[Fic] Evil Begone
Rating: T, for foul language and violence. Grotesque kind of violence.
Summary: There are two benches in the playground, and this is where everything's supposed to begin between them. [Dean/Castiel]
Note/s: Written for iu_fanfiction's 30th Challenge // prompt: Supernatural. Prompt for the show, lol-- okay I kid, it's more than that. So much more.
-
There are two benches in the playground.
One might think, but those are, in reality, more in quantity than what’s given, but there are only two in this narrative, two that are relevant to what’s supposed to be happening in the present, and in the future. An angel sits on the first bench; a man sits on the other. Castiel has just arrived; Dean has been seated there for a while now.
And this is where everything’s supposed to begin between them.
-
There is something humane with the way Castiel sits, with the way he drags his intense gaze on the slightly marred monkey bars, the slides, the swings, and then to the children manning them, playing them. Dean isn’t sure if it’s already there before, if it’s already been that way from the start, but he simply doesn’t blame himself for not noticing immediately. It’s quite a nice change, that, but he can’t decide whether it fits the angel, or whether the touch of humanity, even the barest of it, should suit Castiel in general.
The air shifts around him, and it’s cold, it’s merciless, and even the laughter the children makes can’t prod at it, prod at it and make it go away, or warm it up, at least. Things don’t work that way, not for him. Not for the Winchesters. Not for what-fucking-ever relations they had, have, will have.
It’s the second time he visits this playground, just because he needs time to think things through, just because he needs time to think about nothing and everything, and everything else in between. Sam used to do most of the thinking between them, but this time Sam has enough weight to shoulder, has enough to ponder away, and he can’t risk dumping his worries on his brother.
So he searches for a substitute. It’s easy; it’s a rule of life. He needs an outlet; he needs something- anything- to ease the burden he’s carrying.
He releases everything on Castiel.
He calls bullshit on angels; he calls them heartless dicks and sons of bitches. Castiel doesn’t even flinch, doesn’t even twitch, and every time Castiel tells him, in that otherworldly, angelic way of his, to stop blaspheming but he can’t help it.
Of course Castiel won’t retort. Castiel is, after all, an angel, and angels are dicks in his vocabulary, and he isn’t any different from them.
Except for the way he sits, now looking at him nonchalantly but with meaning.
-
The third time he ventures into the playground, Castiel is already there on the bench, his head tucked forlornly in his hands. It’s probably the first time the angel has emitted so much emotion, and it’s the closest thing Castiel has acted to being human.
So far.
Castiel lifts his head and looks squarely at him, hiding no emotions whatsoever. But even in his state, the angel technically has nothing to hide; it’s not like they’re- or at least, Castiel is- proving his theory wrong about them being heartless sons of bitches (God included). Not yet.
And Castiel is the most terrible liar he’s ever met his whole life, angel or not. And this, this Castiel sitting in front of him, a barely-recognizable look of resignation written on his face- this isn’t supposed to be affecting him. This isn’t supposed to be something he should start mopping about, because clearly there are other matters he’s supposed to attend to, like, oh yeah, the fucking apocalypse. But something in that look of Castiel’s make his insides twist, his blood run cold, and his train of thoughts derail.
And then it hits him.
That hopelessness, that- that weary expression- of course. Of course. It’s real simple: even the angels are already tired of running around and carrying God’s will and trying to patch everything up. Of course they are already giving up all hope, and soon they’re going to leave Earth to its rotten fate.
“-and one of my brothers was killed,” he catches Castiel say, and he snaps back to reality, giving the angel a confused look. Castiel is still staring at him, ostensibly probing at the jumbled thoughts of his inside his head. He glares back because, dude, Castiel’s most likely reading his mind again, and while he has already allowed the angel to invade his personal space (he’s given that up a long time ago, actually, because Castiel is stupidly helpless in that area), he’s most definitely not going to let him in his mind.
