Dean Winchester (i_soldieron) wrote in we_coexist, @ 2011-04-23 00:52:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | castiel, dean winchester |
It's Natural (Castiel log)
It had been a long day. Dean'd slept on the couch like he'd promised. He'd taken Jake to the hospital, made sure everyone had gotten where they needed to be, and even found a free place to stay. Sure, it was above a flower shop, and, no, there weren't any magic fingers. But, there was something good, wholesome, nice about having a place that wasn't paid for at best nightly, at worst hourly. He wasn't going to tell anyone he met that that's where he lived, but he could handle having some place to "come home to." Even if it was lacking two people he'd come to associate the word "home" with.
The hunter settled down the couch, groaning softly. The beer and sandwiches were tucked away in the fridge; what clothes he had needed to be washed, and he was a little surprised that there was a washer/dryer combo waiting for him. Dean hadn't asked for specifics, and maybe on some of it he probably should have - the decor was a little girlier than he'd like. But, who was he to complain? It was free, more or less.
The bottle of Blue Label sat on the end table beside him along with the glass. He hadn't poured any yet. No, he was just going to sit in his new apartment and wait for the hint of anxiety at the idea of 1) Lisa might find out and really break up with him and 2) he had settled down again. Drinking would help, but drinking didn't seem like the best idea sometimes when the world could change on him in the blink of an eye. Dean really thought he'd gotten used to that.
----
Castiel was shocked and seriously disturbed when the effects of the previous day wore off, and he could think of Fred with a bizarre, distanced confusion. Angels were not typically disturbed by very much, finding stability and security in faith and duty, particularly in Castiel's case. He had never been taken by anything so much stronger than himself, and it scared the hell--well, it scared him a lot.
As was his usual custom, he didn't announce himself before appearing in front of Dean. There was just the indescribable sound of compressed air under wings as he arrived in the center of the room all at once, unable to conceal his distress as he spoke. "Dean!"
----
Dean wasn’t ready for any guests; he probably should have been, seeing as he had at least one angel running around. There was the Trickster and the demon to deal with too, but they didn’t make it a habit to just show up, not often. Dean would have laughed if Castiel didn’t seem to be expressing a true emotion, an emotion that wasn’t one of his usuals. Sure, he’d seen Cas a little flustered, a little bothered, even a little scared, but this..
“Cas.” The hunter stood and moved toward his friend; in doing so, he also bit back a curse as his shin knocked against a sharper than expected corner of the coffee table. He was going to have to move that. “Cas, man, what the hell?” He was at Castiel’s side soon enough, hand on shoulder.
“Man, sit.” Dean motioned for the angel to have a seat on a chair that looked a whole lot nicer than anything the motels usually had. “You look like you just caught your grandparents getting busy, and as much as no one needs the image of old folks doing it in their heads, I hope that’s what it is. I just got settled; not in the mood for an apocalypse right now.”
----
"Something is seriously wrong." Castle allowed himself to be ushered forward, too distraught to notice the change in surroundings beyond that they were alone and safe. Accompanied by his usual miasma of ozone, the angel sat heavily on the chair, narrowly avoiding the same corner Dean had just collided with, trench coat sliding over the wood. "Perhaps it is some sign... I can't tell if it is some failing, something I have done incorrectly, I am not sure." He put his hands heavy on his knees. "I should have checked with you, found Crowley--"
----
“Wait.” Yeah, the hunter cut in. Dean didn’t sit down immediately. He walked to the kitchen, grabbed another glass, and returned quickly to settle down on the end of the couch nearest his rather upset friend, only after grabbing bottle and other glass. He poured the rich amber liquid into each glass, just enough for a few sips.
“Okay, buddy, you’ll have to give me more information. Like, what would keep you from finding Crowley? Did something happen?” He held the glass up for Castiel. “Drink it; it’ll make...hell, I don’t know what it’ll do, but drink it anyway.” He knew that it would take more than the bottle to get the angel shit faced, but maybe a few glasses could get him closer to relaxed?
“What’s got your wings in a bunch? You didn’t meet some angel goon or something, right?”
