Title: The Guilt of Still Being
Chapter: Four
~~~~~~~~~~
Their relationship wasn’t healthy. Risa knew it and she was pretty sure Castiel knew it, too. Actually, they didn’t really have a relationship as such, merely a parasitic push and pull of their mutual needs, both needs magnified enough by the circumstances to be desperate.
He needed sex to help bury his pains. All of his behavior, from the drugs and alcohol, to the out-of-control sex was part of an elaborate coping method for the depression and self-hate he felt. Those things made him feel good, even for minutes, so he’d done them as much as possible to keep the good feelings going.
Still did them.
Funny how she’d not realized it before, that why of his behavior.
No, not funny, she thought. She’d never really spent enough time with him before to think about why he did what he did. Now she was confronted with it every hour of every single day.
One hint that she might not comply with his wants and he became aggressive, angry. A hint that he might leave her there alone and she was the one aggressive and angry. During the days that passed, they went through many passive-aggressive cycles. Push, pull. Up, down.
What have we become, she thought. What are we on the way to becoming?
They both knew it was happening and neither really cared as long as their needs were met. It was a selfish existence and not the partnership she’d had vague ideas of when they’d left the camp together. Risa couldn’t honestly say that much of what had happened between them was what she’d expected to happen, for it wasn’t. The sex, yes, but the unhealthy love-hate entanglement? The weepy clinginess she’d displayed recently? She’d turned into a woman she hardly recognized at all, a woman that wasn’t what she’d thought herself to be.
Risa’s pre-Apocalypse self would have been horrified to see her now, trading sex for Castiel’s promise of staying another day or two, manipulating him with tears and a few words designed to bring about guilt. She had a feeling that his pre-Apocalypse self also would have been horrified by his behavior. He’d told her that he was far different before than what he was now.
Though her curiosity was high as to just what kind of man he’d been then, he refused to answer her, changing the subject. He claimed it wasn’t important, that he’d become something he’d never thought he’d become and there was no going back to what he’d been. Risa found that tiny word compelling. What. Not who he’d been, but rather what. He said the word like it meant something integral to him that was gone, a fundamental piece destroyed. Castiel didn’t give her the answers she wanted and her musings on what he’d meant by that wording never got anywhere at all.
What had he been?
Time passed, the days melting into each other until Risa couldn’t say just how many days had gone by. The weather grew colder, the sky bleak when she braved going outside. It rained a lot, the water icy, sometimes turning to sleet and hail. She’d listen to it and chew at her thumbnails, wanting the company of other people besides Castiel in the most desperate of ways. She’d dreamed of other people finding them so many times now that it was occasionally a surprise when she looked around and remembered it was only the two of them there.
They both spent a lot of time sleeping, pressed together for warmth under layers of blankets, either on the bed or before the fire.
One good thing was the generator. Castiel managed to get the generator working, however they only used it for short periods. They were both afraid the sound would draw Croats.
She selected a book from one of the many piled in Bobby Singer’s house. He’d had more than they could read now in a lifetime. It didn’t really matter what she picked. Reading out loud was merely a diversion to pass the time, like the card games, and other games they played with each other. Risa sighed and carried it downstairs and into the panic room. She settled down on the floor by the door and began to read, glancing every so often at Cas.
He was getting jittery, tapping his feet and fingers, squeezing his hands into fists, rubbing his hands up and down his thighs. His gaze had quit being so calm most days and she could tell his thoughts were running at a hundred miles a minute in his head.
Castiel’s easy calm was fading.
She wondered which drug he’d taken in the camp was the one he’d been addicted to. Or was it even that? Surely he would have displayed withdrawal symptoms earlier than this? Then again, he’d had plenty of various pills until recently. Maybe he’d just run out and that was why that calm was disappearing.
Maybe being inside constantly was wearing on him. She knew it did on her. There were times when she wanted to run outside and to hell with caution; where she craved sunlight on her skin, or the breeze. Even the frigid rain would be welcome.
She thought that being in the camp had been better in that they’d been able to get out of their cabins and walk around with little fear of attack. They’d been able to take a walk just because they wanted to and practice all those skills Dean had wanted them to have. Perhaps it would have been better to have stayed there after that disastrous mission. Perhaps they should have stayed and she should have followed him into his cabin, downed a few pills and laid down with him and the others, letting herself fall into death’s waiting arms while cradled in Castiel’s arms. He would have held her if she’d wanted him to and then it all would have been over.
