SPN Fic: Vesti la giubba
Jul. 14th, 2010 07:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sealieSupernatural story
Minific, set mid 5.21
+2500 words
Characters: Dean and Castiel.
Rating: Gen. I’d give it a PG to be on the safe side, if you disagree tell me and I’ll revise the rating.
Advisory: A bit of taking the Lord’s Name in vain is thrown into the mix with a soupçon of bad language. Also depressed angel and contemplations on loss – it is the apocalypse.
Klostes was kind enough to beta. Thank you.
This is completely indulgent. And, yeah, sorry flist -- not SGA or TS.
Vesti la giubba
By Sealie
Castiel refused to answer his phone. It rang practically constantly. He knew that he could switch it off, but he did not. Every time it rang, he twitched and that hurt. Jimmy had spondylosis in his neck, on the left side affecting the way that he moved. Castiel had healed it five times, but it kept coming back and it was getting harder to heal and now it would have to heal on its own.
The phone rang again, vibrating in his pocket. Just after he had purchased the telephone, the first time it had awoken, loudly chiming and vibrating, he had tripped and fell over. That had been a day of firsts: vibrating phones and tripping. He had skinned his knees on the pavement. It had been a pavement because he had been in Edinburgh, Scotland, Earth, not in a city in the United States of America, because if it had been a city in America he would have skinned Jimmy’s knees on a sidewalk.
Castiel didn’t need to answer the phone to know the message that Dean was screaming at the little lines and squares which recorded every angry word, every scared word -- words of sculpted by fear.
Wearily, he opened the palm of his hand. The little phone vibrated in a circle for the eighty sixth time.
Opening it, he finally said, “Hello, Dean.”
“Cas! Are you all right? Where are you? You didn’t take a car. I know you haven’t gone--”
“Where are you?” Castiel interrupted.
“Near the swings in Howard Park --” Castiel had enough information; the disconnect was loud in Jimmy’s ear.
In another time and place he would have stretched, unfurling his distal phalanxes, until his wings were lengthened to their fullest extent. The crack of bone and sinew would have set a visceral pleasure echoing up his spine. Castiel would have sprang up into the sharp, early evening air. Instead, he walked along the path to the park’s playground, striding past the many people walking in the opposite direction.
Dean sat on bench, leaning forwards, elbows propped on his knees as he gripped his phone, white knuckled. He didn’t acknowledge Castiel until the angel perched on the old, splintery bench.
“Are you okay?” Pocketing his phone, Dean turned sharply. Abruptly, he straightened from his angry slouch, reaching for the sore point marring the edge of Castiel’s eyebrow.
“You need--” Dean was frozen, two fingers a hairsbreadth from the freshly seeping wound.
“It will heal.” Slowly.
The fingers dropped, skimming, never touching, to hover over Castiel’s chest. The ropey lines of red scabs quivered. In the hospital the doctors had mentioned cosmetic surgery to prevent the formation of scars. A nurse had told him to rub vitamin E into the wounds. Unfortunately, while Castiel understood that vitamin E was essential to human health, he was unclear as to how he could apply it to wounds.
“Where did you go? What happened?” Dean broke his train of thought.
“I,” Castiel said with some satisfaction, “have been in a bar fight.” The bar fight had been brutal and bloody, but somehow extremely enjoyable.
“Bar fight?” Dean echoed.
Castiel set his own – Jimmy’s – hands deep into his trench coat pockets and thought that he smiled as he slumped on the bench seat.
“Jesus,” Dean said. Castiel did not feel like chastising him for his blasphemy. “You know, you can’t just head out and get yourself beaten up.”
“You yourself have been in many bar fights. I have counted five in the past year and you were hurt during three of those occasions. And, obviously, I was not beaten up.”
Dean huffed out a laugh. “Did you enjoy yourself?
Castiel contemplated the question. “In retrospect: no. My knuckles hurt. The pleasure of hitting someone is rewarding but ultimately it is transient.”
“Well,” Dean said sagely, “it depends on who you hit.”
Castiel contemplated this observation and could only agree. Dean narrowed his eyes and Castiel looked right back at him.