----
“I don’t know.” With telling blind faith, Castiel took the glass and tossed back what was in it without even looking to see what it was or why it was offered. He didn’t appear to taste it or feel an effect. He handed it back. “I don’t know what happened. I was searching for Crowley, I was inspecting the City, I was Watching--and then all I could think about was Fred!” He seemed to think this was a horrific, torturous thing. He sat straight on the couch and stared blindly into space, trying to understand.
---
Dean’s brows lifted at the way the angel flung back the stuff, but the hunter just poured another glass and handed it back to Castiel. His brows didn’t go down when he heard what bothered his winged buddy, either. Dean hadn’t met the person in question, and he was pretty sure there weren’t any other angels named “Fred” - it just didn’t seem like a very angelic. Plus, he could only guess at the possible interest Cas could have in some guy. Rather than say anything, Dean took the time to think and have a sip of scotch. He took a few more moments to think and breathe. It wasn’t everyday a guy finds out his guardian angel was possibly gay, not that there was anything wrong with that.
“Well..” He took another sip. “Is Fred an angel?” He wished Sam were here; at least then he wouldn’t be dealing with the awkward alone. “Or someone Jimmy knew?”
---
Castiel, completely oblivious to any sexual orientation implications in this line of conversation, took his next glass and tossed that back too. No reaction. He didn’t even cough. He held it straight out again, thoughts elsewhere. “No, she is a human in the City. A scientist.” Castiel’s eyes widened in his grave, pale face. “Yes! Perhaps it is Jimmy--perhaps it is because Jimmy knows her. I will wake him up.” And then, without warning, the angel’s presence seemed to fold in on itself, and so did his vessel. The glass fell from nerveless fingers and Castiel’s upright position collapsed back into the couch. The sharp smell in the air quickly started to dissipate, and a certain musty humanity touched the slack features.
----
Dean barely had enough time to realize that Fred was a she in the City before he felt Castiel go. It wasn’t something that really happened that often. He could only think of the one time, and even then he’d only seen Jimmy after Cas had been yanked out of him. But, anyone who knew Cas knew what he “felt” like, and Jimmy was no Castiel.
The glass bounced rather than shattered, which was good. Carpet could be nice like that. He hadn’t filled it, so there was another plus. He picked up the glass, poured a little more scotch and handed it back to the slouched fellow.
“Drink this.”
----
Jimmy blinked; and then he blinked again. When it came down to it, Castiel was not at all like a man; he didn’t move, speak, breathe, or even look like one. In comparison, Jimmy was all movement and rustling. He rocked his head to one side to get a crick out of his neck and then he focused on Dean as if drunk. “Dean,” he said, recognizing him, at least, tone relaxed, register higher. He took the drink, and looked down at it in distaste.
----
“Jimmy?” Dean gave the man a slight smile. “Have a question for you because I have no idea what’s really going on. You wouldn’t know a girl named ‘Fred,’ would you?” Yeah, he thought he’d get right to the issue at hand. Jimmy could relax later. Then he remember..
“Hey, man, are you hungry? I got...” He looked over his shoulder at the fridge. He had food in there, but for only a moment he felt the ‘all mine’ nagging feeling. “I got sandwiches in the fridge. No burgers, but hey, it’s food, right? Drink it, seriously. I have a feeling you will definitely want it.”
----
Jimmy brought up two fingers and rubbed a spot between his eyebrows. “Killer headache,” he said. He made another sour face, but he took a sip of the drink and then gagged as it burned its way down. “Ugh,” he said. Jimmy Novak was not a hard drinker. He perked up a little bit at the mention of food. “Yeah, I’ll take something. He’s not gone, but maybe I got a minute. Sandwich?” Jimmy seemed to derail at the mention of this food, but honestly, he didn’t want to get into this girl Fred, because he knew Castiel would probably return the moment the issue was resolved.
----
“It’s all I got, man, but it’s food, right?” Dean set his own glass on the coffee table and headed to the kitchen. “You want a beer instead?” He’d always wondered what sort of guy Jimmy was. They’d talked to him for a very short time, and even then it had been during a rather bad time to get to know someone, or maybe one of the best ones.