Risa quit reading. This diversion wasn’t working. He wasn’t paying attention to the words and neither was she. Risa couldn’t remember what the pages even said. The tension in the air between them was thick, growing thicker in the silence that fell. That tension was going to have to break somehow.
He needed a break.
Risa needed a break. She needed some action from him to remove those thoughts from her head, at least temporarily.
Her glance strayed to the bed. The sheets were twisted, one of the blankets half on the floor.
She needed him to be her escape. Not pills, or booze. Him.
“Why’d you stop reading?” Castiel’s voice was gruffer than usual, with a sullen, hard edge to it. He leaned his head back against the wall behind him, exposing the column of his throat. While he’d let her trim his hair with scissors they’d found, he hadn’t shaved since they’d left the camp, that stubble he’d always had growing into a wild, unkempt beard. There was something dangerous about him, she decided. He looked ready to really snap this time.
In another time, she would have gotten the hell out of that room, slammed the door and locked it from the outside until that air of danger slipped away. Now though? She stayed right where she was.
“Are you okay,” she asked, with far less caution than she logically knew she should employ. Reckless. She was being reckless and she didn’t care as long as she could make this moment all about forgetting her own dark thoughts.
“Peachy.” He stared at her, head still tipped back. His brows rose. “Why wouldn’t I be? I’m living in a small room with very little in the way of food and amenities, waiting for the end of the world to come. I have few pills, no booze left, and a woman who chose me only because I was there. My life right now is perfect.”
Risa snorted. “There’s no need to be snarky about it.” She marked their place and set the book aside, knowing full well they were going to re-read to that point later and probably not pay attention to what it said then either.
His chuckle was amused and the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. “Maybe being snarky is all I have left. I mean, you’re certainly not the ideal conversationalist these days.”
The words hurt, as they were intended to. They’d never run out of things to talk about, always managing to find one more thing they’d not discussed, but he was spoiling for a fight now, the glint of anticipation in his eyes. “I suppose you’d rather it was Dean here with you,” she retorted, drawing one knee up and resting an arm on it. They didn’t mention Dean much anymore, or the camp. He’d grown especially touchy on the subject of Dean.
“Sure.” He looked at her straight on. “Except I couldn’t screw Dean like I do you. Couldn’t give myself to him in the way I do to you.” Castiel shrugged. “He wasn’t interested. Turned me down. You want to hear about that, Risa?”
“No.” She didn’t want to hear a confirmation of what she’d come to suspect Dean had meant to him.
“You sure? You don’t want to know how I tried to give Dean all of me, every last bit -- emotional, physical -- and he slapped me down and shoved me away? He locked me out, wouldn’t let me close, kept me at arms length when I needed affection. It didn’t even have to have been physical. Just some affection. I would’ve taken anything and he didn’t give it. Maybe he couldn’t by then.” Bitterness made his voice harsher than it already had been. “Or how about that I loved him every way I possibly could even after that moment?”
“Stop,” she told him. “Don’t --”
“Come on. Don’t you want to understand? I know you’re curious. Everyone in that camp was curious about us and how we were connected. Why did I stay if I was so damn miserable and why did Dean even bother with me? Why, why, why? Why were we sometimes like brothers and other times like complete strangers? He hated what I’d become and I hated what he had. It was mutual. We ignored what we hated and held on to what we still liked about each other. We both ignored a helluva lot.”
“It’s not my business --”
“Yes, it is. It affects you. Let me tell you about how I did my best to stay alive because even though he didn’t love me the complete way I wanted, I still loved him and knew he needed me alive. That’s why I stayed and why he bothered. Dean needed me to live to remind him of everything that had happened and everything he should have done to stop it. He needed me to be a visual reminder that an angel even fell from heaven for him.”
Angels falling from heaven? Risa couldn’t follow that part of his words, couldn’t make them make sense. She knew Lucifer had fallen, but that was a very long time ago. What other angel was he talking about? What angel had fallen for Dean? Why was Castiel a reminder of that? She wasn’t understanding something she knew she should be able to and it frustrated her.