Dean was first to speak in the face of that silence, “I’m sorry about Gabriel.”
“Gabriel.” Castiel felt the distant, disaffected mantling of wings – this was neither the time nor the place to consider loss. “I think I felt him die.”
“We’ve got a plan, Cas.”
“What is it?” he asked neutrally.
“Put Lucifer back in his cage using the Horsemen’s rings.” Dean dropped back onto the park bench. “Gabriel told us.”
“That is why you wanted Pestilence’s ring? Rather than to remove the source of his power?”
Dean scratched at his eyebrow. Fascinated, Castiel watched him lick his lips, shuffle on his seat, until finally he said, “He left us a DVD – porno DVD – telling us how. Rings and shit. We have three now. Next stop: Death’s.”
“Death,” Cas marvelled at that utter foolishness of that endeavour.
Four children were playing in the boundary-limited play-area ahead of them. The two on swings were still striving to touch the sky. One on a seesaw was forlornly looking at the opposite, empty seat. The fourth, a scrap in the mind’s eye, crouched, contemplating the eight-legged scrabble of a brown spider building an impossible web between the gulf of struts on a climbing frame.
“Cas?
The park was green, all the different shades and variations from carefully mown carpet, to identical flower after identical flower in discrete bundles. Rowans; Hazels; Birches; Ash; an occasional Pine and stately Oaks grew tall – the park had been planted throughout 1857-1867 by a keen arboriculturist. David Davidson had been a devout man and had found his Faith in tending and nurturing garden woodland that one day would be available to all.
“Hey, Cas,” Dean said. “We’re in a park.”
“I like parks.”
“Yeah, parks are cool.”
“The ambient temperature is below that which is comfortable.”
Dean snorted involuntarily and then coughed. “Was that a joke?” he hedged.
Castiel let his head tilt to the side. “Perhaps? It is true, however. The sun will soon set.”
“Cas,” Dean said seriously. “I’m sorry that Gabriel is dead. He was a dick, but he was your brother and all.”
Sedately, Castiel sat on the park bench beside Dean. In fact, he sat upright, carefully widening his collarbones, drawing his shoulder blades down. The pinions of his tattered wings passed through the bench and soil beneath him. The roots of a tree crept through the earth beneath his vessel’s feet. The tip of his wing brushed a single tendril.
Two thousand years ago, he would have seen hair cells, membranes and xylem. He would have sensed the flow of liquid through phloem, plummeted deeply to touch the molecule dance of photosynthesis, osmosis and transpiration. Now he saw green trees in a park with a scattering of children and parents, and the flow of people heading north. Motes of pollen floated on the evening air. A sparrow darted from branch to branch in a tall fir.
“Cas?”
Castiel liked the Arctic. The air in the west coast of Svalbard was clean and dry. He had liked the way the bracing wind ruffled his feathers.
“Shit,” Dean grumbled under his breath slouching even deeper onto the bench, “Sam would be better at this. Maybe.”
^..^
What the Hell do you do with a depressed angel?
Discussing Gabriel was a non-starter, the fact of the matter was that Gabriel had been a little like Cas in that he had disobeyed and he’d been another angel on Earth. When Dean had told him that Gabriel had faced down Lucifer, Cas had simply left. Dean could only think that it was like finding out that you’d never get to know your big brother – an opportunity was gone forever.
“We do have a plan,” Dean reiterated.
A swell of discordant – well, Dean supposed that it was music -- filled the air. Cas jerked, startled. The scrape of notes clanged against each other. Cas turned unerringly in his seat to face the bank of trees from where the music crashed. The cessation of the racket was almost as shocking as the opening.
“Geez, what was that?”
“An orchestra tuning up,” Cas said.
“Give me Def Leppard, any day.” That must have been what the meandering couples -- mostly of the crinkly variety-- and groups of friends had been slowly moseying towards.
Dean knew what he liked when it came to music; his Dad’s tastes. He braced his shoulders against the imagined sound of Sam’s scathing commentary. The notes swelled again, this time falling together one after another. Behind the bank of trees, bright lights flared. Clapping immediately followed.
