5 - Here comes the storm

"I didn't," Castiel protested weakly, his voice still a bit raspy. "I- learned who you were only when I read your mark." He cleared his throat. "But I've been myself all along. So in that respect, I did lie to you," he admitted to him.

"As if that changes anything", Dean snarled, barely keeping himself under control. "All the things I told you - all the times I covered for you during hunts, all the jokes and smiles and..." He had to force himself not to go on. The soft glances, the sneaky kisses stolen in the night while nobody was looking. The touching. The whispers. Love-
He shook his head, and ran a hand over his face. "I can't believe how many things I told you. Under the impression that you were a person." He glared at him again, his jaw tense. "Did you have fun, acting your little part?"

Saying that Castiel was hurt would be an understatement. Dean's words wrecked him, to the point he too had to rely on his anger to cope with the current situation. "I am a person. You can't hold me responsible for being born as 'Castiel'. Yes, I genuinely enjoyed being Alaskan. Because at least it allowed me to love you without fear." He held Dean's gaze, with piercing blue eyes.

"The point here is that you are not the person I thought you were!", Dean snapped at him. "You didn't think even a single instant to tell us the truth - you just kept lying, and lying, even as we were running away, even as we approached the psychic, even as we got something going on! And you were among us all along, pretending not to know why other angels were always finding us!" He angrily stepped towards the door. "You put all of us in danger - not even only me, I couldn't care less about it, but Ellen! And Bobby, and- and Sam!" There was no way he could overlook that. No fucking way.

Castiel managed to hold Dean's gaze until he mentioned the fact that he put all of them in danger. He lowered his own head afterwards. "It was very selfish of me, and I regret it," he told him, after hesitating a bit. But Dean was right. He did put all of them in danger. And for what, just because it felt more right to be 'Alaskan'? Because he felt loved and appreciated?

"You know what's worse?", Dean whispered, more to himself than to Castiel. The fact that he regretted what he did went right through him. "What's worse is that I cared about you. You made me care, I defended you with a person I call my own father, I got mad at him - and for what? For someone that didn't even have the guts to put the mask aside for me." He turned to face the angel again. He was pretty sure he himself was looking wrecked, but he didn't care in that moment. "If only I could stop caring right now", he gritted out. He hated himself for that.

Castiel wished to tell Dean he didn't have the guts to tell him the truth the moment he had understood that he could never love him for his true self. Yet, he couldn't. He couldn't, because he wouldn't bear to keep arguing with him over their feelings. He couldn't keep asserting his love, with Dean telling him he wished there had never even been love between them to begin with.
"I have always been myself with you, Dean Winchester. And I will keep on loving you. If that is too much for you to bear, please leave." He looked up and held Dean's gaze, no matter how painful it felt.

Dean stared deep into those blue eyes. He hated, hated how he wanted to tell, hell, to scream to Castiel that he loved him, even in that situation. Even with all the emotional horror he had just gone through. And probably, some of that hesitation could be seen in his eyes. But he managed to get a hold of himself. He raised his chin, lips still drawn tightly together. "Right now, it's definitely too much to bear", he whispered, storming out of the room.
He was still holding that piece of cloth, clenched tightly in his fist.
And now he hated himself, and Castiel's blue eyes even more. Why did that 'right now' escape him? Fuck.
He needed a drink.

Castiel almost collapsed back on his bed, but winced when his wound pained him on the way down. He closed his eyes, and took a deep, shaking breath.
After a long while, spent pondering over his last conversation with Dean, he looked one last time at Dean's name, engraved in his wrist. The only thing left for him was to do what felt right to him.
And nothing felt more right than waiting for someone else to drop by in the panic room, and request for the right to leave this place.

And that someone arrived in the form of Horknath. Who gingerly knocked - yes, knocked - on the door and then proceeded to stand next to it, like a big awkward lug. He held a book in his hands, and maybe that was good. At least he couldn't fiddle his thumbs.
After all, for all he knew, 'Castiel' could be someone else entirely. Or he could be too worn out from the talk he had with Dean (everyone knew it had happened), which was completely understandable. So he just waited there.

Castiel didn't expect for someone to knock at the door. After all, he was held in there more like a prisoner than anything else. "Yes?" He answered, his voice still weak and raspy. He straightened up a bit in his bed, wincing when the flesh around his wound tightened in the process.

Horknath took that as his cue to take a step in, after taking a deep breath of course. "I see the wound stopped growing", he observed awkwardly, pointing towards the black spot peeking from underneath the bandages. "That's something. At least it's not spreading - I am glad Pica and Valdyr found the right books." He stopped a bit far from the bed.

Castiel cleared his throat. "Thank you. I've- recognized a bit of the shamanic orc rituals they've been using, so I supposed you must have... talked to them about it." He paused, a bit uneasy. He was actually expecting to get yelled at any second now.

Horknath seemed just as uneasy. "Yeah, I've... left them some notes, here and there", he explained awkwardly. "Orcs have a better knowledge of this kind of damage. Since... apparently there were beasts that could bite you and make similar damages that lived around the villages, shamans had to learn to counter that. They are long extinct, but they still teach you how to deal with it, for some reason. Of course, like with everything, the lasting method would be a tattoo, but..." He paused. It seemed like he wanted to say something, but could not find the courage to do that.

