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This might be one of the quietest car rides of your life, you consider as your mother pulls up around to the side of the bunker, coasting inside the garage and barely even bothering to park until you’re three inches from a support column. There’s not much space for it anyway, but you don’t care, just as long as you’re here. For the entire trip back from Colorado, it’s been nothing but the hum of the engine and occasional sighs, mostly from Castiel, and the antsy rattle of his foot against the floorboards. He may be quiet, but he’s restless, brimming with an energy even Mary and Sam can probably feel.
If they did on the way back, they never mentioned it, or even bothered to look in his direction once they reached the Kansas state line. There’s not too much to say at this point, anyway; Billie is dead by Castiel’s hand, Mary put a gun to her head, and you were planning to put yourself on the stake just to save your family, all in front of the ones you care for the most. Your life doesn’t matter in the long run, really—just as long as everyone else lives and you don’t ever have to see that cell again, then all is right with the world.
But you’re home now—home, trapped in walls of blast proof concrete and hidden behind more sigils and wardings than strictly necessary. It’s reminiscent, but it’s not the same, not entirely. Your bed is still where you left it, your desk rifled through but everything put neatly back in its place. Someone’s been sitting there, though, the chair left pulled out and cocked towards the bed, probably within the last few days, based on the fine sheen of dust beginning to collect. Your cellphone is gone, and for once, you don’t care; at least this way, if someone calls, you can’t hear it.
Outside of your closed door, footsteps pass, socked feet and loafers and tennis shoes all blending into more noise than you’ve heard in weeks. Even the shower earlier was a revelation, transgressions and more than enough filth washed away under the steady spray. Admittedly, you’ve gone longer between washings, but this felt even more like solace, just being able to stand there with the water beating down on your face, white noise in your ears and warmth against neglected skin.
But it’s night now; nearing one in the morning, based on the clock hanging near the door. Night brings with it quiet and solitude, aside from the heater kicking on through aging vents and the soft wanderings outside. Even as you climb into bed and lay underneath the blankets—actual sheets, not military surplus left over from some past war—the anxiety still plagues you, ingrained deep into your soul. It’s not the same, you tell yourself, rolling onto your side and fisting the pillow; Sam’s here, Mary’s here, Castiel…
Maybe he’s here; you haven’t exactly talked to him since you got home. The first thing he did as soon as the car was parked was rush from the backseat and head inside, unseen for the rest of the night. Wherever he is, he’s pissed and taking it out on himself, his words still rattling in your head. He killed a reaper tonight, solely to save you and Sam and your mother, solely because you’re all important to him. But somehow, hidden in those words, you know who he was trying to stop.
You were planning to die there tonight, and he wouldn’t have it. The look he gave you before the bridge said it all.
Curling in closer, you lay there in the dark, absently flexing your fingers into the pillow at your side, like it’ll do anything but lie there. The noises stop somewhere around two, the heater shutting off until its needed, Sam and Mary long since gone to bed. How they’re faring, you don’t know. Hopefully better than you are, with your shivering limbs and hastened breaths. Sweat beads your brow, and suddenly the room is too tight, too hot.
There might be some pills in the bathroom to knock you out; they probably won’t work, but they might be worth a shot. At least something to ease the gnawing ache in your chest and the overwhelming urge to pass out the minute you stand. Thankfully, you’re able to pull yourself from the bed and walk on your own two feet out of the room, down the hall towards the communal showers.
Water is already running from inside, from what you can hear. Either that, or your ears are ringing again, this time in a constant barrage of pitter patters on white tile. It should give you pause, make you think about possible intruders—but you haven’t seen Castiel for a while, and based on the coat and jacket hanging on the rack by the door, he might be here.
In the far corner stall, Castiel sits with his forehead resting on his bent knees, hands interlaced over his head as the water pours down on him, his clothes soaked through to the skin. Water runs between his toes and down the drain, and faintly, you can see his hands shake, knuckles white where he grinds his fingers into them. “Cas,” you whisper, just loud enough to be heard over the shower. He doesn’t answer you, just continues to worry his hands until they’re raw. He probably thinks he deserves it, after all. “Cas,” you repeat, louder now.
“Leave,” he says, an order despite how weak it sounds.
All your life, you’ve been the one to follow commands by the letter, but now, you can’t help but disobey. He doesn’t speak when you seat yourself at his back, nor does he move when you rest your forehead against his shoulder, your hands in your lap. Unless he says something, unless he reaches back and finishes the job you started, you won’t move. As much as you need someone to hold onto, he probably needs it more, some sort of affirmation that he’s being listened to, or at least acknowledged.
“Thank you,” you murmur. Castiel doesn’t bother to even give a response. “Know it don’t mean much comin’ from me, after all the shit I’ve put you through, but… I thought you should know that.” You stop, listen to the sound of water pouring over you, soaking through your shirt and your boxer briefs; right now, you can’t even bring yourself to care. “You can’t blame yourself for this, Cas. What happened, that was on me. It’s never been you.”
“Yet you dragged me into it,” Castiel accuses; he tenses underneath you, and just barely do you keep yourself from reaching out to grab him, fist your hands into his shirt, just to feel something other than yourself. “…Sometimes I wonder what my life would’ve been like if I never met you. If things would’ve been different. If you would’ve rotted in Hell while I never heard your name. Your existence… changed me. Ruined me. Do you know what it was like, not knowing if you were alive or dead, where you were?”