Castiel turned a perplexed look on Dean who shrugged.
“Some kinda open air concert, I guess?” he offered.
The clapping and hubbub died down. A voice, amplified by the sound system, welcomed the audience to the first performance of the Dakota Operatic Society presenting a medley of arias. Dean shuddered in mock horror.
“We better leave, Cas.”
“Why?”
“Opera!” Dean explained.
Violins and other stringy shit sawed against each other, followed by an incomprehensible voice moaning. Dean plastered his hands against his face.
“Can we leave?” Dean insisted.
Drums banged and the resonance throbbing in Dean’s gut. A deep but somehow high voice started with another batch of intelligible gobbledegook. Nails raked down the blackboard of Dean’s back.
“That is intolerable,” Castiel proclaimed and Dean felt the waft of his passage. Abruptly looking up, Dean expected to find that Cas had somehow found his wings, but no he was striding toward the bank of trees, coat tails flying.
“Cas?”
Castiel ignored him, heading unerringly in the direction of the noise. Dean watched open mouthed, before realising that that was an angel on mission and Cas on a mission was a scud missile on a trajectory of destruction.
Cas stalked behind the trees and Dean finally moved, running across the grass, breaking through the branches, pushing through shrubs to emerge on the other side.
“Desist!” Castiel bellowed thunderously, voice ringing across the audience before him, silencing the orchestra and lone singer on the stage. As one the audience turned in their seats to face him.
From behind, Dean saw Cas’ shoulders widen, the planes of his shoulder blades drawing down beneath the hanging trench coat. He inhaled slow and steady. Somewhere, someone huffed in a high nasally voice, ‘how rude.’ The poor dork on the stage shuffled.
“Recitar! Mentre preso dal delirio,” Castiel sang, deep and low and reverberant. The nascent complaints died an abrupt death.
“Non so più quel che dico,
e quel che faccio!
Eppur è d'uopo, sforzati!”
Cas’ voice was both light and strong, rising with strength and control. The crystal clarity of his song derailed Dean’s embryonic thoughts to drag the angel away.
The conductor stared and then jerked his stick at the orchestra. Raggedy, music plinked.
Cas’ voice soared. “Bah! Sei tu forse un uom?”
The orchestra found their place.
Amazingly, Cas laughed, but it was tinged with sadness
“Tu se' Pagliaccio!” The orchestra played cascading chords -- deep and sad.
Cas picked up, words of tinged with sorrow, rising and rising to one impossibly sustained note. His voice curved around the soaring music to a single perfect moment. A high point – a name Dean thought – and he held a note for a long breath before dropping back down, words tripping over one another to a single low tone.
“Vesti la giubba,
e la faccia infarina.
La gente paga, e rider vuole qua.
E se Arlecchin t'invola Colombina,
ridi, Pagliaccio, e ognun applaudirà!”
Dean didn’t know jack shit about opera and he knew that he couldn’t sing worth a damn, but he had perfect pitch. Cas was magical. No one breathed.
“Tramuta in lazzi lo spasmo ed il pianto
in una smorfia il singhiozzo e 'l dolor, Ah!”
The orchestra couldn’t predict his pauses and long notes; their music ebbing into silence. The conductor slumped, listening open mouthed. One sole violinist played into the evening light.
Cas sang, voice clear and painfully sad.
“Ridi, Pagliaccio,
sul tuo amore infranto!
Ridi del duol, che t'avvelena il cor!”
The final note drifted away, utterly bereft.
Cas was like a statue as the violinist continued playing. The audience watched with expectation but Cas stared at them, refusing to continue to perform. Dean brushed a track of moisture trailing down his cheek.
The lone, brave violinist played a final note letting it ebb into silence. Cas stared at the entire audience. They looked back. The violinist, tall and saturnine, stood up and he bowed in Castiel’s direction.
Cas nodded.
“Holy Cow,” Dean said as the audience stood up as one and clapped. “What was that?”
“That,” Cas said turning and stalking away, “was for Gabriel.”
