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seraphic-elysian · 3 months

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@foolondahill17 have my attempt at the prompt you put about Dean sprinting to Cas. It's not perfect and I ended it without a resolution as I wanna write this as a whole ass fic but I really wanted to share this with you since your idea inspired the hell out of me. ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ It happens in a moment. A heartbeat trapped between the milliseconds of time. Dean turns in the loose grip of his brother’s hands, green eyes trained on the golden crack of light that splits their world open to another, waiting for the sign of his angel. His heart is racing within his chest, adrenaline keeping him sharp and steady, as he waits with bated breath for his angel to emerge through the light. The image of Castiel stalking toward Lucifer as Sam pulls him to the portal is burned into his eyelids. He knows that it is almost a sickening parallel of the way that he had pulled Sam from his burning apartment all of those years ago but he can only pray that Castiel will not be killed. That he will not have to suffer the same agonizing heartbreak that Sam did when Jessica died. He refuses to entertain the thought of something happening to the angel, of him dying or being hurt while in the other world. That will not happen.

It cannot.

Dean steps close enough to the portal that he can hear the rushing of the wind and smell the heavy scent of gunpowder on the breeze. It pulls at his clothing in a tantalizing lure, a promise of taking him to where his angel is, but he refuses. He will not step back through the portal and waste the safety that Castiel had given him.

Sam’s voice is nothing but a gurgle of noises behind him but he does not need to hear him to understand what he is saying. Dean knows that he is too close to the portal for his brother to feel confident that he will not go through it to find Castiel. He knows that he becomes irrational and impulsive when his angel is in danger. That he has, in the past, openly let others be hurt and killed if it meant that those he cares about will be safe. Dean also knows that he has a history of suicidal tendencies, of throwing himself in front of others to take a hit or killing himself to trade someone else's life for his own, and that Sam has been witness to him doing that several times. And while he is aware that he would not hesitate to end his life if it meant that the angel would return safe and alive, he does not feel the need to do so. Not right now.

“Don’t be stupid, Dean! Cas is capable!” Sam nearly screams the words to him, voice only barely heard over the rushing noise in Dean’s ears.

And of course he is. Dean knows better than anyone what Castiel is capable of and how strong and intelligent the angel is. But even having the knowledge of that will not stop him from worrying about him. It will not stop him from desperately trying to keep the angel by his side where Dean is able to keep him safe.

After all, how can anyone act normal and as though the world is not on the verge of ending when the living personification of their heart is facing off against an archangel?

The portal flares a brilliant gold that burns his eyes and Dean’s breath leaves his lungs in a shaky exhale as Castiel appears in front of him. There is blood stained along his trench coat, his black curls are covered in dust, and his face is streaked with dirt but Dean has never seen anything more beautiful. Exhausted blue eyes meet his own and something that Castiel sees on his face makes the angel’s brows furrow and him to step closer to Dean. They are close enough that he can feel heat radiating off of the angel and the exhalation of his breath ghosting across his face and, for the first time, Dean does not step back or snap at the angel. No, he only sways forward as he is captured by Castiel’s orbit. He surrenders to the feelings that he has in his chest, this desire to put himself out there and show the other how he feels.

“D-”

Castiel cuts himself off as an angel blade pierces through the bottom of his chest with a sickening squelch. The shining metal is clean as it slides through the angel’s body without resistance before it is yanked out violently. Crimson stains his white dress shirt and Castiel’s grace flares brightly through the gaping wound. Dean is moving before he can think, arms gathering the angel against his chest as he sags, and pressing his hand against the bleeding wound on his back. He does not see where Lucifer goes as the angel saunters off but he knows that Sam will watch his back. Something heavy and soft curls over his arms and back, engulfing him in the scent of honeysuckles and wildflowers, but when he looks there is nothing there. The smell of Castiel’s grace slowly begins to turn acrid as his grace begins to burn and Dean collapses to his knees.

“Get away,” Castiel whines, weak hands pushing against Dean’s chest, “I can’t hold it back anymore. Get away!”

Dean shakes his head and tightens his grip on the angel, “No!”

A whine escapes Castiel’s throat as the light flares up brighter and hotter, escaping from his mouth and eyes. The invisible objects that he feels against him heat up rapidly, searing his skin even through his clothing, and the heat and light reaches its apex in a wave of agony before it shatters. A pained howl leaves his lips as fire scorches him, consuming him in a decimating blaze that he cannot escape. His eyes burn even through his closed lids and he turns his face away from the sharp explosion of light. It seems as though it takes forever before it clears, taking the scorching heat with it, and Dean weakly lays Castiel’s body down. He presses his forehead down against the soft cotton of his dress shirt as he processes the hell that he just went through.

