Friday - Free-For-All
Jun. 11th, 2010 11:00 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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comment_ficHey, guys! It's that time of the week for you to let your imaginations go wild with no restraints, other than keeping it legal... and possibly bending a few laws (*winkwink*). As always, you only need to follow the rules:
Respect our awesome code monkeys, and follow the standard format with your prompts. Like so:
If you don't see any prompts that tickle your fancy, please take a gander at our lonely prompts section here.
TGIF!
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No spoilers in your prompts for at least one week after publication/air date.
If there are spoilers in your story, you must warn in bold and leave at least 3 spaces.
No more than 5 prompts in a row, and no more than 3 prompts per fandom. If one of your prompts is answered, you can prompt again.
Respect our awesome code monkeys, and follow the standard format with your prompts. Like so:
Burn Notice, Michael/author's choice, standing on the edge
White Collar/Leverage, Neal/Eliot, playtime
If you don't see any prompts that tickle your fancy, please take a gander at our lonely prompts section here.
TGIF!
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Strength (1/3)
Date: 2010-06-14 12:39 am (UTC)They should have known, Castiel thinks, as he makes his way towards the building before him. They should have known by the way he was too, too quiet when Sam suggested his plan to trap Lucifer. They should have known that just because he had said No once did not mean this was over. They should never have let him out of the house, out of the room, out of the cuffs.
But they did, and now they are split up, searching, frantic. He slipped out in the middle of the night; he left no note, no word, but there is only one thing he would have gone to do without telling them, without leaving word.
And Castiel is, is about to be, the one to find him. But it doesn't matter. He knows, glass crunching under his feet as he walks towards a building with its windows all blown out, knows with a dull certainty, that it is already too late.
He stays anyway, when he finds the figure curled unconscious on the ground at the centre of the chaos. Because he might as well let Sam and Bobby hope a little longer. Because this is the end of the line. Because there is nothing left to do, nothing left to try. And because whoever is truly here now, the form he kneels beside still looks like Dean.
But the eyes that at last open and stare through him, the deep voice that says "Castiel," those are not Dean's.
"Michael," Castiel says, and he bows his head and waits. He has disobeyed, he has fought with Man against Heaven and Michael and all the angels; he knows what is coming now. He does not even try to move away from the hand that whips out to seize his shoulder in a bruising grip. Because there is nowhere left to go.
The world fades around him - fades and then reforms, and Castiel cannot help raising his head in surprise to see where Michael has taken him. Metal walls, a table, a single metal-frame bed. And something, something in the walls perhaps, on the outside where he cannot see - something that will not let him leave.
"Stay here," Michael says, drawing himself to his feet. "You will be safe here."
And then he is gone.
You will be safe here. Perhaps Michael is mocking him. Michael's sense of humour is not as obtrusive as Gabriel's, but it is just as cruel - crueler - in its way.
Castiel pulls himself off the floor to sit on the bed and await his execution. He looks around at the walls of his cell.
It's... familiar.
For a long moment he doesn't understand. When he was, briefly, confined in Heaven, they did not confine him in physical form, kept him in nothing as mundane as a metal cell. There is no reason his cell should look familiar.
But it does. Because this isn't a cell.
It's a panic room.
It's Bobby's panic room.
For a moment he thinks it might be actually, literally, Robert Singer's panic room. But no. It is a little larger. It is a little darker. Bobby's panic room is not warded to keep angels out. Bobby's panic room is not warded to keep angels in.
Bobby's panic room has a door.
Before he can begin to contemplate what Michael intends in bringing him here of all places, there is a rustling and the archangel is once more standing before him.
His clothes are torn, and there is blood, a great deal of blood, painted across the fabric and across the skin the torn cloth reveals, but Castiel thinks very little of it is his.
The blood on the sword in his hand certainly isn't.
Michael is staring at the bloodied blade, and without thinking Castiel finds he is standing and drifting towards him, his eyes too fixed on the sword.
"It is done then," he says, and his voice sounds strange to his own ears. "Lucifer is dead."
"Lucifer?" Michael says. He sounds... surprised. He blinks and looks away from the blade, looks at Castiel. "No. Raphael."
"Raphael?" Castiel stops in his tracks. He doesn't understand. After a long moment, he asks "Why?" Quiet and careful, but he asks, because he doesn't understand. He wants to understand. Michael is going to execute him anyway. He has nothing to lose.
Re: Strength (2/3)
Date: 2010-06-14 12:41 am (UTC)Castiel backs away until the backs of his legs hit the metal cot, then he sits heavily, staring blindly at the walls of Bobby's panic room. He doesn't understand.
He doesn't dare hope he understands.
When Michael appears again, he is ready, ready to look closer, ready to see the look of perplexity on Michael's face as he stares at his own stained sword.
"Lucifer?" Castiel asks, standing.
"No," Michael shakes his head. "No, Gabriel."
