To Hear The Angels Cry - Dean/Sam, Castiel
Title: To Hear The Angels Cry
Pairing: established Sam/Dean (barely hinted at)
Rating: PG-13 due to semi-graphic/disturbing images
Word count: 2698
Disclaimer: Apparently I was a bad girl, because Santa didn't leave them under my tree. Maybe next year.
Summary: The angels were fighting all around them; waging a war no mortal man could see. Every war has it's casualties.
To Hear The Angels Cry
It's cold. A bone deep--soul deep--cold that fills all the spaces inside him that have been torn open. He doesn't register the darkness any more; doesn't feel the pain. He can see them still, and hear their laughter and the threats they make. He knows what they are doing to the vessel, knows they will take this to the end, until there is nothing left of him. But all he can feel is the unending cold.
----------
Dean woke to the sound of fluttering wings and a sudden presence at the end of his bed. He groaned and curled deeper into the pillow, willing his friendly neighborhood angel to just go away. The deep, throbbing bruises left over from their last hunt ached with every movement and all he wanted to do was sleep until he felt whole again. He didn’t feel like dealing with the apocalypse today.
The angel said nothing, allowing Dean his pretense of sleep for a few minutes.
‘I don’t sleep,’ Castiel had said once, when Dean had asked him why he watched him at night. ‘It...fascinates me.’
Over the past few months Dean and Sam had grown used to the angel’s odd, sometimes innocent, behavioral quirks. Sam hadn’t even stirred beside him in the bed when the angel appeared. Castiel’s presence had become familiar, if not comfortable over the last few months. Dean was just drifting back into his dreams when a voice he didn't recognize said, rather melodramatically, “Dean Winchester, I have a message for you.”
Dean’s hand curled around the hilt of his knife, his feet hitting the floor at the same time, and his body moved instinctively into a protective crouch. The movement woke Sam. The click of Sam’s gun barrel resonated over the sound of rustling cloth as the brothers stood together to face the tall, pale man that stared at them stoically from the end of the bed.
“Who are you?” Sam demanded, the gun pointed at the intruder over Dean’s shoulder.
The man blinked; that blank, depthless stare they had been so used to on Castiel unnerved them now. “I am Ambriel,” he said, his voice rumbling quietly through the room, powerful and ancient and almost-soothing. But it was also flat and unnerving; it made their skin crawl with caution. “I have come with a message for Dean. Another Seal has been found.”
Sam’s gun lowered slightly and Dean’s grip on his knife slackened but didn’t drop. “Where’s Castiel?”
The angel blinked twice slowly. “He is…unavailable,” he finally said, evasive and emotionless, hiding the truth behind his cryptic words with all the flat arrogance of the heavenly hosts.
“Unavailable?” Dean asked, voice disbelieving as his feet moved restlessly on the stained carpet. They had never dealt with any angel other than Castiel and his sometime-shadow, the surly and prejudiced Uriel. Dean didn’t like that others were suddenly popping out of the woodworks. With all the angels asking favors of him, he would never get any sleep.
“He’s an angel,” Sam said, tossing the gun to the bedside table and falling gracelessly to sit on the bed. “How can he be unavailable?”
The angle turned dark, narrowed eyes to Sam, his voice lowering down into an almost-threat as he said, “Only the heavenly Father is omnipotent.”
“Yeah, so where is he?” Dean intersected, drawing the angel’s attention away from his brother. He had seen enough of Uriel’s contempt for Sam to know that other angels probably felt the same way.
Something almost like regret filled the angel’s eyes. Dean heard the subtle rustle of wings, as if the angel were shifting uncomfortably. “He is…missing.”
Sam’s head shot up from where he had been sleepily contemplating the carpet at his feet and Dean’s hand tightened on the knife he still held. “What do you mean ‘missing’?” Dean asked, in his father's voice; the one that brooked no argument.
The angel sighed, rushed and impatient. The angels, in all their heavenly superiority, never understood how a mortal man could dare to question them, to tell them no.
“You are...not what I was expecting.” Castiel's words, during one of their first few meetings, when they sat in an uneasy truce, and the world hadn't quite fallen down around their ears yet.
“Castiel was taken in battle. We don’t know where he is. Now, the message-”
“Taken? What, by demons?” Dean demanded. He had never given much thought to what the angels did when they weren't pestering him, or threatening Sam. Castiel said that they could die, but how do you kill an angel? The thought made the room suddenly feel small.
