Chapter 6: Choices

Moving on: They drank to that. And drank to that. Drank to that some more, clonking their empties onto the table, the sharp, orange sounds ricocheting around them. No angel-blue glimmered in Dean’s eyes, of course⁠—only the glassiness of bloodshot red.

If only… If only this shared breath of companionship could prove enough.

“I’m grateful my vessel’s liver regenerates continuously,” Castiel said, another three beers in for him, Dean “three sheets to the wind,” and Dean’s fingers still absentmindedly “toying” with Castiel’s hair. The ultra-sopranic notes of Castiel’s mental air quotes caroused about the room, singing Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer off-key, rowdily.

“Counting on ya to fix mine if it needs it.”

Dean tottered to his toppled chair. He heaved it upright, angled it toward Castiel’s, threw a leg over it, pulled it in under him⁠—and missed the seat. He caught his balance⁠—barely⁠—took careful aim with his bottom, and flopped down. He clutched the table’s edges as if he were clutching the gunwales of a rowboat tossing amidst sawtooth waves.

“I’ve fixed it repeatedly,” Castiel said. “You keep busting it. You busted it five times tonight alone.”

But Dean’s attention had drifted elsewhere. His gaze roamed haphazardly around the room, from the smashed wall sconces to the toppled telescope and up to the blown-out pendant lights. Eventually, he wandered his gaze back to Castiel, widening his bleary eyes, possibly trying to force them to focus.

“Sooo, Angel of Ad Naus-Nauseam, ex-, ex-, oh, hell, ’splain the rest of it. You didn’t get Jimmy’s permission to pour yourself into him”⁠—Dean shrieked out a laugh, literally bouncing in his seat⁠—“till sometime after you tried to break my eardrums, right?”

“I didn’t intentionally try to⁠—”

“Pfft !” Dean risked letting go of the table and flung a hand in the air, as if tossing a ball he had no intention of catching. “My kr-kreshun is, if you hadn’t got Jimmy’s permission yet, how did your little ray of sunshine burn a human handprint onto my arm?”

Castiel made gripping motions and studied the movements of his vessel’s fingers, movements not possible with an angel wing. “Think of it as a metaphor.”

A metaphor for our first contact⁠—for your leap of faith, your soul-tones wrapped in my Song.

“A burning human meta-whatsit?”

“Yes.”

Dean rubbed his left shoulder, where the imprint had seared. “Dude, I don’t understand.”

“That’s not surprising.”

Dean waited a beat. He spread his hands wide, floating them through the air like a sloppy magician’s flourish. “You maybe wanna elaborate? G’wan, give it the ol’ Castiel try⁠—in language that don’t involve partial diff’rential equations.”

Or WingSong.

Castiel tilted his head to the side. “How about quantum entanglement?”

“What ?”

“Quantum⁠— Never mind. Let’s try…”⁠—Castiel flexed his fingers again⁠—“you are a human being, I am a Celestial being⁠—”

“And you’re as big as the Chrysler Building.” Dean loosed yelps and yelps of laughs.

Castiel scanned his brain’s Metatron files for any reason why the Chrysler Building might be considered amusing. Found none. Could be another missed Dean-reference. Or maybe just⁠⁠—

“Dean. Do you realize that when you’re ‘pickled,’ you laugh⁠—raucously⁠—at the most absurd things?”

“I’m not drunk. Whoo-hoo!” Dean pumped both fists in the air, and his momentum nearly tumbled him out of his chair. He grabbed hold of the table’s gunwales again.

Castiel pressed a knuckle to his lips, hiding a smile. “Actually, the Chrysler Building has a length⁠—1047 feet⁠—approximately equal to my wavelength.”

Dean gave an exaggerated nod, a tipsy sage. “Sure. Gotcha. And how does your Celestial wavelength-ness-ness relate to a burning meta-whatsit?”

How to explain this? That the closer his Hell flight had brought him to Dean, the tighter Dean’s fierce, spiral galaxy of soul-tones had woven through his WingSong, drawing him nearer, nearer. Perhaps because Dean felt this resonance between them⁠—or perhaps out of desperation, because anything was better than the suffering he was both enduring and inflicting⁠—Dean took a “leap of faith” and didn’t put up a fight⁠—well, not much of one; there’d been a few clashing chords⁠—when Castiel’s wings swept him into the calm, still center of his Ezekiel-form: the “gripping.”