“I got roast beef, pastrami, corned beef, ham, turkey, and a few with little bit of this, a little bit of that. All good stuff to stick to your ribs.” He had paused on his way to the kitchen to make the small announcement. “Got a preference?”
----
“Yeah, no. Any or all of those is good.” Jimmy lifted one shoulder in a very un-Castiel-like shrug that indicated he wasn’t going to be too picky. He was pretty quick to catch up to the game, though, and he stood up to follow Dean into the kitchen, leaning this way and that to try to get glimpses of his face. “So have you heard anything about Claire?” He rolled his lips together and let his brows tilt up hopefully. “Amelia?”
----
Dean was good at hiding in the fridge, as if the choice of sandwich was really a hard one. He knew he couldn’t stall for long, but there was just so much he could do. It wasn’t bad enough that Jimmy had to give up his family to keep them safe, but now he didn’t even have a family here. As far as Dean knew anyway.
“Uhm.” The hunter finally stood and held up a wrapped sandwich and a beer. “Do you know what’s going on? I mean, do you know where you are, other than in some apartment with me getting ready to eat some much needed grub?”
----
Jimmy nodded. His eyes went to the sandwich, but they came right back up to Dean’s eyes. “Yeah. Castiel has been all over this place. The City. Some kind of pocket dimension thing. I don’t know, he thinks in a lot of numbers that are beyond me.” He plucked the sandwich out of Dean’s grip and gratefully pushed the whiskey away in favor of the beer.
----
“Pocket dimension. Don’t know what’s going on with your family. Sorry, Jimmy. We haven’t really seen or heard much of them. Or we hadn’t before I got here.” Dean nodded slightly. He didn’t add that it was probably for the best, as even he knew that was bullshit. No one wanted to hear that no news was better than good news, especially not a man with a family. Dean Winchester had been a family man for only a year, and he was having some problems when it came to not missing and not worrying about Lisa and Ben.
----
Jimmy’s expression fell. It was odd to see his features so mobile, his eyes so shadowed. “I thought maybe before you’d come...” He rallied quickly, however, filling his chest with air even though he didn’t quite get his head up straight. “Well.” He sat down, rather heavily, at the kitchen table, and pulled at the paper on the sandwich. “There’s no knowing for sure about the dimension thing. Seems like a sound theory to me, though.” Jimmy shoved up another one of his shoulders. He didn’t really care about the dimension problem, you could tell.
----
“Well, Gabriel’s around, so I’m not putting it past him. Probably the jack ass’ idea of a joke. Angels are real dicks when it come to humor.” Dean reached into the fridge and grabbed a sandwich for himself before settling down at the table with the currently human Jimmy.
“Sorry, bout the family. Things get crazy. For a little while there, we thought you were dead. A couple times. Got lucky you and Cas came back. Are you doing okay? Gotta be a real head fuck by now.” He could be nice when he wanted to be; plus, he had to wonder how much the guy got to talk to anyone. He didn’t see how anyone could hold a conversation with Cas for nearly three years now. Of course, Cas didn’t remember some of that...
----
Jimmy really didn’t remember all that much; very little of it seemed to bother him, anyway. All he really cared about were the two people he couldn’t see, and once he could do nothing more for them, almost nothing mattered. He took a bite of the sandwich, savoring for only a split second before taking another bite. “Think he would know if it was Gabriel. Recognize his work and all,” Jimmy opined, mouth full, chewing enthusiastically. “I’m not awake much. Just sort of noticing things go by. Like a dream. I don’t think he realizes I notice.”
----
“Yeah, wondered about that.” Dean had never been possessed, so he didn’t know how it felt. In all honestly, he hoped he never got to know that feeling either. He unwrapped his sandwich, hating to ask again, but the angel had been visibly shaken, which really wasn’t the norm for the more stoic of the angelic dicks.
“Look, what’s going on with Cas? He popped in here and looked like hellhounds were after him. You know what’s going on? Had something to do with some Fred chick?”