"It would work only on a real living being, I'm afraid," Castiel replied softly. He tried not to dwell too much on the memory of Dean telling him he wasn't a person. "I'm sorry for lying to you about what I was. Especially given what my kind has done to you in the past."

"Yeah, uh... about that", Horknath started, before sighing and putting the book he was holding on the side. "Listen. I've thought about it for these days. A lot. Night and day. I won't lie to you: I'm... sad. And upset. Very upset. I didn't want to help you at the beginning, and I was angry like I've never been before, because... because it's me who trusted you first, who advocated for you. I saved your life. I helped you. Called you my friend, my first friend. I told you how important it was to me. And then, I find out it was all a... bubble of soap. That you lied to our faces since the very first day, and never stopped until you were forced to." He sat down quietly on a chair. "But then... I thought, that I don't want to be angry at you."

Castiel swallowed whatever remained of his saliva. His mouth was dry, and the knot in his throat was back. He didn't know which between Dean's burst of anger and Horknath's controlled reproaching words felt worse to him. "Why?" He asked his friend - he still considered him like his own friend, even if the opposite didn't apply anymore. "You just stated all the wrongs I've done to you," he pointed out, confused.

"Well - it's difficult to explain." Horknath seemed to be fuming from the great effort he was making to find the right words. "I'm far from the brightest one in the block, so you may argue mine is just plain stupidity. Still counter everyone even though you lied. Telling that a bad person wouldn't have stayed with us so long, or shared our food, or helped us out even though everyone is calling me a fool. But, anger means bad stuff, to me. Very bad stuff. You don't deserve to be on the other side of my anger, and I don't want to go to that. As I said, I am sad, and upset, but I just figured..." He hesitated. "I just figured that you would have been given enough shit about the fact that you lied. By... someone else other than me. And so, I thought that maybe you could need someone who tries to understand, and that remembers that you cannot possibly have faked your kindness, and all that." He shrugged. "'s all."

Castiel couldn't prevent the hint of a smile to form on his lips. "Thank you, Horknath," he whispered to him, before he took a deep breath. "I do deserve to be mad at, for everything I've hidden to you all. But I've never expected the chance to perhaps... explain myself." He hesitated, and dared to look up at the orc. "Would you be willing to hear the whole truth?"

Horknath bit his lower lip. He seemed to fight against his own will to stand up and go away, maybe in fear of what he could hear. "Alright", he nodded in the end, crossing his arms on his chest. "I'm listening."

Castiel took a deep breath, and tried to sit up a bit more. "My name is Castiel. I'm an angel of the Lord," he started, his voice getting steadier upon talking about something he knew. He told Horknath about how it was, before, when God still watched over humankind. "And by humankind, God meant all of his children. Homo sapiens. Elves. Dwarves... Orcs." Castiel paused for a moment. "And then one day, he left us. And Michael and Lucifer divided the world between Heaven and Hell."
He told Horknath that he never really picked a side, for his own duty was to watch over the souls stacked in Heaven. Yet, he was a soldier, and was sent to fight against demons. Human-eating monsters.
He told him about the time he met Jimmy Novak, who happened to own his perfect vessel. His throat went a bit dry when he mentioned that his soul remained with him until his natural death should have occurred, and he accompanied him back to his family.
He licked his lips. "Michael and Lucifer haven't found their true vessels yet. All of Heaven and all of Hell knows who are the humans they're after, though. Their name are Dean and Samuel Winchester." He paused again. "I actually fled Heaven a bit more than thirty years ago, when Dean Winchester was born." He traced the letters on his wrist, which were now uncovered. "Heaven only made the link between him and me some months ago, and figured they could use my grace to locate him. That's when you found me."

Horknath listened attentively to that tale, doing his utmost best to understand it fully. Of course he couldn't understand why God would abandon all of them to his power-thirsty children - but then again, apparently neither did Castiel, and he was born far before him anyway. He frowned, and asked questions about Jimmy Novak, to make sure the poor man actually had a choice when Castiel possessed him.
At the end, he just nodded absently, still deep in his thoughts, without saying anything for a little while. "I see. I guess you did have good reasons, for hiding your identity", he muttered. "... but in the end, then, you're not a bad person. To judge you for being born as an angel would be... it wouldn't make me different from the people I'm scared about, would it."

"This is sadly what most of God's children do. Judge someone for being born differently." He forced a joyless smile. "I tried to protect the soul he bound me to a long time ago, by going away from Heaven, and looking for a way to erase my grace." He hesitated. "There was one time I brought attention to us, and when it could have had dire consequences. I used my grace to heal Norway, even though I knew it would leave a trace, that might attract either an angel, or a demon who knew who to look for."

Horknath let out a soft 'ah!'. "When we were hiding in the dwarves' mountain?" He reflected. "Then, was it you who drove all of them away from us, before we managed to fled?" He had always thought that fact had been quite suspicious, to say the least.

Castiel suddenly looked like a kid to whom you'd point out they just sort-of admitted that yes, they had done something they weren't supposed to. He looked away, but nodded. "I had to drive them away. I couldn't stand the thought of trapping you all inside that mountain just because I couldn't wait and see if Norway's wound could heal up on its own."