People were moving. Conversations starting. The hubbub was rife with amazement. One dark suited man, who looked disturbingly like Zachariah was heading in their direction. Dean darted a glance at the creepy guy and at Cas’ retreating back. He stepped into his space, bringing the Zach clone to a stop.
“Dude, can I help you?”
“Who is he? Where did he train?” he asked trying and failing to step around Dean. “Does he have an agent?”
“None of your business. You’d never believe me. And never in a million years.”
He left the man stunned and darted after his angel. Jogging, he caught up with Castiel on the other side of the play area. His face was implacable as stone, his thousand foot stare focussed on the Impala parked on the far side of a picnic area.
“So, I guess you angels sing a lot or something,” Dean huffed as he jogged along
“Or something,” Cas walked through a clump of daisies scattering petals. He stopped dead and looked down at his feet. “Oh.”
Dean skidded to a stop two steps on and reversed. Cas was crouched trying to straighten the crushed stems.
“Angels like opera?” Dean asked, thinking it was normally about sad shit like stomped on daisies.
“It utilises the voice in ways which are pleasing. It is a mode of communication which is… rich and vibrant on many levels--” Cas peered up at him mutely, nose crinkling.
“There’s lots of stories about you dudes singing. But opera? Nah, normally its hymns and hosannas and shit.”
Castiel’s shoulders slumped. “Angels sing. The Host sings. We – they – sing. We – they – celebrate the Glory of God. And the music is eternal.”
Unless you die, Dean thought, darkly funereal.
“We rejoice in His creations. And we honour our brethren lost in battle.” Cas stopped trying to save the daisies.
“So that’s why you crashed a posh opera recital-thingy and blew their minds. Awesome. Gabriel would so be proud of you.” Dean offered Cas a hand.
Cas took it and let Dean pull him to his feet away from the frikkin’ daisies.
“Come on let’s get back to Bobby’s we’ve got planning to do. Yeah?” Dean towed Cas to the Impala.
“Yes." A very tiny smile flittered across Cas’ face as he followed.
fin
Luciano Pavarotti singing: Vesti La Giubba
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vesti_la_giubba
Minific, set mid 5.21
+2500 words
Characters: Dean and Castiel.
Rating: Gen. I’d give it a PG to be on the safe side, if you disagree tell me and I’ll revise the rating.
Advisory: A bit of taking the Lord’s Name in vain is thrown into the mix with a soupçon of bad language. Also depressed angel and contemplations on loss – it is the apocalypse.
Klostes was kind enough to beta. Thank you.
This is completely indulgent. And, yeah, sorry flist -- not SGA or TS.
Vesti la giubba
By Sealie
Castiel refused to answer his phone. It rang practically constantly. He knew that he could switch it off, but he did not. Every time it rang, he twitched and that hurt. Jimmy had spondylosis in his neck, on the left side affecting the way that he moved. Castiel had healed it five times, but it kept coming back and it was getting harder to heal and now it would have to heal on its own.
The phone rang again, vibrating in his pocket. Just after he had purchased the telephone, the first time it had awoken, loudly chiming and vibrating, he had tripped and fell over. That had been a day of firsts: vibrating phones and tripping. He had skinned his knees on the pavement. It had been a pavement because he had been in Edinburgh, Scotland, Earth, not in a city in the United States of America, because if it had been a city in America he would have skinned Jimmy’s knees on a sidewalk.
Castiel didn’t need to answer the phone to know the message that Dean was screaming at the little lines and squares which recorded every angry word, every scared word -- words of sculpted by fear.
Wearily, he opened the palm of his hand. The little phone vibrated in a circle for the eighty sixth time.
Opening it, he finally said, “Hello, Dean.”
“Cas! Are you all right? Where are you? You didn’t take a car. I know you haven’t gone--”
“Where are you?” Castiel interrupted.
“Near the swings in Howard Park --” Castiel had enough information; the disconnect was loud in Jimmy’s ear.
In another time and place he would have stretched, unfurling his distal phalanxes, until his wings were lengthened to their fullest extent. The crack of bone and sinew would have set a visceral pleasure echoing up his spine. Castiel would have sprang up into the sharp, early evening air. Instead, he walked along the path to the park’s playground, striding past the many people walking in the opposite direction.