Yes, you want to tell him—every time you’re gone, every time you’re not close.
“I tried to hunt,” Castiel confides, letting out a sigh that nearly deflates him at his core. “I tried to fill the void, thinking, what would Sam and Dean have done? But I couldn’t even do that. I’m not you, yet… I’ve become you. One of you, at least. I feel things, Dean, things you know all too well but I’ve yet to even fathom. I feared for your life.” He stops and finally lowers his hands, lifting his face to the shower spray long enough to wet his cheeks. “I spent every day, every minute here thinking, listening for your call. I sat at your desk, in the library, anywhere, waiting, trying to remember your face, your voice.
“And I thought, what if they killed him?” Castiel’s laughter, hollow as it is, hurts to even listen to. “What if I never saw you again? What if, watching you disappear through those doors, was the last I’d ever see of you again?”
“But you found me,” you say; at last, you give into the urge and wrap your arms around his waist. He fights at first, but falls into it when you rest your cheek against his nape. It’s the most contact you’ve had since your arrest, Castiel’s warmth radiating through sodden clothing and flooding your veins. It takes him a while, but he eventually covers your hands with his own, threading your fingers together against his stomach. “Trust me, I wanted… Every thought I had in there, everything… I wanted to get out. Hell, I needed to, just to…”
You swallow, attempt to collect yourself. For six weeks, you’ve been silent in every capacity. Now, everything is loud, almost deafening, your heart beginning to thud against your ribs. “I meant it, when I said it was worse than hell.” Castiel makes a noise at that, a low growl in his chest. “Nothing. For days, just… nothing. I walked down every damn road in my head, trying to figure out how I got here, where I went wrong in my life, and I figured… If I could make it stop, if I could get out and just end it, then I’d finish it. I woulda done anything, Cas, I couldn’t take it.
“…And I couldn’t even say goodbye.” That’s the most damning thing of all. You’ve been to the ends of the earth together, every realm of existence, every impossible situation—and you couldn’t even tell him goodbye to his face. “Guess if I let you down one more time, I might as well go down without a fight.”
For a long while, Castiel is quiet, his head bowed while you sit there, entwined; his hands knead yours, drawing warmth back into your fingers where the water cooled them. “You’re an idiot,” he eventually says; you shouldn’t laugh, but you can’t stop yourself. “You’re a… fucking moron, to think I wouldn’t care. You were the one who instilled this in me, these feelings. Do you think in any capacity, that I wouldn’t mourn your death until the universe itself ceased?”
You huff, press your nose to his shoulder. “Least then, I’d stop hurting you.”
There’s a blur of movement after that. Somehow, Castiel disentangles you and hurls you onto the shower floor, thankfully cradling your skull before he slams you down. With ease, he straddles your waist and fists the slick tiles, anger in his bloodshot eyes. He’s been crying—and you’re the reason. You made him cry, you scold yourself—you made an Angel cry. “You’ll always hurt me,” Castiel growls, low in his throat; water drips from his hair into your cheeks, falling into your hairline. “You’ll always hurt me, and I’ll always take the pain if it means I can see you again. But I won’t be your sidekick anymore. I won’t play second fiddle and let myself be thrown to the side, just because you don’t want to see me hurt.
“What you’re doing, when you leave, that’s the worst of all.” With an unsteady hand, he grips your shirt over your heart, wringing it in his hand. “I don’t want to lose you again. I never…”
“You won’t,” you say, soft in contrast to the way he touches you, like he wants to burrow in your chest and never let go. “You just gotta stay. You gotta promise me you’ll stay. You’re…” It’s not dripping water that streams from your eyes, pools into the crease of your nose; you pay it no mind. “You’re the only thing I got, Cas. You gotta believe that. You’re… You’re everything to me.”
Somewhere hidden in his kiss, in the fingers in your hair and the hand now pressed firmly to your breast, you know he feels the same. He said it before, how he won’t let you die, how you’re the most important thing to him, in all of his existence. You just have to trust him. You have to love him, as he does you, and you have to never let him go again. Keep him always, close to your heart, close enough to have this again.
To never watch him leave.
“Don’t lie to me,” he hisses, a stray tear falling from his eye, mingling with your own. “Spare me if you don’t feel the same.”
“I need you,” you answer, a hand to his shoulder, creeping up to his nape, the back of his head. His eyes slip shut, brow pinched; you kiss between his eyes until he softens. “Thank you,” you whisper. “Thank you,” you say between kisses, to his eyes, nose, lips. “Thank you.”
“Save me,” Castiel begs.
You kiss him again, drink in his very soul with ease. He’s been there all along—you just have to accept that. Think of him before you act. Think of your family, what they would feel if you were to die. Think of him, you tell yourself.
Think of him. Feel him. Love him with all you have, love him until your heart stops.
“You’re worth it,” you tell him, drawing your arms around him tight, until you’re draped on the floor together, drenched. “Worthy,” you praise, until he buries his nose into your neck.
Love him, you tell yourself. Love him until he’s all that’s left, and even then, don’t stop.
Never stop.