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supernaturally-writing · 8 years ago

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The Love of an Angel

A/N: Lol what even is this title?? Idk man. But anyway. So this is that spontaneous fic I made a PSA about earlier. As I was writing it, I realized I wasn’t really doing my sad idea justice, because it just didn’t seem sad enough to me, but that might be because I was writing it idk. I hope it’s sufficiently angsty. Be warned: it kinda jumps around a little bit. There are sections of the story missing, or not given in a lot of detail. Italics are past memories.

P.S: It is 3:18 AM and I am very very sleepy so pardon my shitty writing and grammar inconsistencies/mistakes.

Word Count: 4856

Warnings: ANGST. So much angst. Brief mentions of smut; not very detailed. Character death. Depression, depressed Cas, Human!Cas. A little bit of fluff towards the end, but not much??? Cas-centric fic.

Summery: Their love has been years in the making, but [y/n]’s abrupt demise spells out a rough going for Castiel. Being newly human doesn’t help the situation as the (ex)angel strikes out on his own and suffers in his own self-imposed isolation as he tries to live with these mortal emotions, determined to avenge the only woman he’s ever loved.

Masterlist

When Castiel rushed to the bottom of the Bunker stairs to welcome the Winchester gang back from their extensive hunt (as he’d always done), he’d never expected to find one of their party mysteriously missing. He also hadn’t expected Dean’s eyes to be red-rimmed, or for Sam’s arm to be in a makeshift sling, or for both Winchesters to be covered in blood and mud and ripped clothes. Sam had only made it halfway down the creaking staircase before he collapsed in on himself, sinking to the metal steps as he sobbed and sobbed and sobbed. Dean sank down with him, tears swimming in his own eyes, and gingerly pulled his baby brother into his arms. By then, Cas knew. He knew that [y/n] was dead. Some part of him had known since the moment the brothers had stepped foot in the Bunker-- but now the knowledge settled in his gut like a boulder.

He’d only been human for a month and a half-- it hadn’t been nearly enough time for [y/n] to teach him how to cope with all of his new emotions. Especially heartbreak.

When he finally sucked in a breath, the pain hit him full-force, like a bunch to the belly and a kick to the sternum all in one. His throat burned as it constricted, cutting his airway until he was gaping like a fish, his legs trembling under the monumental weight of his own leaden frame. He only made it to the nearest chair just in time for his knees to give out; he didn’t even sit on the cushion properly. Just nestled his face into the cushion of the arm as his hipbone throbbed with the awkward positioning of his crumpled stature.

His eyes burned, the cool tracks of his tears doing nothing to soothe the pain of his heated skin. He was sure he was going to throw up; the sensation was foreign, but this new instinct told him to wrench himself out of the chair just in time to throw up on the floor. [Y/n] was dead. His [y/n] was dead and the Winchesters hadn’t been able to bring her back. . . And if they couldn’t bring her back, then she was really, truly gone. The brothers had mastered the art of giving Death a raincheck.

Cas wiped his mouth and pushed himself onto wobbling feet, balancing himself against the nearest object-- which happened to be Dean. Cas pulled away from the hunter, shame coloring his cheeks, before he looked into his face a saw a reflection of his own sorrow there. Before he knew what he was doing, Castiel crashed into Dean and buried his head in his shoulder, great sobs wracking him, replacing the previously silent tears.

When the three of them finally composed themselves enough to mop up Castiel’s mess and officially address the scattering of wounds on the brothers, each of them sat in thick silence in the library. Sam stared into nothing, unblinking; sometimes, Cas would see the muscle in his jaw feather to the surface, but other than that minute movement, Sam had gone deathly still. Dean scratched at the mahogany surface of the table, his eyes rolling behind his eyelids as he relived whatever had happened. . .

Cas’ heart wrenched for the millionth time that afternoon as he suddenly realized that he didn’t know how she died. He didn’t know anything about her last moments-- and he hadn’t been there to see it, to save her. It was ten quick heartbeats before he could breath again and peal his hands off the armrests of the chair, where he’d squeezed the blood out of his fingers and broken his shorts nails down to the bloody beds.

