Grace: Feathers [SPN, Destiel, PG-13]

[uncannycucumber]

Title: Feathers
Fandom: Supernatural
Pairing: Dean/Castiel
Rating: PG-13
Genre: deathfic, angst, romance, h/c
Parts: Fallen 1 + 2, Grace
Summary: ”I know what it's like to love and lose. Has there ever been a truer lesson in our lives?”

A/N: This was supposed to be a oneshot. It is no longer a oneshot, it's now a trippy intro fic for a trippy trilogy. Yay. No spoilers after season 4, potential minor AU resulting of ignoring a character death, not set in any specific time in canon.


~*~ ~*~ ~*~

Sam dropped the axe he'd been holding. It hit the concrete floor with a noise that seemed a thousand times louder than it should have been. Even the wooden handle colliding with the doorframe was a gunshot in the man's ears.
A part of him wanted to run in the room - do what he was sure Dean had done at first. But something held him back, a sort of a change in the air like an incorporeal wall preventing him from taking a step further.

His heartbeat was like thunder in his ears. Adrenaline, physical exhaustion and shock kept him from understanding what he saw, like it wasn't happening, not really. Not in his reality. Perhaps in the one that existed behind that invisible obstacle separating him from there, but not here.
If he'd step in, just one more step closer, he'd be in that reality, and everything he saw would be true and there would be no way back.

Feeling weak and dreamlike he kneeled, reaching for the handle of the weapon he'd dropped.

There were still things out there. One of them had to get them - now Sam was the only one who could. He turned to face the fading light shining through the factory room's dusty windows. The ground beneath his feet wavered and trembled as he treaded upon it.

Maybe it was his reality that wasn't real.

*

Dean had forgotten how to swallow. He coughed, gagged, stumbled forwards along the concrete floor, blood dripping from the lip he'd bitten into. With each move he made his ribs and arm hurt as if the blows that they had received were renewing again and again. In a realm of his mind, he understood all this. That realm of his mind understood the texture of the ground beneath him and what the burned dust smelled like and that what he saw was final and couldn't be changed. The rest of him was dulled by disbelief and anger, a need to correct the scene in front of him, but most of all a burning sense of desperation and pain at the loss he knew he'd suffered, unwilling as he was to accept it.
His hands left gray dust on the fabric he grabbed.

”Cas?” he heard himself choking as he pulled the angel's vessel up, holding it on his knees.

He felt himself pressing it against himself and buried his head into the bloodied coat's neck, his nose and mouth filled with the smells of coppery blood, burnt dust and the scent of the body he was holding. His nose drew in the air filtered by the white shirt so close to the vessel's skin that it didn't even smell of cloth anymore, like he was breathing in the male's very essence.
”Cas, please...”

His fingertips traced the burns etched on the concrete below. All he wanted to do was to brush the shadows away, but the part of him that understood clearly and without feeling told him this was all he had left of the angel - if he'd destroy the burn marks, he'd have nothing.
A suffocated cry escaped him. His eyes were wide open as he watched the beautiful, delicate image of Castiel's wings scorched upon the floor and on the wall. His fingers wrapped around the blade - it had pierced right through the heart, he knew it as his fingertips felt the blood through the torn shirt at the point where the weapon had gone through. A precise, deadly blow. One expected from a professional. He had no words. His very mind was empty, full of buzzing noise and his own heavy breathing.

With trembling hands, he pulled the blade out. Fresh, warm blood ran down his hand and soaked his shirt when he straightened it and, unfeeling, pushed it under his belt, out of sight and out of the way. There was no heartbeat, so no more blood came out. Castiel had never bled, not a drop more than what the weapon drew out as it damaged his form. Now Castiel was... and his vessel was just as dead.

Dean barely winced to the sound of iron hitting the concrete behind him. He prayed it was one of the possessed hunters so that he could die there. He'd given everything he had. There was nothing left to lose, no reason to get up again. Nothing.
But it had to be Sam. Through the buzzing and gasping, he heard the man kneel, pick up the weapon he'd dropped, turn and run.

Numb, he raised Castiel's vessel and buried his face into his bloodied shirt again.

Breathing.
Breathing.
Breathing.

*

The axe's blade dug deep into the neck of the man who had raised his knife for the killing blow. Sam jerked it out again and turned as the blood sprayed all over him, squirting out of the open artery, until the man had fallen over and bled on the floor behind Sam's back.
He parried a blow, unbalanced the next opponent and struck the axe into his chest when he fell over. Then something hit him on the back and he fell on his knees, breathless, in shock with the pain that flooded over him - his trained body was taken over with instincts as his higher consciousness was flashing with white, and the next thing he knew, he was watching a head roll comically across the floor. Around him... until it hit a barrel and stuck there, a horrified look on the dead face.