Dean sat on bench, leaning forwards, elbows propped on his knees as he gripped his phone, white knuckled. He didn’t acknowledge Castiel until the angel perched on the old, splintery bench.
“Are you okay?” Pocketing his phone, Dean turned sharply. Abruptly, he straightened from his angry slouch, reaching for the sore point marring the edge of Castiel’s eyebrow.
“You need--” Dean was frozen, two fingers a hairsbreadth from the freshly seeping wound.
“It will heal.” Slowly.
The fingers dropped, skimming, never touching, to hover over Castiel’s chest. The ropey lines of red scabs quivered. In the hospital the doctors had mentioned cosmetic surgery to prevent the formation of scars. A nurse had told him to rub vitamin E into the wounds. Unfortunately, while Castiel understood that vitamin E was essential to human health, he was unclear as to how he could apply it to wounds.
“Where did you go? What happened?” Dean broke his train of thought.
“I,” Castiel said with some satisfaction, “have been in a bar fight.” The bar fight had been brutal and bloody, but somehow extremely enjoyable.
“Bar fight?” Dean echoed.
Castiel set his own – Jimmy’s – hands deep into his trench coat pockets and thought that he smiled as he slumped on the bench seat.
“Jesus,” Dean said. Castiel did not feel like chastising him for his blasphemy. “You know, you can’t just head out and get yourself beaten up.”
“You yourself have been in many bar fights. I have counted five in the past year and you were hurt during three of those occasions. And, obviously, I was not beaten up.”
Dean huffed out a laugh. “Did you enjoy yourself?
Castiel contemplated the question. “In retrospect: no. My knuckles hurt. The pleasure of hitting someone is rewarding but ultimately it is transient.”
“Well,” Dean said sagely, “it depends on who you hit.”
Castiel contemplated this observation and could only agree. Dean narrowed his eyes and Castiel looked right back at him.
Dean was first to speak in the face of that silence, “I’m sorry about Gabriel.”
“Gabriel.” Castiel felt the distant, disaffected mantling of wings – this was neither the time nor the place to consider loss. “I think I felt him die.”
“We’ve got a plan, Cas.”
“What is it?” he asked neutrally.
“Put Lucifer back in his cage using the Horsemen’s rings.” Dean dropped back onto the park bench. “Gabriel told us.”
“That is why you wanted Pestilence’s ring? Rather than to remove the source of his power?”
Dean scratched at his eyebrow. Fascinated, Castiel watched him lick his lips, shuffle on his seat, until finally he said, “He left us a DVD – porno DVD – telling us how. Rings and shit. We have three now. Next stop: Death’s.”
“Death,” Cas marvelled at that utter foolishness of that endeavour.
Four children were playing in the boundary-limited play-area ahead of them. The two on swings were still striving to touch the sky. One on a seesaw was forlornly looking at the opposite, empty seat. The fourth, a scrap in the mind’s eye, crouched, contemplating the eight-legged scrabble of a brown spider building an impossible web between the gulf of struts on a climbing frame.
“Cas?
The park was green, all the different shades and variations from carefully mown carpet, to identical flower after identical flower in discrete bundles. Rowans; Hazels; Birches; Ash; an occasional Pine and stately Oaks grew tall – the park had been planted throughout 1857-1867 by a keen arboriculturist. David Davidson had been a devout man and had found his Faith in tending and nurturing garden woodland that one day would be available to all.
“Hey, Cas,” Dean said. “We’re in a park.”
“I like parks.”
“Yeah, parks are cool.”
“The ambient temperature is below that which is comfortable.”
Dean snorted involuntarily and then coughed. “Was that a joke?” he hedged.
Castiel let his head tilt to the side. “Perhaps? It is true, however. The sun will soon set.”
“Cas,” Dean said seriously. “I’m sorry that Gabriel is dead. He was a dick, but he was your brother and all.”