This experience of multidimensionality must’ve been overwhelming to the human soul⁠—probably why Dean remembered nothing of it. But how to explain all this to Dean, without him… What was the expression? “Raising his hackles”⁠—driving him further away.

Oh! Perhaps another visual would help.

Castiel scuffed his chair a little closer to Dean, a crackle of excitement⁠—sunny pops of sound⁠—leaping along his nerve fibers. “Here’s how it works. You and I exist in different planes of reality, picture it like…” Castiel lifted two empty beer bottles and made a cross of them, representing two planes of reality intersecting.

Dean snorted. “Thank Chuck for beer bottles.”

Castiel momentarily uncrossed the bottles and regarded them. “Um, yes, I suppose. Anyway, while I inhabit a vessel, I can interact with you in your physical form. But the ‘grippin’ and raisin’’ occurred before that. So, I conclude, the handprint on your arm is what your human eyes later made of the mark my multidimensional wave left on your soul when I ‘gripped it’⁠—another metaphor.”

And after he’d rescued Dean’s soul, he’d brought it to a meadow: a lush meadow where later tulips would bloom in the colors of Dean’s soul-tones⁠—fiery reds through intense yellow-golds. There, he’d labored over putting Dean’s moldering body back together again to house it.

Labored over every fingernail, every eyelash, every freckle. Not understanding the purpose of those pretty golden-red speckles, he’d obsessed over the proper placement of each one.

He hadn’t understood why, back then, he was so determined to place the speckles correctly⁠⁠—only that this human must be put back together exactly as he’d left.

Dean parked his elbow on the table, parked his chin in his cupped palm, rubbed his arm. “Tha’s about as clear as muddy diff’rential quantums.”

“Oh.” The crackle died. Castiel laid the bottles on the table, rolled them with his palms. “I could maybe better explain it in Enochian, but⁠—”

“No Enochi-o, Pinocchio, me.”

Dean toasted him with another beer. He drained it, reached for yet another, missed, reached again, snagged one, rubbed his arm. “Jus’ glad you did the grippin’, not Uriel. He would’ve left a burning meta-whatsit on my⁠—”

“Dean. You keep rubbing your shoulder. Does it still hurt?”

“Only when I laugh.” Dean slapped his knee and cackled.

“Dean, no! You must laugh without pain.” Castiel skated his first two fingers toward him. “I can take away⁠—”

“Back off!” Dean yanked his arm away, listed dangerously to starboard.

Castiel caught him with a swift hand, halting his tilt. “Your thought processes make as much sense as ‘muddy diff’rential quantums.’ Why should I back off?”

“Because⁠—”

Dean’s fingertips touched the phantom burn mark⁠—

And Castiel gasped. His Grace flared violet-blue, like the hottest of stars. That touch⁠—there⁠⁠—setting off all those little tuning forks of resonance in his broken Song, tones that hadn’t vibrated since Dean’s soul⁠—dazzling, fractious, intense⁠—had called to him from depths of Perdition. Soul-red bursts surged through his Grace-blue.

“⁠—I want the reminder of what you did for me.” Dean’s fingertips slid across his chest and pressed against the skin over his heart.

Castiel touched his own fingertips to the skin over his own heart. Or rather: his vessel’s fingertips, his vessel’s skin, his vessel’s heart. Within this container, his True Form bore a phantom burn mark too⁠—one that sometimes brought him pain but more often stirred a restless peace, a fleeting contentment.

And brought him an everlasting gratitude for this human, who’d “burned him” when he’d gripped his soul. Burned him with his fierce and holy zeal to make this world a better place by killing off the monsters, be they created by God or the Devil or spontaneously spawned.

This, their mutually inflicted “burning meta-whatsits,” this “I returned you to your wondrous world and you opened my eyes to a wider purpose for my life,” this was their profound bond.

He’d never explained this to Dean.

