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Stand behind me the one time I ask.
That sentence has been running through Dean’s mind for days now, spoken in that deep voice he’s come to know so intimately. He’s torn. The one time I ask. And Cas hasn’t asked, never before, has never demanded anything but what Dean willingly gave in the first place, and yet.
And yet he can’t bring himself to give in. There’s too much at stake, too much to lose, and if Dean has to sacrifice his heart for it, then- well, it wouldn’t be his first. It’s in his blood, he thinks, thinks of his brother, his father, what they gave up. It’s in his very DNA.
Shaky fingers reach for the leftover Johnny Walker, a smooth swallow burning its way down his too-tight throat. The quiet of the motel room is a welcome change, though he’d never admit it out loud. Sam at the library, Bobby too busy for phone calls, Cas… not here. The one person he wouldn’t mind basking in the quiet with, and he’s not here.
Dean scoffs, brings the bottle back to his lips. Might as well silence his mind while he’s at it.
The sound behind him makes his heart stop for a split second, blood rushing to his ears and making them ring. It’s a sound he could put to paper with how familiar it is, a sound he’d recognize in the darkest depths of hell, at this point, a sound that nowadays sends him into a spiral of heat and cold.
“Hello, Dean.”
He closes his eyes as he takes one more sip, doesn’t turn around, won’t give him the satisfaction.
The motel couch, albeit dirty and probably best not to be sat on, is soft beneath him, making him feel like he’s sinking in. He wishes he could.
Another sip, back still turned to his unexpected visitor.
“I see you aren’t scared of me.”
A scoff, no humor, all poison.
“Do I have a reason to?”
If there’s one thing that can be said about Dean Winchester, it’s that he has never been able to hold his tongue. If there’s one thing that can be said about Castiel, it’s that he knows that, is using it to his advantage now.
Bastard.
Dean has more love for him than his body can hold.
Slow, sluggish steps take Cas to where Dean is sitting, and they’re measured, careful, in a way Cas hasn’t been in a long while. He used to be, in the beginning, treating Dean as if he was something breakable, until Dean showed him that, if anything, he is the one doing the breaking.
Dean smells fear like a bloodhound, sinks his teeth in, doesn’t let go.
Castiel’s hesitation makes Dean’s blood boil, but he stays put.
“I’d never hurt you.”
“You already are!” comes Dean’s booming voice, and he squeezes his eyes shut at the onslaught of regret at his outburst.
Weak, pathetic.
“Dean,” Cas says, voice faint, and Dean knows. He knows what Cas is trying to say. He knows that he can’t.
There is no other way for this to go, and where he won’t budge, Cas refuses to, as well.
Dean gets up, then, inhales deeply before turning around, facing swimming ocean blues and feeling his throat click.
“Will we come back from this?”
“I don’t know, Cas,” he says honestly, hates himself for his inability to tell a lie that would soothe them both right now.
Castiel averts his eyes, blue turning to grey, thunderous. Dean wishes it were different. They both do, he knows.
As if having made a decision, Cas straightens himself up, locks his gaze onto Dean and walks around the couch to stand before him. He’s a smidge shorter, a tad narrower, the perfect size to be Dean’s. He can’t look away, for the life of him he can’t stand his ground and take a step back, not when he doesn’t know how, when, if-
Cas’ hand finds a stubbled cheek, and the warmth of his palm feels like home.
Dean reaches up and lays his hand over the back of Castiel’s, closes his eyes.
“Baby,” he murmurs, just a breath, just loud enough for Cas to hear, face moving to press his lips against calloused skin. “What’re you doin’ to me, baby, huh? What’re you doin’ to us?”
One slash after the other delivered to a warrior heart, he knows, but he can’t help it. It isn’t him, this time. It’s out of his control.
“Can’t you understand why I have to, Dean?” Cas rasps as his thumb strokes over his bottom lip, just once, and Dean feels like his whole body is on fire from that touch alone. “Not even a little?”
“No.”
It’s resolute, absolute, and it drains him to the bone.
Suddenly, he wishes he could push it all away, freeze everything around them and just breathe for one second, goddammit, haven’t they given enough? Don’t they deserve this, at least?
A moment passes, then two, spent breathing the same air.
“I thought you got injured tonight.”
It’s a weak attempt at changing the topic, the meaning of what is happening to them looming over their heads and threatening to suffocate them. Dean thinks about calling Cas out on it, but he’s just so tired. He wants to be selfish.
“Nothing I can’t handle,” Dean says, holds Cas’ hand in both of his and adorns those capable fingertips with pecks of his lips. Selfish. “You?”
Cas’ smile is so small that it might as well be a trick of the light. Bitter.
“You know I’ll be fine, Dean.”
A small step brings Dean chest to chest with Cas, and from here, he can see the bags under his angel’s eyes, the subtle downward tilt of his mouth that seems to simply be a part of his face these days. He sees the despair in his gaze, and he feels overcome with the urge to soothe, to fix. Despite his best efforts, Dean will never not want to fix, even if it wasn’t him who broke it.
“Can you promise me that?” he rasps and takes Cas’ face in his hands, tilts it up so he’ll look at him. “Hm, baby?”
The way Cas is looking at him, full of broken longing, makes his chest ache something fierce, grappling with the love he feels and the anger that’s been consuming him these last few days. It’s hard to get past this, go back to how it was before, go back to being them.
“No,” Cas sighs at last, eyes darting to Dean’s lips before meeting his gaze again. “But I have to try, Dean. I have to.”
Dean feels childish tears burn behind his eyes, feels petulant, feels like grabbing onto Castiel and not letting go. Feels like hurting him some more to keep him from the real pain of the outside world. Knows he can’t, the angel’s made up his mind.