----
“Oh, that.” Jimmy took his time, chewing thoroughly, swallowing. He worked off the beer’s bottle cap without any of Dean or Sam’s fluidity, and took a swig more because he was thirsty than for any other reason. He pushed the wrapper around a little bit, enjoying the feel of his limbs at his command, watching his knuckles ripple on the paper. Then he said, “He fell in love.” Jimmy smirked a smirk that Castiel wouldn’t have been able to pull off if he’d tried. “The knock-down drag-out can’t-breathe-can’t-sleep kind. All at once. And then... poof.” He made a little explosion in the air with his fingertips. Poof. “It’s gone. Freaked him the hell out. Woke me up, started bleeding power everywhere. Weird.” Another bite.
----
Dean coughed on the bite of sandwich, and trying to wash it down with beer didn’t exactly work so well. His body couldn’t decide if it wanted to laugh or just sit there in shock. It took him a few tries before he finally got it under control.
“He was in love? With a girl named Fred? Who’s a scientist?” The older Winchester boy took more than a sip from his beer bottle. He would have paid good money to see the angel screwed over by the love bug, or the crazy hugging naked cherub. Of course, that particular image made him wince and come right back to reality. “Wait, it was there then gone? Sure this scientist wasn’t some sort of witch? Though, she’d have to be a hell of a witch to make an angel fall. You didn’t know her?” A beat. “Was she hot?”
----
Jimmy reflected. “Can’t remember what she looked like. I wasn’t doing much looking. I said I was awake, but that didn’t mean I could do any looking or feeling anything.” He gave a little shudder of distaste for the void of non-consciousness, and to ward it off, got a better grip on his sandwich. “If she made it happen, she sure didn’t take much advantage of it. Once you got him in love with you I imagine he’d pretty much move the world, it’s this whole faith thing they got going, but no, she just tried to figure out why with a bunch of books. I think.” He reflected again. “Maybe books... maybe some other kind of research. He was thinking about it at one point.” He took another bite.
----
“So, the virgin angel got the hots for some chick, and now he’s scared?” Dean leaned back in his seat. It didn’t make any sense. “You sure it was love? Not...” He couldn’t bring himself to say lust or sexual attraction or anything of that nature. While he didn’t mind taking Cas to a brothel, he didn’t want to think too hard about it all either.
“Maybe she’s his type? Does he even have type?” The hunter had some beer and sighed. “Maybe she’s cursed. Hell, if she’s cursed, she could be dead right now. That’s all we need. I guess we could look for her. He just stopped loving her.” Somewhere in the deep recesses of his mind played a country song that he’d probably heard sometime in his many times at the bars along the highways and byways of America. “You don’t think it’s because she’s hurt or dead, do you?”
----
“No, I don’t. He’ll probably go check, but no, I don’t think she’s dead. And I’m sure it was love. It was overpowering, just because...” Jimmy sat back hard in his chair and huffed out air through his nose as he tried to envision how to explain it. “He doesn’t feel anything casual, anything halfway. It’s all, or it’s nothing. It’s like they’re built to love like that. It’s kind of scary.” Jimmy shook his head slowly, pressing his lips together and looking down at his half-eaten sandwich. “Really scary.”
----
“And she didn’t run for the hills? Dude, I’ve been hugged by a cherub, and if he’s got the love light on for some chick, it’s gotta be pretty bad. Then again...” Dean leaned back, trying to imagine Cas in love. He couldn’t help the smirk because it was a little amusing even if it did scare Harvey Birdman.
“So, he falls for the chick, and now nothing? He doesn’t care about her at all? She’s just another human? Something had to have happened, something pretty damn strong.” He bit into his sandwich and chewed in thought. It didn’t dawn on him right away, but if he hadn’t been part of it, he wouldn’t have thought of it. A wish? Maybe Dinah wasn’t the only one, but then he hadn’t seen the many Dinahs that were supposed to be around the City.
“It doesn’t make sense.” He finally commented around a bite of sandwich.