“Dean. Dean, my friend…” Castiel let the timbre of his voice grow soft, moonlight shimmering on the sea. “I would do whatever you asked of me, whenever you asked it.”

“Almost.”

Castiel blinked and sat back. “You’re right. Not when I believe I know better than you.”

Dean flung up his hand with another “Pfft !” He motioned Castiel close, closer yet, as if to whisper his darkest secret. “You, me, Sam, we all think we know best. That’s what brothers do. ’Specially me ! Cuz I’m the big brother.” Dean slapped himself on the chest and oof!-ed.

Castiel spun one of the “muddy differential quantums” bottles with a finger. “I’m millions of years old, Dean. I witnessed the Cambrian explosion, when all sorts of marvelous life burst onto Earth’s scene⁠—five-eyed arthropods, worms with feathery gills, fleet-footed predators with prey-crushing teeth, and many, many more. You’re hardly my big brother.”

And yet another “Pfft !”

“To Cas, angel extraordinaire but befuddled honorary human? Hell yes I am.”

“Extraordinaire, huh?” The “quantums” bottle stopped. Its mouth pointed to Dean. Castiel jerked the bottle upright. “I need to get you ‘blotto’ more often.”

“Hell yes!”

Dean tossed most of his latest beer not only “down the hatch” but down the front of his shirt. Then he tipped his bottle over, splashing the rest of the beer onto the tabletop. Using the beer as his medium and his finger as his brush, he sketched lewd figures.

Somehow familiar figures: Dean and⁠—

Dean and…

A winged female, waiflike. Large, somehow sad ovals for eyes. Enormous circles for breasts. She reached stick fingers towards the male, reached between his legs for his⁠—

The hot, green, poisonous thing clawed at Castiel’s gut again. How quickly he could shift from heartsease to heartache! He pushed the green thing away, but it didn’t much budge. He bit the inside of his cheek hard enough to taste coppery blood. The thing still clawed.

Dean, Dean, IwaswonderingDeanifyou⁠—

No. Don’t pursue it.

No. He must. He’d been tiptoeing toward it all night. He’d never get another chance. And perhaps Dean was “blotto” enough to answer straight.

“Dean, about Anna. I brought her up because⁠—”

“Crap. I was just beginning to enjoy the peace.” Dean grabbed another bottle from the serried ranks, lifted it to his lips.

“Would you have preferred she’d saved you?”

Would he have valued her burn mark just as much⁠—or more?

Dean sprayed out his mouthful, spraying the table⁠—and Castiel. “You got to be kidding me. Girl got her angel on and freakin’ tried to kill Sam! She did kill Sam. Uh, sorry.” Rocking from side to side like the little rowboat, Dean pawed at the beer splotches on Castiel’s trench coat lapels⁠—

He lost his balance. Toppled. Did a header for Castiel’s lap⁠—

Castiel lurched out of his seat. He non-metaphorically gripped Dean tight and raised him…back into his chair, crouching over him. Castiel’s hands circling Dean’s biceps. Their faces only inches apart.

Neither of them moved.

Three heartbeats…

Five…

Castiel skimmed a trembling finger inside his shirt collar, heat sweeping up from some treasonous place inside him. He breathed Dean in: aromas of malty beer, of the Lance’s crackly ozone, of those most alluring of pie spices, cinnamon and cardamom. In the eye of his mind, the aching “I” of his mind, he caressed Dean’s cheek, ran his thumb along Dean’s jaw, brushed his fingers across Dean’s freckles.

Those carefully placed freckles.

Did freckles have a taste?

His erection stirred.

And he was lost, he was lost, in deserts and seas, in siroccos and tsunamis.

If he leaned forward the tiniest bit⁠—

“Gonna take ’vantage of me, Cas?” A blurry leer meandered over Dean’s lips.

Castiel pushed Dean back, shoved himself away. “No.”

Dean didn’t mean this, this…flirtation. When he sobered up, he’d be embarrassed by this moment. And if Castiel did any “’vantage-taking,” Dean would avoid him forevermore.

Dean made a gun of his hand, pointed it at Castiel, double-clicked his tongue. “Your loss.”

