Chapter Text
It takes some time after the fires die out and the sky is still again for the shock to wear off, but when it does, Castiel registers the sensation of tears slipping down his vessel’s cheeks.
No, he thinks, that isn’t entirely correct. This body is no longer his vessel; it is him.
He has felt this way before, once or twice, when he had been cut off from Heaven and alone – achey, uncomfortable, tired, and ultimately human – but never so suddenly, and never so unexpectedly. This time, he knows, there will be no recovery. His grace has been torn out, just like Anna’s, but hers at least still existed. His has been used up as a meaningless spell component, no more permanent than graveyard dirt or yarrow or diamond dust.
A cry echoes from somewhere in the woods; Castiel moves automatically towards it, and finds the source to be one of his brethren, lying in a crumpled heap amidst the wreck of a young oak. The vessel is a young woman, dark-haired, but Castiel does not recognize it, nor the angel within.
He cannot hear the song of her grace. He wonders if that is because it was torn from her, or because he now lacks the ability to truly hear.
He approaches her, thinking to help, until he sees the broken oak branch protruding from her belly and the blood seeping into the ground.
“Castiel,” she chokes, and he looks down at her, frozen.
She dies. The imprint her wings leave is strewn across tree and ground alike. For a bizarre moment Castiel finds himself jealous of her; even in death she kept some remnant of her angelic form. He will have no such luxury. There is nothing left of what he once was.
He reaches for the corner of space where his sword used to lie and finds nothing; he cannot access the celestial dimension. His hand pats uselessly against the side of his coat – and finds something in his pocket.
He takes it out and stares at it blankly for a minute before realizing what it is. A cell phone. Dean had found it for him and taught him how to use it. The hunter’s number is the only one in the contacts list.
Castiel presses the tiny buttons with fingers that shake and cradles the phone awkwardly to the vessel’s – his – ear.
Dean answers after only one ring. “Cas?”
His voice is at once both comforting and painful; Castiel does not fully understand their relationship, and thinks perhaps that Dean doesn’t, either. There seems to always be conflict between them, and yet Castiel cannot imagine his existence without the elder Winchester. Perhaps, he muses, that is what Dean means when he calls him ‘family.’
“Cas, if you’re there answer me, dammit –“
“Hello, Dean,” Castiel says.
Dean’s breath whooshes over the speaker of the phone. “What happened to you? Are you alright? Have you seen – what happened? Where are you? Did Metatron –“
“Dean,” Castiel says, cutting him off, “please, I don’t –“
“Yeah, okay, one thing at a time, where are you?”
Castiel looks around again, trying not to see the broken body of his sister. “I don’t know. A forest, somewhere. It’s warm. There are oak trees.”
“Okay,” Dean says. “Okay. Look, just – just stay put, I’ll come – no, scratch that, can you walk? Did you – did you fall?”
“I can walk,” Castiel says, looking at his shoes. “I Fell, but… I can walk. I am unhurt.”
“Okay, just – listen, just… I don’t know, find something that can tell us where you are. Pick a direction and walk.”
“Dean,” Castiel says tiredly, “approximately eighty percent of North America is forest, and approximately thirty percent of that is in an area that would be warm at this time of year. Assuming I’m even in North America.”
“You got a better idea?” Dean demands. “Look, just do it, I’ll try and find you as soon as I can, but I got Sam to deal with and –“
“Of course,” Castiel says. “I would hate to come between you and your brother.” Perhaps he is being vindictive, but Castiel cannot find it in himself to care.
There is silence for a moment, and Castiel almost thinks Dean has hung up the phone, but then he says, “Don’t be like that, Cas, I’m trying to help you.”
Dean’s tone is far more forgiving than Castiel has ever heard it. He takes a deep breath. “I will call when I’ve found something that can help to pinpoint my location,” he says, and shuts the phone.
He starts walking.
Despite his doubts, Castiel does eventually come out of the woods near the intersection of two roads. His feet ache when they strike the hard pavement; he wonders how humans manage to function when their bodies are so fragile and protesting. The intersection is completely deserted. It must be very late, he thinks, or very early.
He calls Dean again. “The street sign says S-R two-six-seven,” he says. “I don’t know what that means.”