Sedately, Castiel sat on the park bench beside Dean. In fact, he sat upright, carefully widening his collarbones, drawing his shoulder blades down. The pinions of his tattered wings passed through the bench and soil beneath him. The roots of a tree crept through the earth beneath his vessel’s feet. The tip of his wing brushed a single tendril.
Two thousand years ago, he would have seen hair cells, membranes and xylem. He would have sensed the flow of liquid through phloem, plummeted deeply to touch the molecule dance of photosynthesis, osmosis and transpiration. Now he saw green trees in a park with a scattering of children and parents, and the flow of people heading north. Motes of pollen floated on the evening air. A sparrow darted from branch to branch in a tall fir.
“Cas?”
Castiel liked the Arctic. The air in the west coast of Svalbard was clean and dry. He had liked the way the bracing wind ruffled his feathers.
“Shit,” Dean grumbled under his breath slouching even deeper onto the bench, “Sam would be better at this. Maybe.”
^..^
What the Hell do you do with a depressed angel?
Discussing Gabriel was a non-starter, the fact of the matter was that Gabriel had been a little like Cas in that he had disobeyed and he’d been another angel on Earth. When Dean had told him that Gabriel had faced down Lucifer, Cas had simply left. Dean could only think that it was like finding out that you’d never get to know your big brother – an opportunity was gone forever.
“We do have a plan,” Dean reiterated.
A swell of discordant – well, Dean supposed that it was music -- filled the air. Cas jerked, startled. The scrape of notes clanged against each other. Cas turned unerringly in his seat to face the bank of trees from where the music crashed. The cessation of the racket was almost as shocking as the opening.
“Geez, what was that?”
“An orchestra tuning up,” Cas said.
“Give me Def Leppard, any day.” That must have been what the meandering couples -- mostly of the crinkly variety-- and groups of friends had been slowly moseying towards.
Dean knew what he liked when it came to music; his Dad’s tastes. He braced his shoulders against the imagined sound of Sam’s scathing commentary. The notes swelled again, this time falling together one after another. Behind the bank of trees, bright lights flared. Clapping immediately followed.
Castiel turned a perplexed look on Dean who shrugged.
“Some kinda open air concert, I guess?” he offered.
The clapping and hubbub died down. A voice, amplified by the sound system, welcomed the audience to the first performance of the Dakota Operatic Society presenting a medley of arias. Dean shuddered in mock horror.
“We better leave, Cas.”
“Why?”
“Opera!” Dean explained.
Violins and other stringy shit sawed against each other, followed by an incomprehensible voice moaning. Dean plastered his hands against his face.
“Can we leave?” Dean insisted.
Drums banged and the resonance throbbing in Dean’s gut. A deep but somehow high voice started with another batch of intelligible gobbledegook. Nails raked down the blackboard of Dean’s back.
“That is intolerable,” Castiel proclaimed and Dean felt the waft of his passage. Abruptly looking up, Dean expected to find that Cas had somehow found his wings, but no he was striding toward the bank of trees, coat tails flying.
“Cas?”
Castiel ignored him, heading unerringly in the direction of the noise. Dean watched open mouthed, before realising that that was an angel on mission and Cas on a mission was a scud missile on a trajectory of destruction.
Cas stalked behind the trees and Dean finally moved, running across the grass, breaking through the branches, pushing through shrubs to emerge on the other side.
“Desist!” Castiel bellowed thunderously, voice ringing across the audience before him, silencing the orchestra and lone singer on the stage. As one the audience turned in their seats to face him.
From behind, Dean saw Cas’ shoulders widen, the planes of his shoulder blades drawing down beneath the hanging trench coat. He inhaled slow and steady. Somewhere, someone huffed in a high nasally voice, ‘how rude.’ The poor dork on the stage shuffled.
“Recitar! Mentre preso dal delirio,” Castiel sang, deep and low and reverberant. The nascent complaints died an abrupt death.
“Non so più quel che dico,
e quel che faccio!
Eppur è d'uopo, sforzati!”
Cas’ voice was both light and strong, rising with strength and control. The crystal clarity of his song derailed Dean’s embryonic thoughts to drag the angel away.
