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Peja's Wonderful World of Makebelieve Import
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Published:
2020-11-05
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590
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1/1
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Leaving the Nest

Summary:

Summary:  Home is were the heart it - it just wasn’t Heaven anymore.

Work Text:



Leaving the Nest
by Sam-Tony

 

 
The war was over.  Scattered on the winds were the ashes of those lost in that war.  Dead demons.
 
Fallen angels.
 
Standing outside the worst roadside motel he had ever seen, its gray door cracked, paint peeling off in strips, Castiel couldn’t help but compare his existence to that door.  Grey.  Uncertain if it would stand up to the future of those that had walked through it.  Or those that might.  Heaven was closed to him now; he had been kicked out, refused.  Banished from home for choosing to think for himself instead of blindly obeying his Father’s orders, his only salvation in those humans he had admired but had not been able to understand.
 
Or maybe…the more he had come to think about it, the more he was beginning to realize that it was himself he no longer understood.  He had…changed.  Maybe he had grown.  He certainly had run out of options.
 
No more standing in the way of Heaven’s archangels.  No more struggling with what he should feel…and that which he should not.  He was human himself, now.  Frail.  Fragile.  Limited.
 
Human.  Home…wasn’t Heaven anymore.  He had been kicked out of paradise; this was his world now.
 
Setting his knuckles to the broken wood, Castiel knocked twice, trying not to think about what he would do if they, too, refused him.  He had not only run out of options, he had nowhere else to go…
 
The look on the familiar face was hard as the man opened the door, body language awkward and obvious that the hand not seen held a weapon of some kind, most likely one the guns they kept ready for unexpected visitors.  Unexpected visitors usually meant demons, or trouble at the very least.  He wondered if that’s what he meant to them now…
 
But the green eyes lightened immediately, growing wide a moment before squinting down in what Castiel had come to know was a rare, if honest smile.
 
“Cas!”
 
Despite everything, almost against his will, Castiel could not help but respond to that smile.  “Hello Dean.”
 
“Dean, who - Cas.”  Sam’s surprise sounded from around Dean where his brother had stepped in behind him, watching his back.  Now that Ruby was gone and Lucifer once more held locked away in Hell, Sam was once more firmly at his brother’s side.  A good thing, there was no doubt…but that begged the question, was there any longer a place for him as well?
 
Something must have shown through the front he put up, or maybe word of his Fall had reached farther than he thought, for the green eyes softened, and the door opened wider, beckoning him inside.
 
And suddenly he was enveloped in strong arms as Sam folded over him, hugging him hard.  “We thought they killed you.”
 
He hadn’t realized how much he had wanted, needed, that contact until he had it.  Leaning into that strength was too easy.
 
“I suspect they wanted to.”
 
Why did his voice shake?  It was over, he had survived; his punishment not death but banishment, to be cut off from his brothers and sisters for all eternity.
 
Above his head, Sam sighed, breath ruffling his hair.  *His* hair now, Jimmy having ascended to Heaven when they had taken Castiel’s wings.  “We heard.”
 
“I - have nowhere to go.“
 
Sam’s arms tightened even as Dean huffed out a sharp, “Bullshit,”  demanding,  “You’re staying with us.  Can’t have you out roaming this dirtball all by yourself. ”
 
“Dean’s right, Cas.  Stay with us?”
 
“Sam - Dean, I - “
 
“No, Cas,“  Dean told him firmly.  “They might not say it, but I will.  Welcome home.”
 

End