Chapter Text
Dean and Cas wandered barefoot over the sandy rocks, picking their way over the prickly weeds in the dunes. The moon slunk low in the sky, and the city lights had faded to a soft iridescence in the north.
Dean grabbed Cas' hand, hopping between inexplicable patches of old boardwalk still wedged into the beach. He stumbled back, yanking Cas with him, barely avoiding the pile of beer-bottle shards glinting in the half-light. He grimaced, and stepped carefully across.
"Hey, Cas?"
"Yes, Dean?"
Dean paused, chewing his lip. "You've seen the ocean, right? In other places?"
Cas nodded. "Yes. Not for any length of time, but yes."
"Is it like this?"
Cas cocked his head, still moving gracefully between the shadowy dunes. Dean reached down, sifting his hand in the sand, and stood up, watching the moonlight reflected in the grains running through his fingers. He sat down, staring at the ocean, and Cas folded himself next to him.
"I dunno," Dean finally said. "This wasn't what I imagined, when I thought of the ocean. I thought of, you know, Malibu. Or New England or somethin'. Feels strange here. Old. Almost… I dunno. Primeval. Primordial. Is there a difference?"
"Not to me," Cas said softly. He nuzzled his head on Dean's shoulder, then turned his face up in thought.
"It's absurd," he said, "to think any of these cities are old. They are infants, compared to the civilizations before them, before their violence and greed. And yet, it's impossibly relevant. There is history here, under the sand." He lapsed into a silence.
"Why is it like this?" Dean finally ventured. "It's so… developed… everywhere else. Why is this left alone?"
Cas paused. "Do you know where we are?"
"Uh… bumfuck-Florida? Middleish-east, presumably?" Dean said with a laugh.
"Mm," Cas agreed. "Canaveral National Seashore, to be exact."
Dean turned this over in his head. "As in Cape Canaveral? You mean --"
Cas smiled, reaching up to tilt Dean's head to the south, where the dull glow of the Space Center still shone, impotently.
"Holy shit, that's where --"
"Yes," Cas said. "I used to watch them," he admitted. "I watched humanity on earth for so long. And I watched them leave earth. How…" He gave a frustrated growl.
"I think that sowed my first doubts," he said. "Raphael, and Michael, and so many others, they thought of humans as such -- such worms. But I came here, and I watched you launch yourselves off of your planet with nothing but math, and your own minds. It was astonishing.''
Dean was silent for a moment. "Did you see..." he began, then trailed off. "I remember watchin' on TV when the Challenger exploded. I was only seven or eight, but s'one of those things, y'know, everyone remembers where they were when it happened, right? Sammy was too young, a'course, but even he understood something happened. Somethin' big."
Cas nodded. "I was here," he said softly. "Right here."
"Wow," Dean said after a moment. "So you, like, saw it - saw it."
"Yes."
Dean toyed with a long blade of beach grass, trying to imagine it. He pulled off the sandspurs and flicked them absently across the sand.
"What was it like?" he finally asked.
Cas hummed, staring at the sky. Dean had, for a wonder, convinced him to ditch the trench coat and tie, and the sea breeze pulled gently at his untucked shirt.
"It was a strange moment," he said at last. "You knew immediately that something wasn't right, somehow. I remember the sensation of the entire world holding its breath, and the crackling tension of loss... There was something so pure and innocent about space flight, a celebration of human accomplishments. The moment the smoke plumed across the sky, that was shattered forever, and it was palpable."
He paused, wiggling his toes in the sand.
"Some of the angels thought it was just," he continued with a sigh, and a muscle twitched in Dean's jaw. "That it was God's punishment meted out unto humanity for reaching beyond what was given to them."
"Dicks," Dean muttered, and Cas made a noise of assent.
"It shook my faith further," he admitted. "I couldn't understand why God would punish humans for wishing to explore more of His creation. It made no sense, yet so many angels accepted it without question. Even those who cared, on some level, about humanity."
Dean listened with interest. Cas had told him of his doubts, of course, that day at the park so long ago, but he never spoke of their origins, the seeds that grew into a rebellion against Heaven itself.
"Why are you different, Cas?" he said, reaching out to lace their fingers together. "I mean, don't get me wrong," he added with a small laugh, "I'm pretty fuckin' glad you're not like those angelic douchebags. But... why?"
Cas didn't answer right away, leaning against Dean and stretching out his legs. Dean turned his head, burying his face in the messy hair, and Cas smiled. The warm air wrapped them in the smell of salt and honeysuckle, and the waves crashed hypnotically in the darkness.
"I don't know," he finally said. "I suppose, in this respect, the Heavenly Host is not so different from humanity. No angel is like another. When my Father created me, he infused me with the capacity for doubt. Perhaps, in his absence, it has blossomed.
Dean nodded, considering.
"And I am not the only angel to deviate from our set paths," he added. "Anna, Gabriel, Balthazar... Even Lucifer, of course. Many lifetimes ago I would said that my doubts were a part of God's intended pattern, but now..." He gave a small shrug. "I am as I was created, however that may be."
"Perfect," Dean declared, dropping loud, smacking kisses into the angel's hair. "If your dad got one thing right, it's you."
Cas snorted softly. "Need I illustrate how inaccurate that statement is?"
"Fine," Dean amended. "Perfect for me. Better?"
"Is that including all the times I lied to you and betrayed you? And Sam?" Cas asked without lifting his head, but Dean just wrapped an arm around his shoulders.
"Yeah, Cas," he said without hesitation. "It is. You think I could fall in love with someone who doesn’t know what it feels like to do the wrong thing for the right reasons? Over and over again?"
Cas just sighed into his neck, and turned his head to stare out to sea. The drone of cicadas picked up in the marshland behind them, melting into the rhythm of the shifting tides.