----
“Oh, he didn’t fall for her. That’s what’s freaking him out. He would have.” Jimmy gave Dean a very steady look, putting one arm on the table and leaning his shoulders forward, dead serious. “That’s like their being, you know. It’s not like dying. It’s like you’d be willing to cut out who you are for a person. It’s extremely disturbing.” He shuddered again, and sat back all at once. The chair rocked under his weight, slight as it was. “No, it doesn’t make any sense. And I don’t know Fred, I certainly am not in love with her, so he can’t pin this on me.”
----
Dean didn’t understand at first. He would have. His hand lifted to rub his temple as he groaned. It wasn’t just some weird attraction, or a little bit of reaction in the pants. Whatever this Fred did it really had done something of a number to his friend. Dean understood love, but he could only guess at this; he had seen how willing Cas had been to die for him and the rest of the world, and if that wasn’t love...with a really big dose of Hero Complex. He sat up and looked at Jimmy.
“He does know there’s nothing wrong with loving someone, right? Hell, there’s a whole group of the little..no, really big winged bastards trying to hook people up left and right. Okay, so maybe they’re not here, but they’re where we’re from.” Dean winced a little; he really hated talking like this, about pocket dimensions and all that. He understood it more than people realized, but he had to keep his reputation up, right? “So, what’s wrong with it? Unless she did do something to the poor guy.”
The hunter sighed and looked around the apartment, trying to find something else to talk about, but this was a little awkward. What was he supposed to talk about now? It wasn’t like he could ask the guy about that ball game last Sunday.
“Look, uhm, why don’t you finish the sandwich and beer. There’s a shower, probably wouldn’t mind getting cleaned up. He’s going to want to come back soon, and we should probably find this chick.” He felt bad that he was actually reminding Jimmy he’d have to go back to “sleep,” but he supposed it had to be done.
----
Jimmy opened his mouth to reply, but he didn’t get a chance to. Every electric device in the place lit up all at once, and even though Castiel tried to keep his voice down to a barely-there whisper, he only kept it from becoming a shattering keen by cutting his sentence as short as possible. Jimmy made a face as if he was actually in pain, though the sound wasn’t that bad. Lights flickered, and he slowly put down the sandwich. “He says,” the man said, in a low, dejected tone, “to cover your eyes.”
Whiteness so bright it couldn’t even be described as light filled the man up with no more warning than that.
----
Dean barely had the time to cover his eyes. He recognized the sound and the way the lights were acting. He was lucky things didn’t blow up, seeing as it really wasn’t his place and he didn’t want to have to explain it to his landlady. He did more than cover his eyes. He ducked under the table and waited for it all to blow over. There were times Dean wished Jimmy’s soul could move on, or Castiel could have the body as just his own because damn if it wasn’t hard sometimes knowing that there was a human being captured inside with the soldier of God.
---
Castiel, obviously, did not think of it that way. He was standing in the middle of the room after the light bulbs had all burst, perhaps even those downstairs. Even the refrigerator had gone dark, and there was a sudden sputtering hum as it began operation again. The light from outside was the only thing that held off the new shadows, and the smell of lightning took over that of roast beef and newly-cracked beer. Castiel looked around, and saw no one. Then he looked down. “Dean?” The voice was Castiel’s, and even though he used Jimmy’s vocal cords, there was no question that it was his.
----
Dean waited for his head to start humming. Sure, it was a bright light, but it seemed to encompass everything, even sound. He actually didn’t move until he felt something run down his side. Then he heard Cas’ voice; it was Cas alright. He groaned as he bumped his head against the bottom of the table getting up.
“Dude. What the hell?” He had no problem using that word, even if he knew exactly what was in Hell. “You can’t go blowing out lights like that, man. It’s not my place. And...” He looked down at the sandwiches, what there was left of them now soaked in beer with bits of glass. “You know, there’s got to be a better way to do that.” He looked up at the angel.
“So, Jimmy says it wasn’t him.” As if that would explain everything. He turned from Cas to look for something to start cleaning up the mess. “You know you should clean this up...”
----
Beer dripped into a new puddle on the floor, leaking across the tile toward Castiel’s left shoe. He didn’t notice; he was no longer looking down. Absently, he said, “No; that is the only way. I heard what he said. I must make sure Fred is alive.” And, with the sudden ozone-laden woosh of unseen wings, he was gone.
