pieces (Destiel)

Leaves

After Sam fell, Dean had gone to Lisa, and it did not feel right to interfere.

Castiel missed Dean’s prayers, but Dean had never been a devout man. Surely the lack of prayer was not a sign of waning faith—Dean was a good man, if not a pious one—but evidence that Dean was content in his new life. Castiel had no reason to interrupt that. He visited sometimes, often at first, but his visits grew fewer and fewer over the course of a year, concurrent with the decrease in prayers, until one day they ceased entirely.

Humans had prayed since they first discovered their voices, since they learned to fear something greater than themselves. They sent their pleas skyward, begging to be heard. Castiel had received a countless number over the millennia; he would continue to receive them until he ceased to exist. Humans lived and died; their voices went silent. There were a few whose voices he missed, ones he so desired to hear again that he visited them in Heaven, but he did not yearn for them as he did for Dean’s.

It was easier to stay away. The apocalypse had been averted. Dean didn’t need Castiel any longer. Castiel had existed for millions of years without Dean Winchester, and he would go on existing without him. His superiors had been right: he had become too close to Dean and allowed his regard for Dean’s character to overshadow his duties. It wouldn’t be so with his next charge, if he was assigned one. It wouldn’t be so with Dean, if they worked together again.

He heard Sam’s prayers, but he did not answer them.

Castiel didn’t understand what he felt, why he felt—that had never happened, not in all of his existence. He had rebelled, he had chosen, but he had never felt as he felt now. It was unsettling, perhaps shameful, and human.

It was, above all, human.

Castiel was an angel.

+

He told himself that Dean was happy.

Of course Dean was happy. He had a home, a woman who cared for him, a child who wished to emulate him. Castiel would often perch on top of the refrigerator or the garage’s pitched roof and watch Dean toss a football to Ben, show him the proper way to turn a wrench, prepare something called barbecue they ate on outdoor chairs. Ben occasionally stole a taste of Dean’s beer, and they both pretended not to notice.

Lisa was a good woman. She had taken Dean in without question, without judgment. Castiel wished blessings upon her, and yet when he saw her standing next to Dean, his reaction was irrational. She should not be standing there. He was certain of it, but he could not name the thing that crept up the back of his vessel’s spine, to his neck, set his stomach clenching. He wanted to retch. He looked at the picture Dean’s life had become, and he held no part in it.

He had no right to any part in it. Dean was happy.

But Castiel was staunch in his conviction: Dean did not belong here but with Sam, with the Impala around and beneath him. He did not belong in the humdrum of Cicero. The absence of a smile on Dean’s face seemed to confirm it.

Dean obviously felt the same, because they soon listed the house with a real estate agent, hastily packed its contents, and relocated to Michigan.

+

Castiel had not visited for months when he manifested in Dean’s back yard. It was autumn on Earth. It was cool and breezy in Battle Creek. His coat flapped around his ankles as he folded his wings, but he did not reveal himself.

Dean was raking leaves. He held the rake in his hands and moved it across the lawn methodically, gathering the fallen leaves into piles. It was a strange practice. Given time, the leaves would break down on their own and return to the earth, but humans were never satisfied with waiting. They took too much pleasure from instant gratification. It was one of their species’ greater flaws.

But to see Dean engaged in such a task, something innocuous, something domestic—it did not feel rushed. It did not feel like an act of impatience. The leaves fell, and Dean raked the leaves. He was alive and whole, settled and uninjured. He mourned for his brother, but Castiel would not tell him about Sam. He would not take this life from Dean.

Castiel longed for him. He had never longed for anyone, but he missed the weight of Dean’s hand on his shoulder, the cutting remarks, even his exasperated expressions when Castiel failed to understand Dean’s references. The longing followed him as he followed Crowley away from Dean, away from the place where he was in Dean’s favor. If Dean found out about the deal (when, Castiel corrected himself; when Dean found out), he would never trust Castiel again. Dean didn’t trust easily. This Castiel knew, recalling Dean’s manner toward him when they first met, how Castiel’s introduction was answered with a knife in his vessel’s chest.

He would be lucky if Dean even wished to stab him after this, but it was necessary. Castiel needed the souls Purgatory would provide, and he needed Crowley to access them. This was so much bigger than him: it was about saving the world. He hoped, one day, that Dean would understand that.

He never stepped out from among the trees, and when Crowley leered at him across his desk and purred, “So, angel, do we have a deal?” Castiel thought of Dean raking leaves.

+

Sam was calling, as Sam often called, but there was something not right about Sam ever since Castiel raised him from Hell. His prayers were empty. He called, and Castiel did not answer.

The sound of Dean’s voice was an unexpected balm. It rang all around him. The ringing was a vibration in his grace that Dean’s voice caused. He knew the connection between them was unprecedented, but he hadn’t realized that Dean left such an indelible impression. It tugged at his very essence, deeper than his grace, into the very matrix of his composition. Castiel soaked in the sensation, allowed it to continue—

Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray to Castiel to get his feathery ass down here. C’mon, Cas. Don’t be a dick. We’ve got ourselves a plague-like situation down here. D’you...do you copy?

—until he found himself standing in a second-story apartment, looking at a bemused Dean Winchester over Sam’s shoulder.

It was the first time Dean had seen him in almost a year, but Castiel knew that he appeared no different. His vessel would never age as long as he occupied it. It travelled with him now, even to the reaches of Hell.

But Dean was a year older. His face was flushed with healthy color, likely the result of dietary changes. He radiated his usual urgency and annoyance, but his energy was less vitriolic, more contained.

Sam gaped at Castiel over his shoulder, jaw tight with disbelief. But Dean’s eyes tracked him: a hunter’s eyes. He would demand to know why Castiel had not responded to Sam’s prayers, and Castiel would have to provide an answer. There was so much to say, but no words came to him, no words in English or Enochian that could fill the chasm between them. So he said the only thing he could:

“Hello.”

+

Castiel gathered loose crumbs with the edge of his fork. They sat in a diner, just the two of them and a slice of apple pie. Dean squeezed the crumbs between the tines and brought them to his mouth.

“Why the hell’d you stay away?” Dean asked. His voice rang with darkness, shades of distrust. But he bore his gaze into Castiel’s, until Castiel dropped his chin, flicked his eyes to the rumpled beige of his coat. He could smooth it with a touch, but he merely fingered a fold, a spot of grease. Dean believed that Castiel had abandoned him. Castiel would not tell him about the leaves.

He recalled the vibration in his grace that Dean’s prayer had evoked, of how human he felt in Dean’s presence. He did not deny it, reaching a hand to the center of the table. He pressed the pad of his thumb to a crumb on the edge of the plate, held Dean’s gaze as he sucked it between his lips.

“You were happy,” he lied.