“How did she--” Castiel began, his voice rough and gravely, the sound screeching in his own ears and scratching his own throat.

“Demon. Simple salt ‘n burn turned into a chase when a local black eyes caught wind of us in town. We uh-- we weren’t. . . We didn’t see it comin’.” There was a long pause as Dean finally tipped his head back and opened his eyes-- admitting the flood of fresh tears. He scrubbed his hand down his face, sniffing loudly. “Damn thing brought a whole party. She fought. . . She fought so damn hard, Cas. Even after-- even after she went down. . .” He couldn’t finish the thought; Cas didn’t press him for details. He didn’t want to imagine it. Didn’t want to picture his human covered in her own gore-- didn’t want to picture the life leaving her eyes.

He closed his own to fight off the image. It didn’t work.

“Did you kill it?” The words raked at Castiel’s raw throat, no more than a whisper in the air, hard to hear even in the stifling, pressing silence of their melancholy. He was afraid that if he spoke too loudly, he would break. Really, truly shatter; the only thing holding him together was the grip he resumed on the cold, unforgiving wood of the armrests below. Silence ensued, and rage suddenly filled him, bubbling up from his toes and swirling in his guts like lava, until he sprang to his feet so abruptly the chair clashed against the concrete floor. “Did you kill it?” He was yelling now, his arms trembling as he slammed his palms down onto the table. Dean just stared at him, his jaw clenching and unclenching. Something had died in his eyes, but right then, Cas could only think about all the things dying within himself.

“No,” Sam finally whispered. “No, it smoked out before we could get to it.”

That rage rippled into Cas’ arms, fueling him with a violent energy; he swung blindly, fist colliding with the nearest lamp. Sam flinched with surprise with it shattered against the opposite wall.

Before his brain caught up to his legs, Castiel was stomping down the corridors of the bunker, his footsteps harsh booms of sound all the way into his room.

Cas sat on the edge of the motel bed, fingering the hole in his jeans. He rolled the information Dean had given him around in his mind, his teeth dragging along his tongue as he chewed on the muscle. Hunger gnawed at him but he ignored the growling of his belly for favor of flicking through the television news feeds.

He hadn’t been able to stay in the Bunker. He hadn’t been able to pass [y/n]’s room every time he walked down the hall. Hadn’t been able to look at her little idiosyncrasies that she’s left scattered about-- little quirks that would go untouched for some time as the boys adjusted to a life without the woman they’d practically grown up with. Some things were small, nearly unnoticeable: an arrangement of cups in the cupboard, assorted by color and height, the towels hung neatly, folded three times each, the books scattered around her room in perfectly arranged chaos. He hadn’t been able to deal with the stutters of his heart every time he caught a whiff of the automatic air freshener she’d plugged into the wall outlet of her room. It smelled of vanilla and honey-- a gentle smell, not so overpowering that it burned the nose, just sweet enough to make him breath deep and slow and savor the scent of it floating through the halls.

So he left. He packed his things the following evening, hastily shoving the few belongings he’d accumulated into the borrowed duffle bag he’d taken from Dean: his angel blade, a few pairs of thin, ripped jeans, and the flannels he’d been given. The bag was depressingly light when he hefted it onto his shoulder.

Dean had asked him to be safe, had told him that he couldn’t stand to lose another friend-- not so soon after losing [y/n]. But Castiel could only look at him and clench his jaw. Whatever promises he made Dean would have been a lie, save for one thing: “I will find that demon, Dean. And I will kill it, even if it means the end of my own meager mortal life.” There was a long silence, and some small part of Cas had thought that Dean might try to make him stay. But he hadn’t. He’d only shaken his head and scrubbed his drawn face with shaking hands before he finally told Cas everything he knew-- which wasn’t much. The majority of this hunt would rely solely on Cas’ ingenuity and familiarity with the demonic ranks. It had been so long since he’d accessed certain memories, and trying to do so while a human had given him a migraine that lasted for the entirety of the drive from the Bunker to the grimy motel in southern Tennessee.