Castiel is dead. There is no denying that, not after what he just experienced. The angel is gone in a shattering of holy light and the smell of scorched feathers. His shaking fingers come up and tangle in the rough wool of the trench coat as he raises his face, desperate to see confirmation that Lucifer has murdered Castiel. He needs to memorize the pattern of his beautiful wings that will be burned into the dirt of this little home. Sliding his eyes open slowly, he sees…nothing. An unending wall of bright white light fills his vision and does not leave no matter how much he blinks or shakes his head. He panics, sucking in a startled breath, body freezing in fear at the implications of what this means.

Turning his head toward where he remembers his brother standing, he asks, “Sam?”

“What the hell were you thinking, Dean!” Sam’s voice is rough with anger as he stomps up to where Dean is kneeling, “You know what happens when an angel dies. You’ve fucking seen that happen so many times! So, what the hell were you thinking being right at the center of that? Didn’t you think for a second about what that would do to you?”

“It’s Cas, Sammy,” his excuse sounds broken as it falls through his lips. He is in agony, arms and back still burning from the blaze that had licked across his skin, “I couldn’t just-”

“How many times has he died before and you’ve stayed back from it? How many times has he been killed like this and you’ve not put yourself at the center of his grace exploding?” Sam is yelling now, anger making him sound almost terrifyingly like John, and Dean feels far too vulnerable here on the ground, “I don’t even know how we’re going to heal that. Or if we even can. Fuck, Dean, we didn’t need this on top of everything else!”

He takes Sam’s anger without question or complaint. He knows that he messed up and that he injured himself right when they are about to be dealing with Lucifer. He knows that his vision being gone, however temporary this is, will make him a vulnerability and a liability. It is now completely up to Sam to be able to defend not only himself but Dean as well.

“I should be able to see again in a few days,” he responds once Sam pauses to take a breath, “We just have to lay low inside of the Bunker until then. I know I messed up, Sammy, okay?”

“You can’t see?” Sam is suddenly in his space, calloused hand gripping his chin tightly, and Dean stifles a flinch. His head is tilted back and forth and he feels his brother messing with his eyelids. It is incredibly uncomfortable to not be able to see what Sam is doing but he knows that he is in safe hands, “Is it just blurry or is it fully gone?”

“I can’t see anything,” he admits as Sam wipes something off of his cheek, “it’s nothing but white.”

Sam sucks in a startled breath, hands stilling against his face, before he moves and cleans off his other cheek. “Okay, I…I didn’t realize that you were blind.”

“Then what were you talking about?”

Sam does not answer right away and Dean huffs in frustration. He hates not being able to see his brother’s face and be able to read him. He has always relied on the fact that Sam is an open book to him, that he rarely hides what he is thinking and feeling, and now having that taken away from him makes him feel as though he is lost at sea without a life raft.

The trench coat is warm within the grasp of his fingers but he forces himself to release it, to smooth it back into place despite the shake in his hands. His palm presses against the flat expanse of Castiel’s chest and something inside of him burns at the fact that he cannot feel his heart beating or the rise and fall of his chest. That he can feel the heat dissipating from his body, leaving it cold and empty. There is something within the cavern of his chest that feels just as hollow as the body in front of him, something along his soul that screams at the idea of Castiel being gone, but he can do nothing about that. There is no cure or bandage that can heal a broken heart.

A hand lands on his shoulder and he flinches away from it violently, “What the fuck, Sam?”

“You know how angel wings are burned into the ground when they die?” Sam asks gently, continuing when Dean nods in confusion, “Dean…Cas’s wings aren’t…they…they’re burned into your skin, dude. From the back of your hands, up your arms, and across your back to either side of your spine.”

“But I’m wearing clothes,” Dean argues weakly, “How could they have burned through that?”

His brother exhales shakily, “Couldn’t his wings phase through things like that?”

The fingers of his right hand skirt over to his left, drifting across the back of it, and a pained noise leaves his lips as his skin flares up in red hot pain at the touch. He shakes his head, refusing to accept what Sam is telling him. There is no way that he is carrying the shadow-burn of his angel’s wings on his body. He is not holy enough, not good enough, to carry the image of that burned onto his skin.

Castiel deserves to have something more than Dean Winchester acting as a living tombstone.

"Come on, let's get you cleaned up," Sam's hands grip his elbows and pulls him to his feet, "Once we do that, we can get Cas and Kelly ready to be put to rest."

Dean grabs onto his brother tightly, resisting the guiding hand that is pulling him toward the house. He does not want to leave Castiel lying here, alone, on the dirt. There will need to be a pyre and Castiel's body will need to be prepped for that but he does not think he has the strength to leave him. Not anymore.

"I can't," His voice catches in his throat, "Sam, I can't leave him."