Ambriel sighed again, but hesitated, eyes shifting for answers as if he had already said too much. Dean leaned forward as the angel muttered something. Dean caught the last few words and they sounded like ‘want you to know’.
“Yes,” he finally said. “Castiel was taken by a demon. Or, several, we don't know. The message, Dean-”
“Forget your damn message,” Dean growled. “The only one of you assholes I’m dealing with is Castiel.”
“Castiel is-”
“Missing. Yeah, so you said. Maybe you should go find him.” Anger was boiling up to the surface of Dean's skin, making his body flush and his hands ache to strike out at something, to wrap tight around vulnerable flesh and squeeze until he couldn't anymore. It wasn't fucking fair. None of it was.
“We have neither the time nor the power to spend searching for our fallen brethren.”
“So you’re just going to abandon him?” Sam asked, disgusted and confusion coloring his voice, pulling a sneer to lips that used to smile more. “Your ‘brother’. You’ll just let him rot in whatever hellhole the demons have taken him to?”
“We can’t-”
“Get out,” Dean broke in, turning his back on the angel as he picked up a bag from the floor. The contents were upended over the bed, clattering to the rumpled and worn surface, and he began digging through the pile of clothes and weapons.
“The message-”
“Get. Out.” Dean grated again as he pulled on a pair of jeans. Sam had followed his example and was quickly dressing on the other side of the room, keeping one eye on the angel as they prepared for...something. What his brother was doing, Sam had no idea, but he wasn't doing it alone.
The angel moved toward Dean, hand reaching out, a threat. Dean straightened and looked up at him, all challenge and angry confidence. The angel sneered and disappeared in a flutter of wings.
----------
“Dean, what are you-” Sam asked.
“Get Ruby,” Dean interrupted. His hands quickly pulled out shotgun pellets full of salt from their belongings, and he piled bottles of holy water and books of prayer onto the table in the kitchenette.
“What?”
“Call her, summon her, or whatever it is you do, but get her here. If the demons have an angel, word will have gotten out. Someone will know where he is. We have to...” Dean's body went still and his lungs emptied in a shuddering breath. Ragged fingernails caked with dirt dug into the gold-gilt letters that spelled out 'Holy Bible' on worn leather.
“Okay,” Sam said, then he left his brother to go summon Ruby. They had an angel to rescue.
----------
Cold had given way to fire; burning hot and white, turning to ash whatever shreds had been left of his soul.
The fire roared through his mind, covering the screams that tore loose from the vessel's throat, and tongues of flame burned brands onto vulnerable flesh. The fire consumed him completely and he wondered where he would go when he died.
----------
Six days. Six days was too damn long and they knew it. They had no idea how long Castiel had been missing to begin with, no other angels had come forward with information or assignments, and they knew full well how time was relative when dealing with demons. Six days could have been a lifetime.
In six days they had found little more than a rumor, but it was all they had. And it was information bought with a price. The body Ruby had found had suffered too much damage. She had abandoned it before they had started their mad drive and they hadn’t heard from her since. Dean thought it a sick irony that a demon had been more help finding the missing angel of the Lord than his own heavenly brothers.
Sam stopped at the edge of the ancient forest, hands gripping the wheel tightly. “This is it,” he said. “The cemetery is about a two hour drive through there.”
Dean clutched a photocopied map in one hand and Ruby’s knife in the other. ‘There will be protection,’ Ruby had said, before she fled the torn and bleeding body, leaving it to become a Jane Doe once again. ‘They won’t give him up without a fight.’
But they had known that from the start. They had known before they had started looking; known when they first caught wind of the nearly forgotten Civil war cemetery hidden at the heart of one of Tennessee’s national reserves. This wasn't going to be easy.
The engine revved to life and they headed into the forest.
----------
Dean Winchester couldn't for the life of him tell you why he was here. Why his shoulder burned from the long, bleeding gashes the hellhound had torn into his skin. Why his head ached from where it had been bashed against the wall by the possessed body of a goliath. Why his throat was hoarse from shouting exorcisms over the squealing sounds the dog had made as Sam hacked at its invisible body with the knife.
He should be in bed catching up on the lifetime's worth of sleep his body was still owed. He should be happy that he had one less angel breathing down his neck, expecting him to save the whole God-damn world.
Instead he was here, in some freezing hole of a crypt in the middle of fuck-all Tennessee, Sam's breath noisy and labored in his ear and his own blood mixing with the days-old stains on the stone floor. Four bodies lay, dead or unconscious they weren't quite sure, in a circle around them and the air was filled with the smell of sulfur the hellhound had left behind.