That night had been the first night he dreamed of nothing; he was too exhausted to think, even while unconscious.

As the days wore on, Cas drew closer to finding answers, though through no small amount of effort. Most nights he only caught an hour or two of sleep, the rest of his waking moments spent bent over a table, or maps, or flicking through the news or scrolling through the internet. He tracked demonic movement; hunted them, killed them, even has his strength and stamina dwindled. Over the weeks, he’d hardly eaten; he’d fallen back into the angelic routine of never needing to eat, even though his mortality demanded sustenance. It was a rare occurrence when he finally pulled himself away from his work to order takeout.

When he looked in the mirror, Cas couldn’t see the man-- or angel-- he had been. His cheeks were hollowed, and there was a constant shadow over his eyes, bruises lining the puffy skin beneath the dull blue orbs. His hair was shaggy, curling around his ears and at his temples; he’d accumulated a number of new scars. Some of them were purely accidental-- others. . . Well, sometimes he’d flirted with Death just a little too blatantly, and those lingering considerations had nearly cost him his life and his mission on a few close-call hunts. Most nights he was glad Jimmy had been evicted; he was sure the original owner of this vessel would have been outraged to find Castiel abusing it so thoroughly. . . Other nights he wished he could still talk to the man. Perhaps Jimmy would know what to do, how to help. And even if he didn’t, having him around would have at least been some sort of company to break the monotony of hunting solo.

As the months wore on, Cas found himself thinking more and more about [y/n]. The first few weeks, he hadn’t known how to handle the crushing weight of her death, so he’d blocked her from his mind. Even in his dreams, he’d continued to have the regular nightmares that originally drove him into [y/n]’s sleepy arms: fighting through Hell with a struggling Dean Winchester trapped securely against his chest; fighting past the influence of Michael and Lucifer as he broke into the Cage to drag out a soulless Sam Winchester; fighting for the control of his own body as Leviathans ripped the power out of his hands. There were so many things that haunted him still; perhaps his brain had not yet processed his lover’s death to the capacity that his heart had.

Now, though, he allowed memories to trickle into the forefront of his consciousness: the first time he’d met a spunky young huntress that had punched Lucifer in the face and lived to tell about it; helping the Winchesters break her out of a county jail for car theft; sitting across the booth from her as she nursed a cup of coffee and a horrid hangover. Sometimes he would wake up with the whispers of her voice ringing in his ears, even as the dreams of her evaded his sleepy memory. Other times he would lay awake late into the night, even after a long day of fighting and tracking, and struggle to remember the details of her face, or how her skin felt under his hands, or the smell of her shampoo when he snuggled up behind her after she’d taken a shower. Those were the nights that the tears rolled quietly and wetted the pillow on either sides of his head; those were the nights that he wouldn’t dream, and he would awaken feeling twice as tired as he had the day previous.

Dean called often, but Cas rarely answered. It was only when Dean’s calls became persistent that he finally picked up the phone; Dean would always curse him for scaring him like that, then tentatively ask how he was doing. He tried to answer the hunter truthfully, but it was usually easier just to give him a short, gruff answer and hang up the phone. He would immediately return to his work, slowly but surely digging up the secrets of the Underworld as he looked for a cockroach among the colony.

Castiel had never expected to feel the power of his grace returning to his veins. Well, not his grace, per se, but grace nevertheless. When he’d been captured by vengeful fallen angels, he’d fully expected to be killed-- hell, he’d practically submitted, ready to embrace Death with open arms. But the lingering thought of his mission had spurred him on, and before he’d comprehended the result of his actions, he’d killed an angel and stolen their grace. The power was startling; it coursed through him, searing hot as it healed him and restored him to his former immortal vitality. It had taken him another day to adjust to being an angel again-- he stopped eating, resisting the habit of consumption. But he also stopped feeling. At least in the capacity that humans felt. He still felt that pain, that emptiness. He wasn’t sure if there was anything in the universe short of a miracle straight from his Father himself that would totally erase the ache that resounded within him. But at least it wasn’t crushing. . .

