Work Text:
Dean screams
He screams, and cries, and begs whatever nonexistent God that might be out there.
Dean is straddling the waist of the stiff body underneath him, cupping the lifeless face of one of the only damn friends he'd ever had.
"Cas you stupid son of a bitch! " Dean shouts, voice breaking in a way he's never heard it before.
This hurts, because he knows this is it. There's no coming back from this.
"Cas...Cas...Cas," Dean whimpers, leaning his forehead down to rest on the angel's own cold forehead.
And all of a sudden Dean can't breath, sobs are ripping out of him with such force that he collapses completely on top of the body under him.
Dean allows hot, salty tears to stream down his face as everything finally catches up to him.
The Mark of Cain.
The brother who never loved him.
Heaven.
Hell.
Abbadon.
Metatron.
And now this.
He'd lost it all.
Dean breathes heavily, his entire body shaking and tingling and hot and just overreacting.
Dean's clothes were charred and burnt and covered in Cas' blood from when he'd held Cas in his arms and watched his already slow breathing come to a complete stop, and felt something burning his skin.
Dean clawed at the earth; digging up handfuls of dirt and squeezing it between his fingers, the dirt burning under his nails, uprooting chunks of grass in a desperate attempt to cling on to something, to feel anything.
Dean sat back up and smacked Cas across the face as hard as he could, hoping that by some miracle, physical violence would bring him back.
Dean felt like a part of himself had been ripped out, torn away from him. Cas had said him and Dean had a profound bond, and now that bond is severed and Dean feels cold and alone and empty and afraid.
Cas' last words to him had been pained but stern, commanding words
"I need you to be good, Dean. I can see your soul, you are good. Deep down, you're good, and you can fight this, Dean,"
He didn't.
He couldn't.
He wasn't.
He was poison, always had been, and the only difference now was that he'd finally let it overtake him.
Years later, when people dared to question the red, painful looking, feather shaped welts that covered Dean's torso and arms, he'd just chuckle bitterly into whatever alcoholic beverage he was guaranteed to be drinking and say
"It's all dust in the wind, my friend. Dust in the wind."