In the middle of the room was a rough wooden cross, and on it hung a man, bound and bleeding, like some gruesome effigy to the God the demons had turned their backs on; the God Dean's own guardian angel had placed so much faith in.
Well, look where that had got him.
----------
“Jesus Christ.”
Sam's mind echoed his brother's words for the prayer they were. He wanted to recoil from the sight in front of him; deny the horrific image of one of God's own angels strung up as a bloody sacrifice.
The cross hung from the ceiling on two thick chains attached to either end of the cross-bar so that it could be easily released then risen again. Castiel's dark head hung limply, hiding his face, and blood still dripped down the course wood to pool darkly on the ground below. Pale, naked flesh was torn and bruised and his wrists and ankles were bound to the cross with blood-coated barbed wire, the wicked points cutting into delicate skin. Sam could barely see the thin wisps of breath that clouded in the frigid air beneath the angels mouth.
Dean stood rooted where he was, barely breathing himself. An image of his brother, strung up and bleeding, filled Sam's mind like an avalanche. He wondered again what Dean had suffered during those long years in hell; wondered if he had strung souls up on a cross and made them bleed.
Sam grabbed a chair that had toppled into a corner during the fight and set it down beneath the cross, hands reaching to lift the limp head as he climbed up on it. Castiel gasped at his touch, his whole body convulsing in pain.
Wide eyes blinked heavily, straining to focus, first on the blood covered floor over Sam's shoulder then up, onto Dean's face. Tears spilled over, sliding down bruised skin, carving pink trails in the blood and running across Sam's hands.
“Dean, get the chain,” Sam ordered. Dean moved slowly, eyes still locked on Castiel's, as if he couldn't bear to look away, reaching for the lever that would release the cross.
It came down quickly, a sudden burden in Sam's arms. Castiel moaned as the movement jarred his wounded body. Dean reached out to help and they carefully laid the cross out on the blood-stained floor; the angel's eyes stared hollowly up at the ceiling as Dean knelt beside him.
“Cas,” Dean said quietly, hands gentle at the hard line of the angel's jaw, pulling his attention back.
Sam's throat tightened, knowing this tactic well. He felt the ghost of his brother’s hand on his own face, years of hurts caused by monsters and madmen and everything in between. Distract, reassure, get past the pain, that's what Dean was doing. Tell Castiel with touch and eyes that he was safe now, he had nothing to fear anymore.
They'd spent too much of their lives playing that game.
Castiel turned slowly to look at Dean again, blue eyes still crying tears no angel should be able to shed. His mouth moved silently around words that he couldn't get to come out and his whole body had begun to tremble with shock.
Finally the words came, strung together and too quiet for Sam to hear. Sam wasn't sure he was meant to hear. All of Castiel's attention was focused on Dean. Dean leaned forward, listening, then bowed his head and shut his eyes as if to block out the truth of what the angel had told him.
Sam turned and walked back to the steep stone stairs at the front of the crypt.
----------
He hadn't wanted to hear, not really, because he already knew. Had known since the moment he had laid eyes on Castiel, after the dust had cleared and the demons were banished back to hell.
How else could they have done it? How else could they have reduced this powerful being--a being that could traipse into the very depths of hell for one lost soul--to nothing more than a broken mess of blood and tears. How else could they have made him so much - less?
“They took it,” came the broken words from Castiel's dry, cracked lips. “They took it. They took it.” With the sound of Sam's slow steps up the stairs Castiel turned away again. His blue eyes closed in pain as great, wracking sobs tore from his throat and Dean knew. The demons had stolen his Grace.
This diminished creature before him, that had once filled Dean with so much awe and fear, was now utterly human.
----------
Even the fire had died out into nothing; washed away in a flood of emerald waters and leaving behind a numbness that left him blissfully unaware. The numbness was good. The numbness meant he couldn't feel that deep, damaged place inside him that had once held something so precious.
The ache of that deep pit had threatened to undo him, but now...he felt nothing. That was good.
----------
Castiel could feel Dean’s soothing hands on his enflamed skin, could hear Sam’s low murmur as they made plans to remove him from this dark prison. But his body felt twisted in an all-consuming pain and his soul cried out to a God that had turned His back on him.
As they cut the wire around his wrists, releasing him from the once-worshipped cross, his mind crashed into a senseless darkness and he wished that they had just let him die.