Being an angel again allowed him to truly marvel at the resilience of humanity for the first time. It was human instinct to trudge on, to make the best of the worst situation, to always keep fighting no matter the odds. Where the angel in him would have given up on this farfetched quest, his human heart had whispered to him with every heavy thump: revenge, revenge, revenge.

With this newfound-- and dwindling-- strength, Castiel made it a point to work all the harder towards his goal. Within a fortnight, the angel had tracked down one of the demons that had assisted in the killing of his human. The following night, Castiel knelt above the lifeless corpse of that black-eyed bitch with the answers he had sought after for so long.

[Y/n] sat up as her bedroom door creaked open. Castiel stood in the doorway, looking disheveled and out of place as the hall light outlined him in a halo of dim golden illumination. He’d been human for a week or so now, and every night she’d been able to hear him struggling in his sleep from the room over. He’d cried, groaned, whimpered and thrashed his way through the night. Oftentimes, it kept her awake, too; she’d finally pulled him aside and told him to join her the next time a nightmare roused him from his sleep. He’d given her a sheepish smile and tipped his head to the floor, color lining the arches of his cheekbones. She’d laughed off his embarrassment with a peck to the scruffy surface of his cheek.

Now, though, her heart thundered behind her sternum as he quietly padded further into the room. The door swung most of the way closed, though it didn’t latch, leaving a sliver of golden light slanting across the wall. It was just enough light to see by, and soon enough Castiel was crawling into bed with her, though he’d insisted he lay atop the coverlets as to keep her comfortable. After a hushed argument and a soft huff, Cas finally submitted to her persistence and slid under the comforter. His bare legs brushed hers, and he quickly apologize before she shushed him and pulled him close.

He’d fallen asleep with his head resting above her heart, her fingers combing through the short dark tresses atop his cranium. With her by his side, he’d rested peacefully for the first time in his mortal life; after that night, their sleeping habits had become routine.

Until. . . Until she’d stumbled into the bunker, battered and bruised but smiling her shit-eating grin nevertheless, boasting of a good hunt and searching for a good drink. That night, when she eased her aching body into bed, Cas had been the one to pull her close, and when she turned her head to give him their nightly peck on the cheek, his lips had slanted against her own. It was hard and demanding, and his lips trembled against her’s. He cupped her tender face with his hands, his thumbs brushing her jawline, tracing over the black and blue bruise that feathered out there. When he finally pulled away, he pressed his forehead against hers; they breathed each other in, sharing the air between them one gulp at a time.

“My [y/n]. . . My [y/n]. . .” He repeated her name over and over, a gentle, whispered supplication. She relaxed into his hold, her hands wandering down his sides as she tried to soothe the anxiety out of him. “I am alien to this world of human emotion, but--” he’d taken her hand in his and placed it over his racing heart, shivering with her touch-- “if this is love, then I am plunging further and further into this sea of affection; drowning in it, really.” He released a breathy laugh at that, and [y/n] twisted her hand until their fingers were clasped, locked together as Castiel clung to her. “Please, please. . . Don’t scare me like that anymore. I don’t think I could live if. . . If--”

“I’m here,” she murmured, cutting him off with a gentle kiss. With her free hand, she cupped his cheek and brushed her thumb over his cheekbone; she’d blown out a breath of surprise to discover the wet trail of tears there. “I’m here, Cas. I’m okay. I’ll always be okay; I’ve got an angel by my side.” He’d started to protest at that, making it a point to inform her he wasn’t an angel anymore-- but she already knew that. Still, she kissed away his words, and that was the first night they made love.