“He didn’t love me really, but he needed me regardless. I lived for Dean….” He licked his lips. “Now I live for you. That’s how it affects you, Risa. I should have been released when he died, but I transferred myself to you. I gave myself to you. It was a very human thing to do at that moment, I think. I’ve given you everything and you’ve taken it all, even what Dean refused. Especially what Dean refused. How does that feel? You’ve taken and accepted what Dean never did.”
She swallowed hard, unable to look away from his eyes.
“I’m yours now, Risa, and in a way I was never Dean’s.” A noise left his throat, half sigh, half groan. “Being human hurts. It’s a painful thing to become. It’s a terrible state. I don’t recommend it. Emotional pain, physical pain…. It’s a bunch of pain that needs to be escaped.”
To become? What was he talking about? People didn’t become human, they were born that way.
“I lost what I was because of a choice I made, a choice for Dean, and in the midst of dealing with what I became, the man who helped me through that and treated me almost like an extension of himself at times shut me out.” He moved into a crouch. “I expressed my depth of feeling in the only way I’d figured out how, with loving touch and a willingness to share all of me, even my body, and he rejected that. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
She could hear the tears building inside him by the thickness of his voice, but then he cleared his throat and shifted his weight on the balls of his feet, his focus shifting. A possessive light flickered in his eyes. His breaths were loud and almost labored.
“You gave me your body, Risa. I’ve given you that and everything else. I’m yours now and you….” He had a feral look about him, hair uncombed, beard unkempt. “You’re mine and I want what’s mine. Now.”
He was going to tackle her, wrestle her to the floor, and reaffirm that statement. Risa could see the intent in his eyes and in the way his body tensed, ready to push forward. “You don’t want to do this, Cas.”
“Yes, I do. And so do you.”
“I don’t,” she denied, but even before the words left her lips, he was slowly shaking his head, his reply said in a silky tone that made her gut clench.
“I know you now, Risa, like you know me. Did you think I didn’t know you were studying me all this time, trying to figure me out? I’ve done the same with you. You like it this way. Dark.” He moved slowly towards her. “Hard and fast. You can scream and fight and let out all those frustrations. It excites you. It’s what you need.”
“It’s what you need.”
One brow shrugged. “Mutual needs fulfilled. Isn’t that what we’ve been doing all along? Filling our needs, accepting each other, claiming each other…living for each other. Come here.”
“If I say no?”
“I’ll just come get you.” He licked his lips, a slow movement of his tongue, as though he was already anticipating the taste of her. “Come here,” he repeated.
Risa pushed herself to a standing position. She took a unhurried glance at the open door beside her, knowing it would goad him forward. “No,” she told him.
He launched forward, pinning her to the wall, his mouth ravaging hers. Her shirt was ripped open, the buttons popping off, tiny pings on the floor. It was just as dark and exciting as he’d said she desired until they heard the noises from outside the house. In a single second, all desire fled, replaced by genuine fear. Castiel drew back, gaze turning to the open door beside them. He stepped away from her slowly, head cocking and eyes narrowing as he listened, hand raising to wipe away the trickle of blood from his lower lip. Either she’d bitten him or the pressure of their mouths together in such a hard kiss had caused one of them to bleed. She wasn’t certain which.
The noises outside weren’t careful, they were determined. Someone knew they were there and was trying to get in.
He reached for one gun and headed out the panic room and up the stairs. Risa tried to remember if the barricades on the doors were all in place and couldn’t. She tied her shirt tails together to close the ruined shirt and followed him with another gun.
She looked out of the peepholes they’d created and saw three people out there, two women and one boy, their clothes dirty and streaked with dark smears that could be blood or something less sinister. They didn’t say anything. No conversation or noises, only a focus on the door. They were relentless, kicking, pounding, ramming it with their bodies. Risa’s hands shook as she readied herself to shoot.
~~~~~~~~~~
His reaction to the Croats at their door was not what Castiel had expected. He’d expected panic, or maybe fear, but there was neither. He wanted to open the door and tear them apart with his bare hands. They were threatening what he had here and while it wasn’t a lot, it was his. It was his and he refused to let them take it away. “Get downstairs,” he whispered. “Get in the room and lock it.”
“No,” she backed from the door. “I’m staying with you.”
The barricade fell, the door opened, and Castiel’s vision went red as anger spilled forth from him.
He watched himself as though outside his body, saw himself shoot the three invaders and keep shooting until Risa stopped him.
“Cas…. They’re dead.”