His loss, his loss. The heat seeped from his body, the ache spread to his heart, his muscles, his skin. If only… If only Dean wanted him with even half the ache that throbbed through his Grace and vessel…

He wrapped his trench coat tight around him and retook his seat. Relentlessly, Dean’s stick figures captured his gaze, clawed there by the green, poisonous thing. “You cut yourself a slice of angel food cake.”

“Cripes, Cas”⁠—Dean sketched a foamy beer halo above the angel-winged obscene likeness⁠⁠—“I’m getting whiplash trying to follow you tonight.”

Castiel swiped a palm across his forehead. He was sweating again. The perspiration stung his eyes and soaked his clothing under his arms. His raggedy feathers thrashed against the ether, as if to hurl him away from another kind of ending of his Self⁠—something far worse than death by Lance.

“Uriel told me.”

Dean’s finger jerked away from the halo. “Friggin’ Uriel told⁠—? And now, tonight⁠—after all this time!⁠—you’re worrying⁠—”

“If she’d gripped your soul and raised you, you two would’ve, um⁠—” Castiel gestured at the stick figures. “Bonded. She wouldn’t have killed Sam. And, and, you two would’ve⁠—”

Dean smacked his hand down. “No! Just, just⁠— No! How can I get through to you, dumbass? You⁠—every single version of you⁠—Soldier Cas, God Cas, Crazy Cas, Human Cas, Graced-Again Cas, how many Cas’s am I forgetting?⁠—I want ’em all. The clueless, the brave, the rush-right-in-where-angels-fear-to, uh, you know⁠—and especially, especially, the always-tries-to-do-the-right-thing Cas⁠—wouldn’t trade ’em for nothing.”

“But⁠—”

“But nothing !” Dean shoved a beer through his obscene fingerpainting toward Castiel⁠—ruining it. Clapped a hand on another for himself. “Lemme try this one last time. ’member what you told us tonight?”

I love you.

“That we’ve changed you? You changed yourself.” Dean held out his arm and followed its wobbly path until his wobbly forefinger thunked into Castiel’s chest. “You can change. Anna couldn’t. None of them other bastard angels can. And she proved her fundamentally unchangeable, angel dickishness by her wunner-ful solution to stopping the ’pocalypse: murdering my family.”

“But gripping your soul⁠—”

“Wouldn’t’ve changed her a damn bit! Just like it didn’t change you. You simply found new ways⁠—sometimes us helping, sure⁠—to stop coloring between the lines.”

Not true! That’s not true!

Abruptly, Castiel’s True Form took a violent spin within him, the entire world careening around him. Dean’s fire. His fury. The terrible beauty of his soul. The instant he’d gripped Dean, Dean’s bright, swirling tones had seared through his True Form and burnished the Hosanna of his WingSong till it gleamed⁠—

Every note crackling with Light and Fire. Every note pulsing with Wild Life. Every note blazing in a million Colors beyond the Celestial. Colors tasting of screaming starlight and plummeting planets, of upheaved mountains and deep-scored sea trenches, of blood-rust and ash⁠—

It’d ripped him open, reshaped him, made him more⁠—

It changed me, Dean.

Just not enough.

Castiel’s hands dropped to his knees, fingers splayed to steady himself against this careening world. He kept his gaze fixed on the oak grain’s waves and color variations.

The texture of the Cosmos.

Destiny.

Changed, but not enough. This was his destiny.

Another flight feather drifted loose from his wings. The tremoring of his body continued unabated. An owl hooted in the distance. Time wafted and eddied around the earth.

“Castiel…”

And Castiel looked up at that. Dean rarely used his full name anymore.

“Castiel, listen, buddy, you and me are…” Dean interlocked his extended fingers, palms facing each other, fingers laced tight.

“Inextricably ensnarled?”

A laugh⁠—a round, honey-colored sound that lit up Castiel’s Grace to his core.

“Som’thing like that, buddy. Tight, maybe?”

“As in, ‘really, really drunk’?”