Castiel is not prepared to hear that, and it must show in his face as Michael looks up at him, because Michael adds "He is not dead. But he will not do that again. He will not hurt you again."
"Why?" Castiel asks, gentle but insistent. "Why, Michael?"
"Because," Michael says. "Because you are my brother." He sounds confused, endlessly confused - more confused than Castiel, because Castiel understands. Understands that the actions, the cold decisive violence, are Michael's, but the words...
The words are not. Not entirely.
Michael turns back to his sword, and "Yes," Castiel says quickly, before Michael can leave again. "Yes, Michael, I am your brother." He walks towards Michael, deliberately this time, but slowly, as if Michael is a skittish animal he might startle away. "I am your brother. But that does not mean the same thing to angels as it does to men."
Michael looks back up at Castiel then, and it is difficult to hold his gaze and not look away, when Castiel sees in those eyes none of what he wants to, but he does it.
"I am aware, Castiel."
"We are brothers in that we are all children of our Father, but it is different. We are not brothers in flesh, or in blood. It is different. The relationship is different." He is close to Michael now, close enough to reach out and place his two hands on the sides of Michael's face. Michael does not stop him.
No one stops him.
"The relationship can be different," Castiel says, and then he leans in and kisses Michael.
They never did this, he and Dean. He thinks they were headed towards it, thinks they would have, if there had been more time, and less anger. But they never did, and he knows that what he has done will be more shocking to Dean than to Michael.
And perhaps Dean will throw himself away from the contact, will reject the sensation, will burrow deep down, away from it. But Castiel doesn't think so.
He doesn't think so.
And he has nothing to lose.
For one terrible moment, the lips he is kissing stay marble-still. But then suddenly, they are moving under his, against his, and then with a sigh they part, and Castiel slips his tongue into the warm mouth under his.
He pours everything into this one kiss: the moment he first confessed he doubted to another being, and the moment he broke with Zachariah and with Heaven, and the moment he first slew his brethren for Dean, and the moment after, all the moments after, when he thought Dean was lost to him. He pours it all into this one kiss, into this one last moment, all of it.
When at last he forces himself to pull away, the other angel - the man - the vessel is breathing too quickly, as an archangel should never have to, eyes shut, and there is colour high in his cheeks. "Cas," he says, too soft and choked off for Castiel to be sure, but he is sure anyway, even before he finds himself looking into green eyes that are so familiar. That are oh-so-human.
"Cas," Dean says, quiet and lost, "Cas, what-"
"Dean," Castiel cuts him off, because there is nothing Dean can say now that Castiel is prepared to hear. Castiel realises his hands are still cupping Dean's face and he uses them to make Dean look at him, to make him focus. "Dean, I need you to open the door."
Re: Strength (3/3)
Date: 2010-06-14 12:45 am (UTC)"Behind you," Castiel tells him. "Don't look," he adds quickly. "Just open it."
"Cas..." Dean stares into his face, confused, as if Castiel's eyes hold the answers. And perhaps they do; Dean's own eyes widen in comprehension then slide away from Castiel's, unfocused, as he concentrates.
And behind Dean, a door abruptly swings wide to let in a bright, warm light. A door where before there was only smooth unbroken wall.
Castiel stares at it for a long moment. "You are much stronger than I thought," he says, and once more his voice sounds far away and not his own. Because it is one thing to overpower a demon, for a mortal mind to wrest back control while hellish power crackles through it. It has been done - rarely, but it has been done. But to overpower an angel. But to overpower an archangel.
"I'm not." There is something broken in Dean's voice, and Castiel turns his gaze back to him to find tears pooling in those human, human eyes. "I'm not, Cas, I'm weak-"
"No."
"I'm not," Dean shakes his head, as much as he can with Castiel's hands still bracketing his face. Castiel realises he is stroking his thumbs along Dean's cheekbones. He makes himself stop. "I said yes, Cas, I'm sorry, I said yes."
"I know," Castiel tells him. "I will be very angry with you later." Because there is going to be a later now, for both of them. "But now, we have to go save the world."
He releases Dean's face and reaches down to take one of Dean's hands in one of his instead. He does it to get Dean to go with him, to pull him through the room and out the door.
But on the other side, he doesn't let go.
Re: Strength (3/3)
Date: 2010-06-14 03:18 am (UTC)*shakes fist*
darlin', you're doing so well!
xxx
Re: Strength (3/3)
Date: 2010-06-14 04:41 pm (UTC)Yes, this is an *excellent* use of my time... *headdesk* I should really just stop reading prompts...
Re: Strength (3/3)
Date: 2010-06-15 02:09 am (UTC)Re: Strength (3/3)
Date: 2010-06-15 02:32 am (UTC)(Icon love, by the way)
Re: Strength (3/3)
Date: 2010-06-15 04:43 pm (UTC)Thank you!
Re: Strength (3/3)
Date: 2010-06-15 06:23 pm (UTC)Glad you liked - thank YOU for an awesome prompt!