It was long and slow; wandering hands and searching eyes and wet trails of saliva as they both marked each other with lover’s bruises and gentle kisses of adoration. Not once had [y/n] been able to tell him she loved him, too afraid that those three words would somehow shatter this perfect existence. Cas, on the other hand, had growled it against her throat, against her bare breasts, had chanted it as they reached their ends and fell into each other’s weight. They kissed each other to sleep; when Cas jerked awake later that night, [y/n] rolled over and rode him until they were exhausted again, her head falling against his chest as he buried his face in the silky tresses of her hair.

For the following weeks, they fell into bed and into each other’s arms. There’d hardly been a room in the Bunker that they hadn’t christened: the kitchen, the library, the shower room, the garage, the war room, a few of the dusty storerooms in the uninhabited wings of the bunker. Sometimes their couplings were slow and sweet-- usually after a hunt, when [y/n] would come home to a worried Castiel, even though she was usually right as rain. Other times they were fast and rough; demanding mouths and groping hands and pounding hips as lips laid claim(s) to miles of scarred skin.

It was the night before she was to leave with the Winchester brothers to accompany them on a simple salt and burn when she finally told Castiel she loved him. He’d just finished his journey kissing the scars from her ankles all the way up to her fingertips. When she finally blew out the breath that carried those three soft words, he’d paused and lifted his weight off of her, staring at her long and hard with parted lips and watering eyes. She’d said it again, with a little more volume this time, conviction making her heart swell. By the fourth time she’d said it, her fingers carding through his hair, he’d cut her off with a clash of his lips. The kiss was so hard and so abrupt that their teeth clacked together, but she couldn’t bring herself to care about the dull tooth ache that ensued. They sank into each other, worshiping each other with their tongues and fingers, until they began to fall into the easy trance of sleep. [Y/n] laid behind him, her arms twined around his waist, and she pressed a final goodnight kiss to the nape of his neck.

Before she settled into her last blissful sleep, she’d whispered one last “I love you, Castiel” against his skin.

Cas stood on the outskirts of the playground, his hands stuffed into the deep pockets of his trench. It had been a few months since he’d killed the demon-- Cerebur-- that had been responsible for [y/n]’s death. The eight month anniversary of his leaving the Bunker was rapidly approaching, yet he ignored the calls of Sam and Dean Winchester. It was hard to hear the pain in their voices, to know that they still mourned as he did, though it was to be expected. Humans mourned their whole lives, oftentimes; there were some wounds that even Time could not heal. This wound. . . This wound had been one of the deepest any of them had sustained. [Y/n] had spent her younger years growing up with the Winchesters when John would pair off with her mother for extensive hunts. The situation had left the Winchesters and the girl ofttimes fending for each other and themselves in the same motel room for days on end. In some ways, the Winchesters had bonded with [y/n] more closely than they had even bonded with each other. For a short time, she’d had a shot at a normal life, quite like Sam had; a boyfriend swept her off her feet, carrying her off to some lofty apartment in the northern sectors of Seattle. Dean visited as often as possible, and Sam made his yearly trips north during spring break to spend his vacation with her and her soon-to-be husband.

Castiel idly wondered what he would find in her Heaven. The thought that she might be happy in her Heaven with that man nearly deterred him from visiting her.

She would want to see you, Cas. Dean’s words rang through his mind; he took a deep breath of the cool, damp air. He eyed the guardian angel apprehensively, knowing full well what he had to do. Where the thought of murdering one of his brothers or sisters would have been offensive and even horrifying some years beforehand, he now smothered the instinctive resistance to the motions of his hand as he swung his angel blade into the small of the angel’s back. Light flickered and grace crackled, smothering out as if a heavy hand had pressed down on the power, snuffing it out like a candle flame. He hid the body quickly; when he returned, the playground was desolate, silence hanging in the winter air.

He toed the sandbox quietly, palms sweating against the metal of his blade.

With a sudden conviction, Castiel jumped through the portal and disappeared into the lofty halls of Heaven.