“I have to make sure.”
“They’re not breathing anymore. They’re dead.”
He dragged the bodies outside the rest of the way. “Keep an eye on them,” he told her and stepped towards the side of the house.
“Where are you going?”
“To make sure they didn’t bring friends.” Quietly, he crept around the outside of the house. He saw nothing out of the ordinary, heard nothing, and though he waited, no more Croats came running at him.
They took care of the bodies, then returned to the house, fixing the door and the barricade.
He was tired the rest of the day, drained of energy. He couldn’t think straight and when they finally went to bed for the night, he made sure the panic room door was barred from the inside before sliding into the bed with Risa and finding solace and pleasure in her arms.
The attack was a sobering experience and he supposed they were lucky it had only been three of them.
Time marched on, their supplies dwindling away despite a careful rationing of everything. Sioux Falls ceased to yield the things they needed and Castiel wasn’t surprised by that. He’d hoped it’d sustain them for a very long time, but that wasn’t the case. It no longer had the food and medicines. Or if it did, they couldn’t find them.
There were choices at this juncture, logical ones. They could go further and further out in their searching, wasting precious fuel and chancing running out before making it back safely. Safety would be fleeting, as they’d have to simply keep moving further from home base every time until they wouldn’t be able to make it back at all. They could wander around like nomads, moving from one spot to the next, scrounging once more, putting their safety on the line every hour of every day. They’d waste fuel in futile searches and never know what safety was ever again.
Cas didn’t want to. He was done. Finished. Kaput. He felt empty now, an emptiness so complete that he didn’t even care anymore if Risa was there or not. His possessive streak over her had fled. It didn’t matter if she was his or he was hers. Nothing mattered. Sex held no appeal, nor did anything else. He’d lost all pleasure in anything and wondered if this was what Dean had felt. Was the emptiness inside him now the same sort that had consumed Dean? He knew he could go through the motions if he had to, but he didn’t want to. Even holding on for Risa wasn’t enough.
This existence was miserable and he wanted off this ride.
He watched the desperation grow in Risa’s eyes and on her face as she tried to tempt him into any sort of action and failed. She cried a lot now, sobs nearly constant. She was afraid and Castiel had no comfort left to give.
With a sigh, he looked around the panic room, gaze finding the last pill bottle remaining, the one he’d set aside just in case things ever got to this point. He wanted out. Now.
Maybe if they’d both had someone to follow things would have been different, but leading themselves? They were no Dean Winchester, singly or together.
Castiel reached for the pills.
~~~~~~~~~~
Risa heard the pills rattle in the bottle and turned in time to see Castiel pop open the top. “What are you doing?” It was the last bottle of pills he had, one he’d brought from the camp and the same pills he’d admitted giving to the people in his cabin.
“What does it look like I’m doing?” His voice was very calm and low, matter-of-fact.
Risa watched him shake out pills, count several out, and take them one by one before recapping the bottle. “Puke them up,” she told him.
He sighed and shook his head. “No.”
“Yes. Do it.”
“No.”
“Cas, please.”
He tossed the bottle at her. She caught it in a reflexive movement. “Why should I? What’s left, Risa? We’re out of almost everything and what we’re not out, we nearly are. We’ve scrounged and scavenged the area and there’s nothing left. There’s not going to be anything anywhere.” He laid down on the bed, placing one arm behind his head. “The end has come. Let us go in peace.”
She knelt by the bed, touching his arm. “Please,” she whispered. “Don’t leave me alone. I’ll do --”
“What? You’ll do what? You’ve already done everything. Everything and anything I could ever want. It’s not enough anymore and it’s not your fault. Not your fault at all. I’m tired, Risa.” His hand raised, fingers sliding along her cheek in a soft caress. “There should be enough pills there for you. I’ll move over and make room.” He shifted on the bed. “A better way to go than starving to death, or the alternatives. Take them and join me. We’ll hold each other all the way out.”
She sat there holding the bottle, watching the flicker of pleasure on his face as his eyes closed and he stopped talking to her. The lines of strain on his face eased. Risa cried silent tears and opened the bottle, looking down into it. Maybe he was right.
I can’t be alone, she thought. Please.
If she didn’t take the pills, she would be. She’d be all alone. He was leaving her.