He can see the furrow of Sam's brow in his mind as his brother responds, "Why not?"

"I love him," it falls from his lips like water, easy and free-flowing, "I love him so much I don't know how the hell I'm able to breathe. I can't just..."

"Okay, yeah, I get it," Sam answers, "How long have you...?"

Dean tries to smile but it pulls at his face wrong, lips twisting into more of a grimace. He turns his face toward the ground and welcomes the white void that consumes his vision. It is much easier to be able to be this open with his brother when he is unable to see his facial expressions.

"Years," he exhales heavily, the word nothing more than a whisper on the breeze.

Sam does not answer him but he does help Dean back onto the ground by his angel's body. His hands are warm as they squeeze his elbows once before removing them.

"Let me go get the stuff to prepare his body, okay? You can do it here and I'll handle Kelly."

"What about Jack?"

Sam huffs, "I have no idea what we're going to do."

"We raise him. We give him the childhood we didn't have. He chose Cas as his father and I'm not going to abandon his child just because his sperm donor is Satan himself." Dean tells him, "We educate him, we tell him about the spooky shit and about the stuff that lurks in the dark. We make sure that he's able to handle himself if he ever winds up on a hunt."

"And we tell him about Cas."

He nods, hand reaching out until it lands on Castiel's arm, "Yeah, we tell him about Cas."

Sam leaves him then, footsteps trailing off toward the house. Dean is left in the dirt, surrounded by the sound of waves lapping at the shore of the lake and insects buzzing around him. It feels wrong, to experience this peaceful moment while he kneels at the side of his fallen person. Castiel should be here. He should be the one that teaches Jack about humanity and the world around them. He should be the one to choose what, if any, of the hunting world that Jack learns. He should teach him about bees and flowers and the names of the constellations in the sky.

He should be here, raising the child that he loves, instead of it falling to Dean.

But he is not. He is dead, killed because he ensured that everyone got to safety. And now it is up to Dean to raise Jack.

He spends the next hour gently cleaning Castiel's body with the warm water and cloths that Sam brought him. The dirt and blood is washed from his skin as best that Dean can while his vision is gone before Sam helps him wrap and secure his body in a soft fabric.

Together, they lift his body between them and Sam guides him to the pyre, leaving him to lay Castiel down inside of it alone. The angel is heavy in his arms and makes his wounds radiate agony as they are agitated but he does not care. There will be time for him to heal, for his wounds to be cleaned and bandaged. But not right now. Not when he is resting the love of his life inside of a tomb made of wood, waiting for him to be set ablaze.

The fire is hot on his face as he stares unseeingly in the direction of it. Jack and Sam are on the other side of the pyre, talking quietly to each other, and Dean wishes that he had the strength to go join them. To find comfort in knowing that they are mourning for the angel together. He could go to them, he knows that, but if he moves from this spot he is not sure that he will be able to keep himself from shattering. The reality of Castiel being gone has not fully hit yet and he knows that the moment the fire burns down, the moment that the only thing left of Castiel is the feathers burned into Dean's skin and the ashes on the wind, that he will he consumed by grief. That the only thing he will be able to feel is the hollow void in his chest that signifies that his angel is gone.

"Can I stay here with you?"

Dean flinches at the soft voice that speaks, turning his head in Jack's direction. He does not respond to him, too afraid that he will say something he does not mean or begin to cry if he does, so he nods his agreement. The kid steps closer to him and his hand slips into Dean's. He takes in a deep breath and squeezes that hand gently, leaving them clasped at his side.

"He loved you," Dean tells him hours later when the fire has died down to almost nothing. Sam had stepped away to handle something some time ago so it is only the two of them left by the angel's side, "You should have your parents here to raise you. You shouldn't have to grow up without them."

Jack is silent for a moment before he speaks, "I have you."

"Yeah, kid, you do."

"He loved you, too," Jack tells him, as though those words do not sends spiderweb cracks along the wall holding his emotions back.

He stays quiet, unable to respond even if he desired to, and they stand there together until Jack tells him that the fire is gone.

Today he will kneel in the ashes of his lover's pyre, gathering the remains of him with clumsy hands, as their child holds the glass jar steady for him to put the ashes in. He will seal up that jar and cling to it for the several hour long drive it will take for them to reach the Bunker.

And, when he is led to his room by his brother, letting him sit the jar down upon his nightstand, Dean will finally allow himself to break.

#destiel #dean winchester #castiel #fanfic #spn #ficlet #sam winchester #jack kline #angst #major character death #major character injury #tw blood #Castiel's Wings #shitty writing #I really need more than three hours of sleep #I wrote this after having an urge to go fist fight god #though I'm ready to fist fight tumblr too since it keeps messing with my posts

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