Another laugh, cherry-pie red. “’m tryin’ to say, ’m tryin’ to make sure you really unner-stand, I woulda picked you⁠—even if grippin’ my soul turned those other angels into butterfly saints! Over any easy angel chick, over all of them⁠—I woulda picked you.”

He would’ve picked me.

“Dean…” A tender feeling unfurled in Castiel’s Grace: like a seed sprouting and braving the early spring, pushing up through the warming soil, unfurling its first true leaves.

Destiny.

Dean’s interwoven fingers⁠—Song and soul. A smile lighting Dean’s face, and spilling out his sea-bright eyes. Dean picking up both their beers, clinking them together, sliding Castiel’s back to him.

“Woulda picked you, Cas.”

Destiny. Together.

Castiel’s Song soared, his Grace sparkling, lustrous as the First Light of Stars. A single thread of lost coral-and-lavender ecstasy twined through his broken tones, readying to lift them both to new heights⁠—

Readying to share the Song with Dean’s heart and soul⁠—

He held out his hand to Dean, inviting him to join another GraceWave⁠—

And then⁠—

His Song plummeted. The sparkle snuffed out.

Light, Song, Bliss, Oneness: No.

The stars turned to dust. His wings folded into Silence. His hand dropped to the tabletop.

For Dean had only said he would’ve picked him.

To save him. To be his friend. To fight by his side.

Not to love.

“Thank you, Dean.”

“You don’t look happy. That’s not your happy face. I’ve seen your happy face, and that”⁠—Dean gestured at Castiel’s face, his movements too large, nearly whapping Castiel⁠—“isn’t it.”

Because I love you, and you can’t love me back. Not in the way I want. A personality transplant, a body transplant, nothing would help. I understand that now.

Dean is Dean.

“Cas?”

His Grace looped in on itself, making room for the lie. “I’m happy, Dean. Thank you.”

“Okay. Good. That’s good.” Dean drank from his beer. Then set it down and closed his eyes, his brow crinkling, his lips moving: picked you, picked you.

But not to love.

Castiel slowly lifted his hands and inextricably ensnarled his fingers. His fingers tightened… Loosened… Drifted to his lap like fallen wings. He sagged. Empty. Empty of possibility. His eternal life on earth stretching out before him: endless years of empty. And it was he rocking in that small rowboat now⁠—oarless, adrift, under bruise-colored clouds⁠—while Dean, and the last flicker of his foolish hopes for Dean’s love, dwindled in the distance, across the crawling sea.

One final option left, to offer Dean. A mercy of sorts. For them both.

“Dean…” Castiel’s fingers dug into his palms.

Dean twitched, lifted his chin from his chest, raised weighted eyelids. “Right here.”

“Dean, I can…”

“Yeah?”

Castiel coerced the first two fingers of his right hand into uncurling and reaching out. This would be for the best. “If there’s anything you’d like to forget about tonight…”

If Dean forgot, then he could forget.

Couldn’t he?

“You’re one confusing dude sometimes, you know that?” Dean hauled himself to his feet, weaving. “Keep your mind-wipe to yourself, Spock. I like my memories just fine.”

Castiel’s fingers stilled mid-air, then curled back to his palm. Why should this surprise him? Of course Dean wanted every memory of tonight intact. Every hurt, every misstep. Every echo of I love you that brushed right past him, its caress unfelt.

How his brothers and sisters in Heaven must be laughing at him. Castiel, Angel of the Lord, you rebelled for THIS?

Dean put one hand on the table for balance, put the other on his low back, and arched backwards, the vertebrae of his spine cracking. “Look, man, I’m tired. And maybe you’re right, maybe a bit sloshed. You okay we call it quits for tonight?”

Castiel made himself nod. He said nothing.

Dean scooped up the warded box. Somehow, in Castiel’s eagerness to share his Grace with Dean, to recount the Hell battle to him, to ask him about Anna, the Siren-song of the runes had drowned. For now. No doubt, the Sirens lay in wait, plotting to overwhelm his will.

Let them. What did it matter.

Dean skimmed his fingertips over Castiel’s forearm. “I hate leaving you like this⁠—”

“You can’t help me, Dean.”

Dean fell back a step. His mouth opened, but he brought no words to it.