Or something. He’s not even sure if angels have mind-reading in their already jam-packed arsenal of angel mojos.
“Dean,” Castiel says, exasperation faintly concealed in his tone, “I take it you’re-”
“Fine and dandy,” he interrupts, because for one, Castiel sounds irritated, and for another, fuck, the very thought of him irritated is actually pleasing and amusing. It’s alluring, the thought of him being the root of it, being the one to cause such a reaction from a god damn angel.
“So, Cas, what were you saying?”
-
The fourth time he visits the playground, Castiel is nowhere to be found, but there’s someone else sitting on the bench. His stomach drops at the sight of a middle-aged man hunched over there, looking at the playground but not really seeing.
“Dean Winchester.”
He clenches his fists, draws Ruby’s knife, and hides it under his sleeve. He swallows thickly, ignoring the warning bells going off in his head, and asks, “Who are you?”
The man turns at him then, a graceful movement, and anger catches up with him, chokes his nostrils. Michael, he thinks, guesses, and Ruby’s knife is practically rendered useless in his sleeve.
“Michael,” he says, aloud, “What do you want?”
The archangel wearing the middle-aged man smiles thinly, and answers, “For you to say yes.”
“Never,” he says firmly, holding his ground, and he’d never, not like this, even with the apocalypse upon him.
“Very well,” Michael says, and it’s too easy, Dean thinks, uncomfortably easy of the archangel to let him off the hook like that, “I’ve merely come to inform you that whatever your intentions are, it would always come down to this. You’re only prolonging the inevitable, Dean Winchester. The Morning Star will find his way to Samuel, and-” at this, he catches a slight grim look on Michael, “Castiel will Fall.”
And before he can even go stiff at the thought of Lucifer managing to take a hold of his brother and Castiel Falling, Michael disappears.
-
He doesn’t go to the playground for the fifth time because if he does, Michael will be there waiting for him. Sam is busy in his research, rarely taking breaks because yeah, of course, there’s no use denying it. He practically allowed the apocalypse to happen, so now he buries himself deep into work to shoo off the dark thought that’s gnawing at his insides.
Castiel merely spares him a grave look, and doesn’t comment.
-
They don’t need the playground to sort out their thoughts, Dean thinks. Hell, they’re supposed to avoid that fucking place, even if it reeks of all the things that can wash away their worries, even just for the briefest of moments.
But because he’s a Winchester- a masochistic Winchester- he can’t let it go.
He can’t let it go.
-
“Is this how it’s supposed to be,” Castiel says one day, more of a statement, a discovery, than a question, “Feeling, clinging onto something you cannot let go, yet you cannot have all the same.”
“Welcome to the human world, buddy,” he says, for lack of anything better to answer the half-fallen angel in front of him.
“Dean,” Castiel says, and it’s painful to hear, to watch Castiel’s mouth make out his name. It sounds almost human, it sounds purposeful, it sounds less and less like Castiel’s usual gravelly voice.
It sounds too soft.
“Dean,” and God, Castiel’s still-indifferent gaze lowers to his mouth, and then he licks his lips and tears away his gaze, “I want.”
It’s too easy, Dean thinks, because all it takes him to crash his lips into Castiel’s is that mere, humane confession, and the way Castiel’s blue gaze weighs on him more than ever before.
-
He loses count of how many times he’s been in the playground.
This time might the last.
Lucifer (who’s wearing Sam as a meat suit, fucking wearing him even if he has no right) has the tip of his sword neatly pressed on Castiel’s throat like it’s nobody’s business. Castiel lays gasping on the ground, bleeding rivers of red, and he can’t fucking do anything because Lucifer, indirectly, has him pinned, too.
“Michael warned you, Dean,” Lucifer says, pulling his sword, and before he can even scream at Castiel, before he can even do so much as flinch, Lucifer smiles, satisfied, and thrusts the sword back to its initial point, deepening the tip all the way through Castiel’s throat.
“It would always end this way.”
-
END
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