END
- Meagan
Pairing: established Sam/Dean (barely hinted at)
Rating: PG-13 due to semi-graphic/disturbing images
Word count: 2698
Disclaimer: Apparently I was a bad girl, because Santa didn't leave them under my tree. Maybe next year.
Summary: The angels were fighting all around them; waging a war no mortal man could see. Every war has it's casualties.
To Hear The Angels Cry
It's cold. A bone deep--soul deep--cold that fills all the spaces inside him that have been torn open. He doesn't register the darkness any more; doesn't feel the pain. He can see them still, and hear their laughter and the threats they make. He knows what they are doing to the vessel, knows they will take this to the end, until there is nothing left of him. But all he can feel is the unending cold.
----------
Dean woke to the sound of fluttering wings and a sudden presence at the end of his bed. He groaned and curled deeper into the pillow, willing his friendly neighborhood angel to just go away. The deep, throbbing bruises left over from their last hunt ached with every movement and all he wanted to do was sleep until he felt whole again. He didn’t feel like dealing with the apocalypse today.
The angel said nothing, allowing Dean his pretense of sleep for a few minutes.
‘I don’t sleep,’ Castiel had said once, when Dean had asked him why he watched him at night. ‘It...fascinates me.’
Over the past few months Dean and Sam had grown used to the angel’s odd, sometimes innocent, behavioral quirks. Sam hadn’t even stirred beside him in the bed when the angel appeared. Castiel’s presence had become familiar, if not comfortable over the last few months. Dean was just drifting back into his dreams when a voice he didn't recognize said, rather melodramatically, “Dean Winchester, I have a message for you.”
Dean’s hand curled around the hilt of his knife, his feet hitting the floor at the same time, and his body moved instinctively into a protective crouch. The movement woke Sam. The click of Sam’s gun barrel resonated over the sound of rustling cloth as the brothers stood together to face the tall, pale man that stared at them stoically from the end of the bed.
“Who are you?” Sam demanded, the gun pointed at the intruder over Dean’s shoulder.
The man blinked; that blank, depthless stare they had been so used to on Castiel unnerved them now. “I am Ambriel,” he said, his voice rumbling quietly through the room, powerful and ancient and almost-soothing. But it was also flat and unnerving; it made their skin crawl with caution. “I have come with a message for Dean. Another Seal has been found.”
Sam’s gun lowered slightly and Dean’s grip on his knife slackened but didn’t drop. “Where’s Castiel?”
The angel blinked twice slowly. “He is…unavailable,” he finally said, evasive and emotionless, hiding the truth behind his cryptic words with all the flat arrogance of the heavenly hosts.
“Unavailable?” Dean asked, voice disbelieving as his feet moved restlessly on the stained carpet. They had never dealt with any angel other than Castiel and his sometime-shadow, the surly and prejudiced Uriel. Dean didn’t like that others were suddenly popping out of the woodworks. With all the angels asking favors of him, he would never get any sleep.
“He’s an angel,” Sam said, tossing the gun to the bedside table and falling gracelessly to sit on the bed. “How can he be unavailable?”
The angle turned dark, narrowed eyes to Sam, his voice lowering down into an almost-threat as he said, “Only the heavenly Father is omnipotent.”
“Yeah, so where is he?” Dean intersected, drawing the angel’s attention away from his brother. He had seen enough of Uriel’s contempt for Sam to know that other angels probably felt the same way.
Something almost like regret filled the angel’s eyes. Dean heard the subtle rustle of wings, as if the angel were shifting uncomfortably. “He is…missing.”
Sam’s head shot up from where he had been sleepily contemplating the carpet at his feet and Dean’s hand tightened on the knife he still held. “What do you mean ‘missing’?” Dean asked, in his father's voice; the one that brooked no argument.
The angel sighed, rushed and impatient. The angels, in all their heavenly superiority, never understood how a mortal man could dare to question them, to tell them no.
“You are...not what I was expecting.” Castiel's words, during one of their first few meetings, when they sat in an uneasy truce, and the world hadn't quite fallen down around their ears yet.
“Castiel was taken in battle. We don’t know where he is. Now, the message-”
“Taken? What, by demons?” Dean demanded. He had never given much thought to what the angels did when they weren't pestering him, or threatening Sam. Castiel said that they could die, but how do you kill an angel? The thought made the room suddenly feel small.
