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I’ll watch over you.
He thinks about those words. The memory is distant, like something out of another life. And they echo of something even more far away.
Angels are watching over you.
That one. That’s another reality entirely. A promise belonging to someone else. Someone he will never be again. Someone he never really was.
No one’s watching him now, Dean thinks, the idea crystalizing. Everyone who ever did is dead or doesn’t give a damn anymore or has better things to do. The thought make him breathe in raggedly. The air fills his lung and brings him back to himself and the world around him. There is concrete cold against his back and the scent of gunpowder in his nostrils. The bunker’s firing range is deathly quiet, the echoes of his practice long faded.
It hadn’t helped. Shooting. The tight group of kill-shots on the paper target had given him no satisfaction or pride. The feel of his 1911 in his hand even now wasn’t a comfort. Booze wouldn’t work either. Every comfort is empty compared to the blade. But he’ll still try. The fifth of jack back in his room would be gone by midnight. Or maybe dawn, because he’s not sure if it isn’t already midnight.
There’s no clock here. And no one is going to tell him he should sleep. Or pretend to.
Because he is alone.
He breathes in again, only the second real breath in…how many minutes? He’s been doing that a lot lately: forgetting to breathe, letting the low hum and heat of the mark, of the need for the blade take over so that the world fades out. He looks at the gun in his and the scabs on his knuckles and he has no idea if he’s trying to drive the noise and the haze away, or increase it to a roar that will swallow him whole.
He doesn’t remember getting back to his room. Or when exactly the gun in his hand became a bottle. Half-empty. He knows that should scare the crap out of him. Or it would scare the crap out of someone else. If they were looking. Thank hell they’re not.
He lets his head fall back against his bedroom wall, trying to just breathe, to remember he’s human. Or something like that. The mark aches with an empty, hungry heat.
“Good thing you’re not watching me now, Cas,” he rasps into the stillness. Because it is good. He wouldn’t want to disappoint anyone any more. Especially the one idiot that’s always wasted faith on him. Wouldn’t want him to see the thing he’s become. Or is becoming. He’s falling. He knows it. Sam knows it for sure. He knew long ago and that’s why he let go. Why he looks, and maybe sees, but doesn’t watch.
The whiskey burns down his throat, a brief wash of reality, through the fog, through the buzz that doesn’t go away.
Funny how he used to get mad about nosy angels watching him all the damn time.
I’ve told you how weird that is, Cas, for chrisake…Dean’s mouth ticks up in the barest smile at the memory. Because who the hell has an ongoing argument with angel in purgatory about the angel watching the human sleep.
I don’t need to sleep. You do. I can make sure you’re safe. The memory of that voice is perfectly clear. Deadpan, matter-o-fact and a bit annoyed all at once. Completely Castiel.
I don’t need…Dean had always stopped there. Because say he didn’t need Cas would have been a lie and there was no use for lies in purgatory. He’d huffed and thrown up his hands. I still don’t know why you watch me and not, you know, the forest full of monsters.
You’re more interesting.
Seriously, man, that’s creepy.
A laugh, or some inbred cousin of a laugh, rattles from Dean’s chest as he remembers squinting blue eyes. Benny chuckling in the background.
“How messed up is that, Cas, happy memories of monster hell? Who knew those were the good times…” he mutters to himself.
It takes him a minute to realize the buzz he’s hearing isn’t in his head. His phone is lighting up on the nightstand. He pressed answer and hold it to his ear, not even questioning it.
“Dean.” The sound of Cas’ voice is the first thing in days that is absolutely real. “Are you alright?”
“You could hear me?” Dean croaks, a bit incredulous, but suddenly too tired and too…everything to really be alarmed. “I thought that…”
“You were praying to me, I always hear you.” God help him but Dean smiles; lopsided, broken, but a smile.
“Sorry if I woke you.”
“Angels don’t sleep, remember?”
“Yeah, I remember,” Dean sighs. His eyes fall closed in exhaustion as he leans back against the wall. “Aren’t you gonna ask why I’m drunk prayer dialing you?”
“No. I don’t need to.” There’s a silence, as Dean swallows down familiar shame. “I’m…I was glad to hear you, actually. It’s been a while.”
“Yeah, guess so.” It’s all another jumble of useless words and unspoken disgrace and longing. “I guess I figured there wasn’t much of a point if you couldn’t flap on over.”
“I know. I wish I could…” The weary frustration in Castiel’s voice in something new. “You have no idea how much I wish I could be there right now.”
“Better you’re not, really, I…I don’t want you to…” Dean can’t really get out the words, but he can’t stop them either. “I’m not me, I don’t feel like I’m…” his voice breaks and his face is suddenly hot. “I’m fading, Cas…I don’t know what…I don’t know how to do this… to say here.”
“Dean…” There’s so much in that word. So much and not enough. “I won’t let you disappear. Dean. Or fall or…go darkside or any of it.”
“What if it’s too late?” Dean asks in a whisper, whiskey and exhaustion loosening his tongue.
“I saw you in hell, remember? I raised you from that and you came back. You’ll get through this.” Dean wants to wrap himself in the words. Make them into solid things he can hold and cling to and return to in quiet and the dark. “I won’t let you fade.”
“Thanks, Cas…” Dean manages to rasp. “Will you just…stay on the line for a while, tell me about your day or something?”
“You mean you want to hear something boring enough to put you to sleep?”
Dean can hear the smile in Cas’ voice. It makes him chuckle too and just that is like a warm fire on a cold night. “Somethin’ like that, yeah. Is that okay?”
“It’s fine, Dean, I’ll stay on as long as you need,” Cas replies.
Dean lets out a sigh, nodding and sending out a prayer of thanks he can’t begin to put into words.
“It’s alright, Dean, I’ll watch over you.”