Five minutes later he reappeared in the exact same place, again without an introduction or warning. He looked less panicked now, and more his serene, trench-coated self. He looked around to find Dean again.
----
“Son of a bitch.” was all Dean could say when the angel took off; he was beginning to doubt he’d ever be really use to the way they came and went. In that five minutes, Dean had at least gotten the beer and glass sandwiches off the table and into the trash, and he had found a mop and broom.
“You know, you could use that power of yours to get some lightbulbs and replace them. Shit. If her flowers are ruined, I’m going to hand her your ass. I’m not going down for what you did.” Dean probably wouldn’t say anything to Dinah, but he couldn’t let her come back to a shop that was ruined. He was pretty certain she had some guy working for her too. “Think you can fit that in your busy schedule of falling in love with girls who have guy names and not finding demons?”
Dean had started sweeping when he paused to look at Cas. “So, was she hot?”
----
Castiel stared blankly. “Who?”
----
Dean stared. “Fred. The chick that you were falling for. She was hot right?”
----
Castiel waved a hand, annoyed. “No, not her. Whose flowers?”
----
“Right.” Dean nodded. “Dinah. The woman who owns the building. The woman whose life I saved yesterday. The woman who is letting me stay in this apartment, rent free. Her shop’s downstairs. I don’t think it looks good that the first night I’m in the place everything blows up.”
He went back to sweeping, shaking his head. He shouldn’t have to clean this up, but he guessed that was part of the problem when he had an angel for a friend. “So, was she hot?” He wasn’t letting that go.
----
In the same blank, uncomprehending voice. “Who is Dinah? Why are you living... here?” He looked slowly around the apartment, seeing it for the first time. “She was not ‘hot.’ She was... enchanting. It is difficult to describe. What are you doing here?” He was flummoxed at the idea of Dean living in a place that did not feature designs from the 70’s and a great deal of formica.
----
Dean continued to sweep up, seeing as the winged wonder wasn’t up for cleaning. He looked up at Castiel and gave him a look that certainly suggested the angel already had his answer. Plus, who said anyone was enchanting anymore? Apparently angels on some weird love high.
“So, would you kiss her?” He stooped down to sweep some of the glass into a dustpan. He smirked, but he didn’t look up at the angel. “Dinah is some superhero chick, saved her life, got this place for a while in return.”
----
Castiel, who didn’t have table manners (or a mother), just stood there as Dean cleaned. He didn’t seem to think ‘enchanting’ was an inappropriate word. He also knew Dean well enough not to ask about this Dinah woman again. He assumed the living quarters were temporary, and moved on.
Suddenly awkward, Castiel shifted and moved to one side, pacing two steps, and then stopping in his customary stillness. “There wasn’t a right moment. It is gone now, regardless.”
----
“You had enough time for her to collect books, but you couldn’t find the right moment to kiss her?” Dean sighed; the angel could have had the decency to give him a good story to listen to while he cleaned up. He stood and emptied the pan only to go back to sweeping.
“Cas...” Something came to mind. “You didn’t just pop in on her and then pop back out? And did you spend the whole day with her? Yesterday? Did she say anything about making a wish?”
---
Castiel didn’t see why the right kissing moment had to fit with collecting books, and he looked puzzled, but chose not to pursue it. He didn’t think his experience was a particularly good story, either. “I spent the day with her, yes. I couldn’t seem to leave.” He paused, looked strangely guilty as he turned his head off in the distance, and then said, reluctantly, “No, that is not it. I just... chose not to leave.” Dean had the angel’s unrelenting gaze back in a second. “What do you mean,” he asked, sharply, “what wish?”
----
“Look, Dinah made a wish. She wanted to be everywhere at once. So, poof, bam, shazam, whatever, she was everywhere. Still haven’t figured out why she showed up with a pizza and beer at my place other than that’s what I wanted. It sort of backfired; she got distracted by being too many places and got stabbed for it. Who knows, chicks and wishes, right?” Dean shrugged as he swept up more glass and dumped it in the trash.