Ambriel sighed again, but hesitated, eyes shifting for answers as if he had already said too much. Dean leaned forward as the angel muttered something. Dean caught the last few words and they sounded like ‘want you to know’.
“Yes,” he finally said. “Castiel was taken by a demon. Or, several, we don't know. The message, Dean-”
“Forget your damn message,” Dean growled. “The only one of you assholes I’m dealing with is Castiel.”
“Castiel is-”
“Missing. Yeah, so you said. Maybe you should go find him.” Anger was boiling up to the surface of Dean's skin, making his body flush and his hands ache to strike out at something, to wrap tight around vulnerable flesh and squeeze until he couldn't anymore. It wasn't fucking fair. None of it was.
“We have neither the time nor the power to spend searching for our fallen brethren.”
“So you’re just going to abandon him?” Sam asked, disgusted and confusion coloring his voice, pulling a sneer to lips that used to smile more. “Your ‘brother’. You’ll just let him rot in whatever hellhole the demons have taken him to?”
“We can’t-”
“Get out,” Dean broke in, turning his back on the angel as he picked up a bag from the floor. The contents were upended over the bed, clattering to the rumpled and worn surface, and he began digging through the pile of clothes and weapons.
“The message-”
“Get. Out.” Dean grated again as he pulled on a pair of jeans. Sam had followed his example and was quickly dressing on the other side of the room, keeping one eye on the angel as they prepared for...something. What his brother was doing, Sam had no idea, but he wasn't doing it alone.
The angel moved toward Dean, hand reaching out, a threat. Dean straightened and looked up at him, all challenge and angry confidence. The angel sneered and disappeared in a flutter of wings.
----------
“Dean, what are you-” Sam asked.
“Get Ruby,” Dean interrupted. His hands quickly pulled out shotgun pellets full of salt from their belongings, and he piled bottles of holy water and books of prayer onto the table in the kitchenette.
“What?”
“Call her, summon her, or whatever it is you do, but get her here. If the demons have an angel, word will have gotten out. Someone will know where he is. We have to...” Dean's body went still and his lungs emptied in a shuddering breath. Ragged fingernails caked with dirt dug into the gold-gilt letters that spelled out 'Holy Bible' on worn leather.
“Okay,” Sam said, then he left his brother to go summon Ruby. They had an angel to rescue.
----------
Cold had given way to fire; burning hot and white, turning to ash whatever shreds had been left of his soul.
The fire roared through his mind, covering the screams that tore loose from the vessel's throat, and tongues of flame burned brands onto vulnerable flesh. The fire consumed him completely and he wondered where he would go when he died.
----------
Six days. Six days was too damn long and they knew it. They had no idea how long Castiel had been missing to begin with, no other angels had come forward with information or assignments, and they knew full well how time was relative when dealing with demons. Six days could have been a lifetime.
In six days they had found little more than a rumor, but it was all they had. And it was information bought with a price. The body Ruby had found had suffered too much damage. She had abandoned it before they had started their mad drive and they hadn’t heard from her since. Dean thought it a sick irony that a demon had been more help finding the missing angel of the Lord than his own heavenly brothers.
Sam stopped at the edge of the ancient forest, hands gripping the wheel tightly. “This is it,” he said. “The cemetery is about a two hour drive through there.”
Dean clutched a photocopied map in one hand and Ruby’s knife in the other. ‘There will be protection,’ Ruby had said, before she fled the torn and bleeding body, leaving it to become a Jane Doe once again. ‘They won’t give him up without a fight.’
But they had known that from the start. They had known before they had started looking; known when they first caught wind of the nearly forgotten Civil war cemetery hidden at the heart of one of Tennessee’s national reserves. This wasn't going to be easy.
The engine revved to life and they headed into the forest.
----------
Dean Winchester couldn't for the life of him tell you why he was here. Why his shoulder burned from the long, bleeding gashes the hellhound had torn into his skin. Why his head ached from where it had been bashed against the wall by the possessed body of a goliath. Why his throat was hoarse from shouting exorcisms over the squealing sounds the dog had made as Sam hacked at its invisible body with the knife.
He should be in bed catching up on the lifetime's worth of sleep his body was still owed. He should be happy that he had one less angel breathing down his neck, expecting him to save the whole God-damn world.
Instead he was here, in some freezing hole of a crypt in the middle of fuck-all Tennessee, Sam's breath noisy and labored in his ear and his own blood mixing with the days-old stains on the stone floor. Four bodies lay, dead or unconscious they weren't quite sure, in a circle around them and the air was filled with the smell of sulfur the hellhound had left behind.