The conductor stared and then jerked his stick at the orchestra. Raggedy, music plinked.
Cas’ voice soared. “Bah! Sei tu forse un uom?”
The orchestra found their place.
Amazingly, Cas laughed, but it was tinged with sadness
“Tu se' Pagliaccio!” The orchestra played cascading chords -- deep and sad.
Cas picked up, words of tinged with sorrow, rising and rising to one impossibly sustained note. His voice curved around the soaring music to a single perfect moment. A high point – a name Dean thought – and he held a note for a long breath before dropping back down, words tripping over one another to a single low tone.
“Vesti la giubba,
e la faccia infarina.
La gente paga, e rider vuole qua.
E se Arlecchin t'invola Colombina,
ridi, Pagliaccio, e ognun applaudirà!”
Dean didn’t know jack shit about opera and he knew that he couldn’t sing worth a damn, but he had perfect pitch. Cas was magical. No one breathed.
“Tramuta in lazzi lo spasmo ed il pianto
in una smorfia il singhiozzo e 'l dolor, Ah!”
The orchestra couldn’t predict his pauses and long notes; their music ebbing into silence. The conductor slumped, listening open mouthed. One sole violinist played into the evening light.
Cas sang, voice clear and painfully sad.
“Ridi, Pagliaccio,
sul tuo amore infranto!
Ridi del duol, che t'avvelena il cor!”
The final note drifted away, utterly bereft.
Cas was like a statue as the violinist continued playing. The audience watched with expectation but Cas stared at them, refusing to continue to perform. Dean brushed a track of moisture trailing down his cheek.
The lone, brave violinist played a final note letting it ebb into silence. Cas stared at the entire audience. They looked back. The violinist, tall and saturnine, stood up and he bowed in Castiel’s direction.
Cas nodded.
“Holy Cow,” Dean said as the audience stood up as one and clapped. “What was that?”
“That,” Cas said turning and stalking away, “was for Gabriel.”
People were moving. Conversations starting. The hubbub was rife with amazement. One dark suited man, who looked disturbingly like Zachariah was heading in their direction. Dean darted a glance at the creepy guy and at Cas’ retreating back. He stepped into his space, bringing the Zach clone to a stop.
“Dude, can I help you?”
“Who is he? Where did he train?” he asked trying and failing to step around Dean. “Does he have an agent?”
“None of your business. You’d never believe me. And never in a million years.”
He left the man stunned and darted after his angel. Jogging, he caught up with Castiel on the other side of the play area. His face was implacable as stone, his thousand foot stare focussed on the Impala parked on the far side of a picnic area.
“So, I guess you angels sing a lot or something,” Dean huffed as he jogged along
“Or something,” Cas walked through a clump of daisies scattering petals. He stopped dead and looked down at his feet. “Oh.”
Dean skidded to a stop two steps on and reversed. Cas was crouched trying to straighten the crushed stems.
“Angels like opera?” Dean asked, thinking it was normally about sad shit like stomped on daisies.
“It utilises the voice in ways which are pleasing. It is a mode of communication which is… rich and vibrant on many levels--” Cas peered up at him mutely, nose crinkling.
“There’s lots of stories about you dudes singing. But opera? Nah, normally its hymns and hosannas and shit.”
Castiel’s shoulders slumped. “Angels sing. The Host sings. We – they – sing. We – they – celebrate the Glory of God. And the music is eternal.”
Unless you die, Dean thought, darkly funereal.
“We rejoice in His creations. And we honour our brethren lost in battle.” Cas stopped trying to save the daisies.
“So that’s why you crashed a posh opera recital-thingy and blew their minds. Awesome. Gabriel would so be proud of you.” Dean offered Cas a hand.
Cas took it and let Dean pull him to his feet away from the frikkin’ daisies.
“Come on let’s get back to Bobby’s we’ve got planning to do. Yeah?” Dean towed Cas to the Impala.
“Yes." A very tiny smile flittered across Cas’ face as he followed.
fin
Luciano Pavarotti singing: Vesti La Giubba
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vesti_la_giubba