Unthinking, he brushed blood off of his face, only spreading more upon it. He counted four bodies. There was nobody left.

So he stood up and ran, through the empty corridor, past the open rusty doors into the just as empty hall until he could see the door he had to take to reach Dean. His steps echoed in the walls.
The barrier had broken; his reality was the same as that beyond the door.
When he stopped again, Dean was still in the same pose as when he'd last left, cradling the angel's dead body in his arms, face hidden between the bloody coat and the vessel's head.

Sam couldn't believe it had taken this long to understand how Dean really felt about the angel. It really had required Castiel to die for Dean to release that feeling in a way Sam could read it right, but now there was no question about it.
There was the very same pain radiating from his brother as he'd felt inside him with Jessica. The loss was the same. The crushing pain that held Dean in spot, unable to move, barely letting him breathe... Sam knew it like it had been carved into his soul for forever.

He didn't want to go in. He didn't want to grab Dean and tell him they had to leave. But they really did have to leave, they had no choice.
He saw Dean reach for the blackened wings on the floor and the sound he let out hurt Sam like a puncture wound. It also got him moving.

It was impossible to harden his mind, but he grabbed Dean and heard himself commanding him to move, telling him they had to go now or it'd be too late.
At first, he got no reaction at all. Dean seemed to curl up tighter against the body he held but that was all.
When Sam used force, ripped his arm from around the angel, his brother raised his head slowly, expressionlessly, eyes clear with tears that couldn't fall out.

”I don't care, Sammy.”

I don't care.
It was like the man's soul was torn from him. The remaining part was nothing but worn emptiness. The voice of a man who really in his heart did not care, couldn't care.

Sam swallowed.

”You have to come with me, Dean. You have to,” he heard himself say.

Dean looked at Castiel's face - his eyes moved slowly to the shadows of the wings imprinted upon the floor. Then he looked back down and lowered his head again.
His breathing halted, for such a long moment Sam considered he'd actually given up in the most final sense of the word, but then he drew breath again, unwilling and with such bitterness it was like he'd expressed it in voice but without words.

”I know.”
Silence.
”It doesn't matter.”

Sam kneeled next to Dean and laid his hand upon his head, unable to offer more than that, uncertain how to touch.
”I'll help you carry him.”

Dean's breathing changed, turned more rapid as if in fear.
”But part of him is here... we can't take that... I don't want to leave.”
”It's not him. It's not him, Dean. It's just a mark. We need to go, please.”

It took him too long to get his brother up. Too many empty words and too many promises he couldn't fulfill, but finally they were out. Dean sat on the backseat of his Impala after carefully adjusting Castiel on it before him, and as he sat, he lifted the body upon his lap again. His eyes looked out of the window, seeing nothing - the last thing he did that even remotely resembled a reaction was handing Sam the keys so he could drive them away.

After one and half hours the first tears fell upon his face; Sam could see them through the rear mirror. Then he just didn't look again.

*

Wood. A pyre. Fire. Smoke.
The stench.

Darkness.

Dean hardly picked apart the things he saw, everything was part of the same endless vision. His ears were ringing. He felt worse than when he'd climbed through the endless tunnel, finally reaching sunlight that didn't shine any light upon his tortured soul that Castiel had retrieved from hell. That was the thing he concentrated on, the fact he felt worse, but could only trace it to the current moment, the fact that the very being that had saved him once was gone himself.
Multiple times he lowered his head and prayed, first to God, then to Castiel, then to God, then to Castiel again. Deep inside him, the two were the same thing. He'd never known a god. God didn't give a shit about him. Castiel was his grace, his mercy, his everything. The only reason he prayed to the God he didn't believe in was that God had given him Castiel before. He'd resurrected his angel time and time again.

Why did he feel different this time?
Why was the pain so much more profound?
Why did it ache through the marrows of his bones to the depths of his heart?
Why was he hurting like never before, exposed to the elements like he had no skin, burning with fire a thousand times more scorching than the flame that had turned his flesh into ash a million times in hell?

He'd hurt before when Castiel was gone. But it had never been like this. It had never felt like anything close to this. He'd always still felt the angel somewhere, his presence upon him, even when he was gone. Like a part of him was still imprinted on him, staying there until his return, renewed each time the angel was near him. It had grown a part of Dean, a sacred spot inside his mutilated self, a pure feeling amongst the rest tainted by greed and hatred and fear.
And now that last bit of faith was torn from him, violently and mercilessly, leaving him crippled in a way he didn't know how to deal with.

He sat on his knees on the wet ground, all too close to the fire that purified the vessel's remains. He hated knowing they really had nothing to bury; this was Jimmy Novak, Castiel had been gone from the moment the light had vanished.