In the middle of the room was a rough wooden cross, and on it hung a man, bound and bleeding, like some gruesome effigy to the God the demons had turned their backs on; the God Dean's own guardian angel had placed so much faith in.
Well, look where that had got him.
----------
“Jesus Christ.”
Sam's mind echoed his brother's words for the prayer they were. He wanted to recoil from the sight in front of him; deny the horrific image of one of God's own angels strung up as a bloody sacrifice.
The cross hung from the ceiling on two thick chains attached to either end of the cross-bar so that it could be easily released then risen again. Castiel's dark head hung limply, hiding his face, and blood still dripped down the course wood to pool darkly on the ground below. Pale, naked flesh was torn and bruised and his wrists and ankles were bound to the cross with blood-coated barbed wire, the wicked points cutting into delicate skin. Sam could barely see the thin wisps of breath that clouded in the frigid air beneath the angels mouth.
Dean stood rooted where he was, barely breathing himself. An image of his brother, strung up and bleeding, filled Sam's mind like an avalanche. He wondered again what Dean had suffered during those long years in hell; wondered if he had strung souls up on a cross and made them bleed.
Sam grabbed a chair that had toppled into a corner during the fight and set it down beneath the cross, hands reaching to lift the limp head as he climbed up on it. Castiel gasped at his touch, his whole body convulsing in pain.
Wide eyes blinked heavily, straining to focus, first on the blood covered floor over Sam's shoulder then up, onto Dean's face. Tears spilled over, sliding down bruised skin, carving pink trails in the blood and running across Sam's hands.
“Dean, get the chain,” Sam ordered. Dean moved slowly, eyes still locked on Castiel's, as if he couldn't bear to look away, reaching for the lever that would release the cross.
It came down quickly, a sudden burden in Sam's arms. Castiel moaned as the movement jarred his wounded body. Dean reached out to help and they carefully laid the cross out on the blood-stained floor; the angel's eyes stared hollowly up at the ceiling as Dean knelt beside him.
“Cas,” Dean said quietly, hands gentle at the hard line of the angel's jaw, pulling his attention back.
Sam's throat tightened, knowing this tactic well. He felt the ghost of his brother’s hand on his own face, years of hurts caused by monsters and madmen and everything in between. Distract, reassure, get past the pain, that's what Dean was doing. Tell Castiel with touch and eyes that he was safe now, he had nothing to fear anymore.
They'd spent too much of their lives playing that game.
Castiel turned slowly to look at Dean again, blue eyes still crying tears no angel should be able to shed. His mouth moved silently around words that he couldn't get to come out and his whole body had begun to tremble with shock.
Finally the words came, strung together and too quiet for Sam to hear. Sam wasn't sure he was meant to hear. All of Castiel's attention was focused on Dean. Dean leaned forward, listening, then bowed his head and shut his eyes as if to block out the truth of what the angel had told him.
Sam turned and walked back to the steep stone stairs at the front of the crypt.
----------
He hadn't wanted to hear, not really, because he already knew. Had known since the moment he had laid eyes on Castiel, after the dust had cleared and the demons were banished back to hell.
How else could they have done it? How else could they have reduced this powerful being--a being that could traipse into the very depths of hell for one lost soul--to nothing more than a broken mess of blood and tears. How else could they have made him so much - less?
“They took it,” came the broken words from Castiel's dry, cracked lips. “They took it. They took it.” With the sound of Sam's slow steps up the stairs Castiel turned away again. His blue eyes closed in pain as great, wracking sobs tore from his throat and Dean knew. The demons had stolen his Grace.
This diminished creature before him, that had once filled Dean with so much awe and fear, was now utterly human.
----------
Even the fire had died out into nothing; washed away in a flood of emerald waters and leaving behind a numbness that left him blissfully unaware. The numbness was good. The numbness meant he couldn't feel that deep, damaged place inside him that had once held something so precious.
The ache of that deep pit had threatened to undo him, but now...he felt nothing. That was good.
----------
Castiel could feel Dean’s soothing hands on his enflamed skin, could hear Sam’s low murmur as they made plans to remove him from this dark prison. But his body felt twisted in an all-consuming pain and his soul cried out to a God that had turned His back on him.
As they cut the wire around his wrists, releasing him from the once-worshipped cross, his mind crashed into a senseless darkness and he wished that they had just let him die.
END
- Meagan