“It’s not a rebuke, Dean,” Castiel said, his voice borne by a hollow wind over the crawling sea. “Simply a fact. Go to bed. Please don’t worry about me. You can do nothing.”

Dean teetered there a moment. “Cas, I wish…”

But Dean’s wish didn’t leave his lips. Perhaps that he could help somehow. That this could be simpler. That they could be other than who they were.

Dean shuffled his feet amongst the crunching beer shards. “So, uh, just so you know, it’s okay if you come to me if I ever happen to call to you in my dreams. Which I totally never do.”

Castiel made himself nod. He said nothing.

Dean snagged the blanket from the floor one-handed, shook it out, draped it haphazardly around Castiel’s shoulders. “You sure you⁠—?”

“Dean. You need your four hours.” Please go away.

Dean rested his hand on Castiel’s forehead as if checking for fever. He moved his hand and placed the back of it on Castiel’s cheek, his touch light, the hover of a dragonfly’s wing. Castiel couldn’t stop himself: he leaned into it.

Dean gave Castiel’s cheek a little pat. “Don’t shiver apart on me.”

“I won’t, Dean.”

Dean’s hand lingered on Castiel’s skin. “Castiel, Angel of the freakin’ Lord, see ya in the morning, okay?”

“If you wish.”

“If I wish ?” Dean’s hand dropped to Castiel’s shoulder like a twenty-pound stone. He gripped it, the pads of his fingers pressing into Castiel’s muscles almost painfully. “Why would you put it that⁠— Of course, I wish! Always!”

Castiel searched Dean’s face for a sign, a portent, a clue. “Then I’ll always⁠—”

Dean snatched back his hand. He nabbed his jacket and flung himself towards the bedrooms, jinking through the wreckage as if it were a timed obstacle course.

Right.

“Good night, Dean,” Castiel sighed to the empty air.

He sat quietly. Alone. Shivering in the dimming ruby glow of the emergency lights. Listening for a call that would never come.

It was fine. It was fine. He would love Dean and never ask for anything in return. He could at least keep this: the shape of loving him, the way it curved and colored his Grace.

The shape of loving him…

What was it that the Neanderthal poets had sung about the shapes of loving? The Neanderthals, synesthetes, sang their poetry, and along with their musical notes, other sensory perceptions arose. When he’d visited⁠—and despite his True Form’s own rudimentary synesthesia⁠—he hadn’t been able to fully appreciate the experience. So he’d sought permission from a Neanderthal woman to occupy her vessel.

And suddenly, he’d worn a set of the freshest of ears, the freshest of eyes, the freshest of touch receptors. And the impressions they’d received blended into a new, fresh sense without name.

Castiel hummed his favorite Neanderthalic poem, a poem he now bound to his love for Dean. And with his first notes, their winter celebration sprang up in his mind⁠—as if he’d traveled back in time, as if he’d never left. A poet singing atop a dais set before a crackling hawthorn bonfire, her voice strong, astonishing in range, swinging down to a husky alto and soaring up to a sweet, slightly shrill soprano. Naked dancers dancing in a circle around her and the roaring flames, their elbows and knees and fingers and toes flinging themselves in all directions. Couples of every combination cuddling in their bison furs, tucked safely away from the ruckus, kissing and caressing and, well, coupling.

Around them all, around Castiel, the poet’s song twirled⁠—and startling hues and textures and shapes upleapt. Luminous, looping, bottle-green lines; spiky, chortling, golden globes; plump and pungent hyperspheres: Joy incarnate. Love drawn in color, touched in the air.

“My beloved,” the poet sang.

“I adore you, my Beloved,” Castiel hummed again.

And in his Grace, a small spiral galaxy⁠—crimson and flame-red, shot through with sun-white, gold, amethyst, and meadow green; fierce and defiant⁠—began to whirl.

• Fantasy Home
• 1. The Stricken Angel
• 2. Secrets and Scars
• 3. His Greatest Wrath
• 4. GraceSong
• 5. Old Wounds
• 6. Choices
• 7. To Hell and Gone/Gone Fishing
• 8. One Last Thing
• Contact Me