It seemed like the humane feelings he'd had - compassion, kindness, trust and faith - were gone with that piece of his soul and that in their absence, all the filth he'd tried to hold at bay was slowly pouring in.

Rain came down upon them, drops hissing as they hit the flames. Sam's hand landed upon Dean's shoulder and he felt his brother holding it tight. There was little relief in the touch, but it did make him angry. He hated Sam's goodness. He wanted him to be as torn as he was. He hated knowing Sam was so much stronger, that he'd climbed out of this pit before. He had always been so much stronger than Dean.

He didn't even want to stop those thoughts.
There he sat, with Sam's hand on his shoulder, hating the only man he still had by his side. The only man he loved and still had to hold.

*

Sam didn't know what to do. Dean had locked himself in the panic room and refused to budge. Why he'd chosen that room remained a mystery, but he wasn't alone by any means - he'd made use of Bobby's stacks of booze. They'd repeatedly removed the alcohol from his reach, and at least it made him come out every now and then, but as surely as they took the drink away from him he would retrieve it. One night he'd smashed in the cupboard they'd reinforced and retired inside Impala, just lying on the backseat drinking, drinking, drinking until he passed out and they found him from there in the morning.
How Dean had managed to silently smash furniture was beyond them both but after that they simply gave up. Bobby decided Dean could buy his own booze and went on a dry season himself. It had an effect: Dean stopped drinking. He also stopped eating and moving.
He used the bathroom so rarely Sam was convinced it was harmful on its own, but in comparison to parching and starving, it was Dean's smallest problem.

After three days Bobby came to the conclusion Dean was probably drinking while they weren't watching - he didn't seem too harmed, at least not harmed enough to abstain entirely. But at the same time, it wasn't such a great relief to either of them.
Finally they had to interfere. Sam sat on the cold concrete floor for three hours holding up a monologue. First it had a purpose, then he lost his point and talked about everything, anything to keep the silence away. Two and half hours in he was describing the room with sarcastic commentary added in to note he was feeling like an idiot for doing what he did, and at the point he'd fallen on his back on the floor and started talking about how he had this huge urge to just dump the table all over Dean, his brother suddenly grabbed the bread on the plate and downed it with two glasses of water.

Sam just lied on the floor, afraid to interfere, afraid to let out a sound. He didn't know what to say anymore. He had, after all, ran out of words what seemed to be days before rather than hours. His throat was dry and ached.

”I'm pathetic,” Dean said and his voice cracked, not out of feeling but out of lack of use, ”Get us a case, I'll take a shower.”

*

It wasn't an improvement, but Dean liked to pretend it was, for Sam's sake. He patted Bobby on the shoulder and apologized for the cupboard as they stepped out the door.
Bobby let out a fake annoyed growl and told him to mind his manners, but in truth, he was clearly relieved.

Dean hated the feeling he had. The feelings of being alive - of being clean, satisfied in terms of needs, sober and most of all, cared for. He'd have given anything to just be left alone somewhere he could bury himself alive in peace and quiet, but truth was, he couldn't do that. For some reason he was still living and he had to make use of that fact. Inside his mind in a place he'd buried in concrete he knew that Castiel had died to save his life and the way he was, or rather was not, paying back for that sacrifice was the most selfish thing he'd ever done.
In most of his mind, he refused to think that.

As long as he was in denial, there was a chance that Castiel wasn't dead. That he could fix things. He could bring the angel back from the dead. As long as he refused to let go, he didn't have to accept anything. That was his refuge, the safe spot in his heart he returned to when reality knocked on his doors. Denial, lies and stubborness.
It was so entirely unlike him that he felt like he didn't know himself anymore. He'd been reborn so many times by now, and each one of those births had made him more a stranger to the memory he held of himself.

He held no interest for the case they worked on. He didn't care. He hated the tears on the mother's eyes and the sister's pleading gaze. Sam spoke for him, afraid he'd flip and fuck them sideways. Of course he wasn't going to do that. He kept his feelings to himself.
Then, in the evening, he got so drunk he didn't know his own name.
Sam seemed to have expected it and didn't comment.

Werewolves.
Everywhere.
All the time.
Werewolves.

The town was full of them and it took forever to clear them out. Dean took out the last one and hoped there had still been more to slay.

The next case they took upon themselves four days later was on vampires.
The next after that one was an odd one, turned out to be an actual murder, just by an unusually creative mind.
The one after was about skinwalkers.

Dean lost the track of time. It must have gone by fast, as slowly Sam stopped watching his every step and holding his hand within a grabbing distance in case Dean would suddenly decide to walk under a truck. Apparently he was gaining trust and he just didn't care anymore.
What point was there in caring?