She licked her lips, shook out several pills and took them with the last of the water in the glass he’d used. Her hands trembled as she set the glass and pill bottle down and laid beside him. She tried not to think about what she was doing, about what the action meant. It was just a couple pills. All she was doing was helping herself to fall asleep.
Castiel made a noise in the back of his throat. Risa put her head on his chest and waited for the drug to pull her under.
The drowsiness started a short while later and Risa sighed, then frowned a little, raising her head a fraction.
She heard something outside and then there was a crash as one of the doors upstairs was forced open.
Croats. They’ve found us again. Shouldn’t take them long to come down here and find the door open.
The thought didn’t alarm her, not like it should have. Very soon, she wasn’t going to be feeling anything at all.
But the sounds next were careful noises: slow footsteps, the cocking of a gun -- of several guns, and finally voices. Clear voices. It was the sound of the uninfected gradually clearing a location. It dawned on her in slow degrees. After all this time, help had arrived. Where had they been? Why hadn’t they come sooner?
She rolled from the bed, her body uncooperative, the dizziness and urge to sleep overwhelming her. Castiel mumbled something unintelligible behind her. Risa stumbled to the open door and through it, falling hard, trying to use the door to catch herself and failing. She crawled, fighting to stay awake.
I won’t die, she told herself. Not today.
At the foot of the stairs, she tried to make herself vomit and while she succeeded in nearly silent, soft choking sobs, it didn’t help the sleepiness. The drug was dragging her under.
No, please, no.
Risa forced herself halfway up the stairs and stopped, grabbing at the railing and missing, her body swaying. She licked her lips. “Help,” she tried to say, her lips mouthing the word and no sound coming out before she couldn’t fight unconsciousness any longer.
She didn’t feel herself fall down the stairs.
~~~~~~~~~~
Jo Harvelle swept through the upper part of the house with her team, moving carefully. They’d already dispatched two Croat nests today from Sioux Falls, another would be a record for one day. She hadn’t planned to search Bobby’s house, but with an obviously recently used truck out front and the sound of the generator running, she’d thought it prudent to look for survivors while they were there scrounging parts. The truck was locked and looked fairly clean on the inside. There was someone here somewhere and it was better they were cautious. They’d had run-ins before that were nearly disastrous.
While the house had that shut-in musty smell, there were other scents beneath it, of wood smoke, lamp oil, soap, and cooked food. There was evidence that people were there besides that. The living room was cleaned, blankets laid out before the fireplace, and drops of water still in the kitchen sink. She tried the faucet, water pouring from it with a twist of the tap. Someone was definitely living here.
“Jo?”
“Yeah, Tom?”
“Upper levels are cleared. All that’s left is the basement. Got some noise from there a minute ago.”
She nodded. “Alright. Let’s do it.”
The basement light was on.
Stretched out at the bottom as though she’d fallen was a woman. Jo started down the stairs. The sour stench of vomit made Jo’s nose wrinkle. It smelled fresh. Bending, she and Tom checked the woman.
“There’s a pulse,” he said. “Weak, but there. Dislocated shoulder. Looks like maybe her left wrist and forearm are both broken.”
“Okay. Put a doc on her, move her if you can.”
Jo moved to the open panic room door. The room was lit by one bulb and in a sweeping glance she noticed several things. There’d been an attempt at making the room comfortable and homey. Blankets, pillows, chairs, a rug laid on the floor. Jo noticed shelves with neat piles and stacks of things. There was a lone man on the bed. Jo stepped forward and raised her gun.
“You on the bed! Identify yourself!”
A weak groan answered her, the man rolling his head on the pillow to face her. His eyes remained closed. Despite the wild beard and loss of weight that had put hollows in his cheeks, she recognized him.
“Oh my God,” she whispered. “Castiel.”
She went to him, doing a quick check of his pulse, then turning her head. “Tom! I need another doc in here! Now!”
Castiel’s pulse was alarmingly slow, like the woman’s was, and Jo quickly located the bottle of pills beside an empty glass. She held it up, reading what the label said. If they’d both overdosed…. She pocketed it for the doctors to look at if Cas and unnamed woman lived to get back to the base and knelt by the bed, fingers touching Cas’s face in comforting sweeps she wasn’t even sure he could feel.
“Hang on, Cas. Just hang on, okay? Help’s here, sweetheart.”
She wondered if they could save him or if he was too far gone already. She hoped it was the former.