It didn’t take long to find [y/n]’s door. He stood before it for a long time, listening to the steady thumps of his heart. He’d dreamt of this moment for so long; now that he stood on the threshold of action, pain flickered behind his sternum again. It wasn’t nearly as intense as it had been when he was human, but he still felt it. This place was a constant reminder that [y/n] was dead.

He gripped the handle of her door with shaking fingers before he gave it a twist and swung it open.

After the initial light of his entrance had faded, he blinked away the glare of a bright summer sun. The heat of it kissed his skin. That pain in his chest roared to life again as he realized where he was. In Sioux Falls, just down the road from Bobby’s house, was a pond fed by a lazy, gurgling stream. A grove of Poplars surrounded the water, tall grasses of the richest green swaying around every bank. Lilypads floated along the surface of the water, hugging the banks, creating a shadowed refuge for the fish hatchlings that darted below the surface of the water like tiny flashes of silver.

This had been the place [y/n] came to as a child, when she stayed with Bobby and the Winchester boys. It had also been the spot she’d brought him too during the early years of his time on Earth. She sat with him for hours, talking of humanity, plucking at the summer grasses as the birds sang above and the bugs chirped from below.

It had been there that Castiel had fallen in love with humanity; it had been there that Castiel had fallen in love with [y/n]. That love had been dulled by his angelic detachment, but he’d been able to express his affections in the form of undying loyalty. As the years went on, he became more accustomed to the concept of feelings; as the years went on, [y/n] and Castiel frequented this grove as often as possible.

But no visit had ever stood out to him as starkly as this. He had never been so in awe of his Father’s creations as he had been there, surrounded by a lazy summer evening, with [y/n]’s shoulder pressed against his own.

Now, sitting at the edge of the pond where they had sat that day, sat [y/n]. She had her back to him, but he knew it was her. He knew it in the way his heart soared and sank all at once, in the way that her hair glinted in the sun with the different shades of color in her tresses, in the way she rocked to an unheard tune amongst the chorus of nature. He crept towards her quietly, apprehension suddenly hammering at his heart, and he had to stop himself. It had been months since he’d felt the hot prick of tears, but there it was, a stinging behind his eyes. He scrubbed at his face and gulped down a breath of the summer breeze before he came to [y/n]’s side.

Sitting on the cross section of [y/n]’s folded legs was a toddler, no more than four, with the hair of Castiel’s vessel and with the stunning eyes of [y/n]. When she turned that gaze onto the angel, he nearly crumpled. A wide, toothy grin split her sun-kissed skin; oh, she had her mother’s smile.

“Daddy!” The toddler reached for him, and Castiel sucked in a shuddering breath, sinking onto his haunches. He pressed the heels of his hands into the sockets of his eyes, the heat behind his blue orbs swelling until the tears spilled over and tracked down his face. He’d never considered the possibility that [y/n] might. . . That he might. . . But, there she was-- the baby that was very obviously his daughter. He saw Jimmy in the girl, almost more so than he saw [y/n]. “Daddy, Daddy!”

Small arms wrapped around his neck and he was abruptly pulled down a little lower; soft giggles filled his ears, and he slowly unwound his arms from about himself to sweep up the girl that had pulled him down into a hug. He kept his eyes closed, unable to look at [y/n], feeling her quiet stare as she watched with a soft smile. It wasn’t until he felt her lips ghost across his own that he finally opened his eyes. [Y/n] knelt before him, looking beautiful and so deceptively alive. . . He freed one hand and reached forward, brushing his thumb across her cheek to ensure she wasn’t another dream.

Her head tipped to the side, her cheek pressing into the callused surface of his palm. Her eyes fluttered closed, her smaller hands coming to rest against the back of his as it cradled her skull. She finally sighed, long and low, and a grin stretched across the gentle curve of her mouth. She met his eyes for the first time in eight long months; love and adoration twinkled there, spurring on the cascade of tears down Castiel’s rugged face.

“You’ve kept us waiting long enough, my love,” she finally hummed.

@willowing-love

@angelsxreader

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@casxreader

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