feet. It seemed terribly important to remember his name, but he could not say why.

The room that held him had no door, but a series of windows where shadows watched him. Sometimes the shadows entered (he did not know how), but he never remembered their faces.

+

There was no reason for Castiel to sleep. Without sleep, he could not dream, but he dreamed that he stood behind Dean in a mildewed motel bathroom. Dean was bent at the waist, splashing water on his face. He dried it with a ratty towel.

And then, it was not a dream. Dean whipped around, splayed a hand over Castiel's chest, over his heart.

"Jesus," Dean breathed.

"Hello, Dean," said Castiel.

"How?" Dean asked.

"I don't know." It was not a lie. The last thing he remembered was...was...

He remembered a damp cave floor and the reverse impression of lightning behind his eyelids and collapsed in Dean's arms.

+

"How the hell did you get out of there?" Sam repeated, as Castiel stood before them. Dean and Sam sat on opposite sides of a round table underneath the motel window. Castiel shook his head. He knew they were unsatisfied with his answer, but it was the only one he had. He dropped his gaze to his clothes, his bloodstained hands.

"I'm dirty," he murmured. He felt his cheeks redden and retreated into the bathroom.

Ordinarily, he would have used his grace to clean his body, but he indulged himself with a water shower, watched the taint of Purgatory wash away in the dark swirl down the drain. The motel's cheap soap caused his skin to dry and stretch uncomfortably, but he smelled human again. The itch of dirt and sweat was gone.

He came back into the bedroom in a towel. Dean sat alone at the table, chewing the inside of his cheek, clicking a pen open and closed, open and closed.

"Sammy went to grab dinner," he said.

Castiel lowered himself to the bed where he had envisioned Dean sleeping—he remembered that, if nothing else—and decided he must not have been dreaming after all. He clasped his hands together and let them hang between his knees. Dean sighed and got up, padded over to him, stood in front of Castiel's legs.

"I don't understand," he said.

Castiel curved a hand over Dean's hip, brushed under his shirt with a thumb. He shook his head. He didn't understand either. He had watched Dean vanish into the vortex, knowing there was no way out, not for him. He should not be here.

Castiel let his arm fall.

Dean sat down beside him. The mattress dipped under their combined weight. Their sides touched, so Castiel turned his head to kiss Dean's mouth, but Dean stopped him, caught his wrist mid-air. Castiel hesitated and listened, but Dean offered up no prayers. His eyes were stone—Dean didn't trust him—but he lurched forward and his mouth tasted like home.

Castiel willed their clothes away and held Dean against his chest. Physical intimacy was not so different from receiving Dean's prayers, another way of being connected to him. This was Dean's body pressed against him, around him, instead of his voice merging with Castiel's grace. It was another sign of faith. This was how Dean prayed, with his hands in Castiel's hair.

+

They lay quietly in the dark after, Dean's breathing ragged.

The room was silent, but what Castiel heard in the space between breaths was I love you, I love you, I love you.