“State road,” Dean says.
“There is a cornfield,” Castiel says. “One street is S-R two-six-seven. The other one says C-R 1000.”
There is a sound on the other end that may be Dean typing. “You’re in Indiana,” he says. “I’m callin’ Garth. He might be able to find another hunter that can get there to pick you up before I can.”
“I don’t want to get picked up by another hunter, Dean,” Castiel says, aware that he sounds childish and stubborn. “My feet hurt and my nose is leaking clear fluid and my eyes itch and I just want to sleep for days. I don’t want to deal with another human. I want to deal with you.”
Silence follows. “Yeah, okay, Cas. I get that. Hang on just a sec.”
Muffled voices drift across the line. Castiel sits down by the edge of the road and waits.
“Cas?”
“I haven’t gone anywhere, Dean,” Castiel says.
“Shut up,” Dean says, but there’s no bite in it. “Kevin’s gonna watch Sam, so I’m coming to get you. It’s gonna take me a while, but I’m leavin’ now, so I should be there by late morning at least. Is there someplace you can wait, or sleep, or something?”
Castiel looks around. There is a building a ways down the road, with a sign advertising mulch. “I think so.”
“Good. Keep your ringer on. I’ll call you when I get close.” Dean walks Castiel through turning on the GPS in his phone, just in case, and then hangs up.
Castiel curls against the wall of the building – an old barn, it looks like – near a sleeping pile of barn cats, and tries to sleep. As tired as he feels, he thinks it should be easy, but his back starts to ache and his neck is stiff. He sheds his trenchcoat and balls it up beneath his head, trying to alleviate some of the strain; it helps a bit, and soon he falls into uncomfortable sleep.
He dreams. His dreams are fragmented, nothing more than flashes of sensation and color; an impression here, a feeling there. He sees faces, all different – red hair, black hair, female, male, almond eyes blue eyes round eyes black eyes. He hears voices, too; some at once familiar, some strange. Crack in the chassis, says Naomi’s voice. I fixed you.
His own voice is there, too, though it says things he doesn’t remember.
I would recognize you anywhere.
He wakes to the buzz and melody of his cell phone ringing.
“Dean,” he grumbles, voice rough with sleep. He coughs once. Everything in his body hurts.
“Hey,” comes the reply, and Dean sounds just as tired as Castiel is. “I’m pullin’ onto two-sixty-seven. Gonna be there in a minute. You somewhere I’ll be able to see you?”
“I will be,” Castiel says, standing. His joints pop. A cat scampers off, startled.
“Good. Be there in a sec.”
Castiel retrieves his trenchcoat and shakes it out, brushing dirt off the fabric. He’s not sure why, but he’s protective of this coat; it’s become almost a part of him. Dean kept it for him when Castiel had been killed by the Leviathan, so Castiel must not be the only one who assigns some sort of importance to it.
Before long he hears the familiar rumble of the Impala’s engine, and before he can even move to get in the car Dean is parking it and getting out himself. “Cas,” he says, and the relief on his face is second only to what it was in Purgatory when Dean found him by the water. Just like then, Dean pulls him into a hug, but this time Castiel’s body hurts and he pulls away, grimacing.
“You okay?” Dean asks.
“No,” Castiel grates. “I’m sore all over and I think I am experiencing an allergic reaction to the pollen in the air here.”
“Ain’t that a bitch,” Dean says, and Castiel wonders why it is Dean seems so at ease when there is so much wrong in the world. “You’re human?”
“Obviously,” Castiel says.
“Did you –“ Dean hesitates, and his smile slips. “Did you fall? Like the rest of them?”
Castiel doesn’t have to ask who ‘the rest of them’ are. “Not like you’re thinking,” he says. “I… Metatron took my grace to use in the spell. It’s gone. I didn’t fall, but I am Fallen.”
“Sucks,” Dean says. Castiel can’t help but agree. “At least you’re alright. Drove past more than a few angels – well, former angels I guess – not so lucky as you.”
“I don’t feel lucky,” Castiel says. “Can we go?”
“Yeah,” Dean tells him. “Yeah, let’s go home.”