“Just come back to me, okay?” Dean rasps, lets one lone tear fall as he presses his lips to Cas’ forehead, leaves them there for a beat. “No matter what, you come back to me, and we’ll figure it out, you hear me?”
Full lips meet his, that molten mouth opening up to coax his tongue out to play, deep and biting and loving in a way only they can make it, and despite everything, Dean feels a hot pull in his gut. Grabs those hips that have his fingerprints branded into them, pulls his lover closer.
“No matter what,” Cas whispers against his mouth, “I’ll come back to you.”
***
He doesn’t.
He doesn’t come back, not to Dean, not to heaven, not at all.
He walks into the water reserve and all that’s left of him is his dirty trench coat that washes up on the shore, right into Dean’s hands. Dean keeps a brave face in front of Sam, in front of Bobby, but once he finds himself alone, he all but trashes the motel room they’re staying in. Cas’ coat, dry now but smelling nothing like him, becomes Dean’s most prized possession, something Dean holds onto for the days the straws become too thin to grasp at.
He drives the Impala far away from anything he knows, parks her at the edge of an empty field, and brings his most favorite bottle to his lips. The familiarity of it replaces something else, something desperately wanted.
Dean is used to praying to Cas. It’s a habit he doesn’t plan on getting rid of.
“I wish I could’a carried you that last stretch,” he whispers to no one in particular, whispers it to the one he hopes can listen, wherever he may be now. “I would’a undressed you, baby, would’a bathed you clean. All that dirt on you, would’a- would’a made sure my baby’s nice ’n proper. I wish I’d gotten to- to kiss you goodbye. Lay you to rest, give you a- a hunter’s funeral, just like you deserved.” A sob escapes from deep within his chest, shaking his lungs. “Deserved so much more than this, Cas, fuckin’ hell… God, why?”
Head tipped to the sky, tears streaming into his hair, he asks himself when it’ll end. Dean knows grief like he knows the soles of his feet; it’s there, at all times, never looked at too closely, always carrying him through life in a strangely comforting way, not knowing what it’s like without it, not wanting to find out.
He’s never known pain like this, though, so all encompassing, stealing the breath from his lungs and rendering him paralyzed. When he catches a whiff of Cas’ scent on a worn shirt, when he looks behind himself and doesn’t see the presence that’s had his back for what seems like his entire life, when he wants to let somebody see him for once but there’s nobody to look. There’s nobody to look, not anymore.
Dean lets liquor run down his throat to prevent the bile from rising up, and begs the skies to have mercy on him, to bring back what’s rightfully his.
***
“How about we take a vacation, huh? Just you’n me.”
Cas huffs out a breath, a warm smile overtaking his face. Hopeful in the face of disaster around them, but Dean will take it. Will take anything as long as he gets to keep Cas by his side.
It’s been a lifetime, it seems.
“Where are you taking me?”
Cas turns, facing him, cheeks so adorably rosy from extortion, startingly human-like. Dean brings a hand up and strokes that cheek, gentle, gentle, so careful after everything his baby’s been through.
He almost forgets the question, will never have another answer than, “Wherever you want, baby. Say the word and I’ll take you there.”
“I don’t care,” Cas settles on, tired eyes on Dean, “as long as I’m with you.”
Feeling his skin again, getting to hold his strong body, kiss that messy hair and breathe in that clean, fresh scent- blessings from a heaven he stopped believing in a long time ago. Dean won’t ever take it for granted, plans on savoring it until the moment his last breath leaves his body. He burrows closer into the sheets, tangles his legs with Castiel’s, drives a hand down the knobs of his spine and settles it in the arch of that gorgeous back.
The past few hours were spent kissing and licking along that skin, watching droplets of sweat run down that masterful slope, disappearing to the place only they know each other best, nobody else who ever has, nobody else who ever will.
“Baby,” Dean sighs, tongues into the mouth he’s claimed years ago, reverent, pulls away, “I’ll take you to the edge of the world and over, if that’s what you want. Just say it, baby. Say it. C’mon, Cas, say it.”
“Dean,” Cas moans, lets Dean get at his throat and lavish it with marks they both wish were marrow-deep, “Take me. Take me away, Dean.”
The spot on Dean’s skin where Castiel’s touch was immortalized pulses with their every thrust.
***
It’s a love letter to old rock, to the sun high in the sky, to an endless stretch of road and the purr of his Baby next to the purr of his baby.
Angels do that, sometimes.
A smile so blinding Dean thinks he’s seeing the Gates up close, eyes so blue Dean feels like drowning in them, calm and ready for it.
“This what you wanted?” Dean asks, turns the volume down a tad, eyes switching between the road and his Castiel.
Cas nods, serene.
“It’s different up here,” he smirks, as much of a joke as he’s able to make, and it makes Dean bark out a carefree laugh. “You don’t reckon Sam will want to switch from time to time?”
Dean smacks his teeth, chest warm with laughter.
“’m afraid not, baby. But hey, y’know what?” Cas looks at him, tightening his hand around Dean’s, waiting. “When it’s just us, the front seat, right here next to me? All yours.”
Cas grins wide. It’s a rare sight, that happiness in the lines of his face. Dean wishes he could bottle it up, keep it forever, but until that is possible, he’ll be working tirelessly to keep that glint in Cas’ eye.
“Promise?”
“’a course. Anything you want, Cas. Anything.”
It’s a love letter to a life well lived, to uncertain tomorrows but euphoric todays, to the magic sound of an old cassette, a love so big it fills heaven above and the oceans below.