“You know, it’s not wrong for you to want to be around someone. It’s not like we’re going anywhere right?” The hunter hadn’t accepted that, but he was trying to help his friend out the best way he could, maybe. Plus, it would do the angel good to loosen up. Not loosen up so much that he was planning orgies and doing drugs, but at least so that was ...kissing women and smiling? “So, it’s okay to kiss a woman or two, though more than two may be a little too much for you right now. You have to take it slow. And if you don’t have to pay for it...hey, you’re better off.”
----
Castiel was distracted by the idea of a wish, but not so much that he almost didn’t catch the implication. “I have a duty,” he said, with a hint of disapproval at the hunter’s propensity for play, “that does not leave time for... anything else. You forget that I am not human, not even in form.” Castiel could not recall Dean ever cleaning anything up for himself. He watched this strange phenomenon with suspicion. “You did not wish for anything?”
----
“Cas, man, you heard from your angelic brethren? You see any sort of godly working going on? You don’t have a duty here. I release you.” Dean’s hands lifted and made an awkward shooing motion, awkward because they were full of dustpan and broom. Castiel would probably be surprised by many things the older Winchester did these days; he was growing up, for the most part.
“And, no, I didn’t wish for anything. I’ve done the wish thing; felt like my insides were going to be on my outsides, actually they were, so I’m going with no wishes.” Dean swept up what looked like the last of the glass he could get at before getting the mop to finish the job. “You’ve got all the time in the world, don’t you? Seeing as you’re an angel not exactly bound by time. Or is it just that you’re a ‘multidimensional wavelength of celestial intent’?” Yeah, he remembered.
----
Castiel nodded soberly, missing the sarcasm entirely. “I always have a duty; and it is not in your power to release me, even if you fully understood what it was.” Castiel was never pleased to have his existence questioned, and since he defined his existence by duty... He gave the older Winchester a particularly intent stare, as if looking into his soul to see that it still shone. It did, of course. “I cannot be everywhere at once.”
----
Dean stared right back, a little confused. He knew Castiel was under some stress, had always been. Maybe it was being in a body that barely contained him, or maybe it was the lack of God. He didn’t think there was a chance in Hell that God was here. He didn’t think God had been back home either, not in any way that the big guy upstairs mattered.
“No, no, I guess you can’t.” Dean started the water in the sink. He didn’t exactly have a bucket, or he didn’t see one. He lifted up the mop under the faucet to start the real work. Then he stopped and looked at Castiel.
“You still haven’t found Crowley? Asshole’s probably good at hiding. What about Gabriel? Or Sam? Or my baby, the Impala?” There was definitely a hopeful look at the last one. Maybe the last two. “Ya know, I might have to look this Fred up; find out what happened. If you’re feeling nothing for her now, and she’s alive, maybe she got lucky when Dinah didn’t.”
----
Castiel’s faith had never shaken, and he would not understand if Dean had told him that it would or could. It was part of the foundation of his being. He gave Dean an even flatter look than usual at the mention of his car, and he didn’t even bother to address that.
“This Dinah is dead?” Castiel asked, curiously. He ducked as the mop’s handle swung through the air and tried to take out his (Jimmy’s) skull. It did not occur to him to be bothered that Dean might be living in a dead woman’s apartment.
----
Dean’s head dropped, and he managed to keep from groaning. He was pretty certain he’d explained it. Maybe he hadn’t. Maybe this was some really prank the Trickster was pulling on him; gave him a dud angel or something. He turned off the water, wrung out the mop and started cleaning up the beer and small bits of glass the broom couldn’t.
“Well, Costello. Dinah is the woman whose life I saved. I’m just saying that maybe Fred was lucky in that she didn’t almost die. So, you gonna find my car---” The hunter glanced up at the angel, only to find himself alone in the apartment. He sighed and shrugged before putting his back into the mopping.
“Fine, okay, well, I should probably check Fred out. Can’t have the damn bird falling for some weird demon type. Or a witch, who the fuck knows what you angels like...other than strippers and very destructive goddesses. And orgies - what is it with angels and orgies?” He paused. “Really have to stop talking to myself.”