He loved Sam so much he was hurting from the thought and precisely for that reason he couldn't care, wouldn't let himself care, or he'd lose Sam too. Again.
Over and over and over, that was the only thing that ever happened to them. Their reward for all the work they put into making others happy or at least keeping them alive was to die a thousand deaths and lose everyone they had ever loved.

He'd known that when he picked up the gun and followed the path laid ahead for him. From that moment on, there was no regretting the choice. Regret was as meaningless as calling for God. Nobody was listening.
Nobody cared.

*

Almost a year had passed. Sam wasn't certain if he knew Dean anymore - he'd changed so much since the day Castiel had died. The strangest thing was that unlike Sam had expected, Dean hadn't once asked or pushed him about information of the demon that had killed Castiel. It was possible, although highly unlikely, that Dean refused to accept the whole thing happened to the point that he was letting it slip. It was the only reason Sam could think of, however. It wasn't possible Dean didn't care about revenge. He'd always been all over it.

Considering all this, he was afraid to announce the little information he got when it came to him. He had been searching, all the time, but the demon wasn't stupid. That's how he'd gotten them trapped the first time. They'd stood no chance in that fight and it was unbelievable that him and Dean had gotten out alive.
When he begun, he didn't even know what words to use.

”Dean, Bobby had news about the demon we're after.”

Dean didn't react. He opened a beer and took a gulp, eyes decisively upon the television screen.

”So... there's been activity nearby, he mentioned a pattern through a few cities. The signs are pointing to the one, similar deaths have occurred in the afflicted towns.”
Sam watched Dean take another gulp and scratch off a scab from a healing wound on his arm.
”Are you listening?”

Dean's eyes flickered upon him.
”Sure I am,” he said so cheerfully it sounded threatening.

”Okay... so... there's probably another werewolf pack loose in a rural town that fits on the way. I suggest we head there as soon as possible, as in early tomorrow. It's not far.”

”Whatever you want,” Dean replied and downed the rest of the freshly opened beer within the next two minutes.
”It's all the same to me.”

*

The moment Dean realised he was fucked was the moment that the third werewolf launched at him. He licked his lips as he pulled the trigger and sent the creature back a few feet, bleeding all over the floor. Then he turned, just in time to face the one that grabbed him by the waist and tore him open.
He felt his blood gushing out and when he tried to aim the gun at the beast, his hand didn't follow his orders. His muscles turned weak so fast he didn't have time to react - I'm dying, I'm actually dying - and his legs bent under him, sending him crashing on the floor. He held a hand over the wound and felt his insides pushing against his palm, a wave of nausea clashing with the pain. He didn't see Sam, and he didn't really hear him either, it was more like he knew that his brother was in the room and fighting off the remaining pack.

Then all was dark and the pain was gone.
Something was moving in the void, moving him, letting flashes of light and pain and distorted sounds into his realm.

A hand reached for him - he lifted his hand to greet it, touched it, smiled. Somewhere else he was coughing up blood and choking, but here it was good.
He held the hand and wished the gap would close, the imperfection in the warm, quiet dark surrounding him. That his body would give up and let go of him.

He floated in the darkness for hours or days or weeks before he realised that the only thing that kept him there was the hand he was holding. But it was such a familiar hand, the one he'd missed, the one he'd only touched in passing before that he could now finally hold forever. He didn't want to let it go.
He didn't want it to go. If he'd lift his grip, he'd never feel that hand anymore. He'd never be this close to Castiel again, not in life and not in death - dead angels didn't go to heaven. So he held on, endlessly, letting his mind drift as far as he could from the distractions that flowed inside his new reality between consciousness and the realm of the reapers. It was the best choice he had. To not go, and not really come back either.
There was peace and quiet there.

Moment by moment however the gap seemed to widen. It stretched now before him like the mouth of a large cave, the sounds coming from outside clearer than ever before. He felt air on his skin where it was exposed and pressure and memories of ache on his body where it was bandaged. He could count the times his wounds were cleaned. He couldn't have survived the attack, but the longer he chose to linger, the clearer it became that if he wouldn't let go, he'd eventually wake up again.

His decision was clear. He forced his fingers apart.

Then he noticed it didn't matter. His hand was around the other hand and no matter how hard he tried to let go, he couldn't.
Then he realised that the feeling wasn't inside his head. It was outside. It was in the waking world. And so he woke up to his own frustrated attempts at freeing himself from the warm grasp, like one wakes up to trying to answer a phone in a dream when its physical embodiment is ringing in another room.

Sam held a hand over his shoulder. His eyes were full of tears he wasn't letting out.
”Dean - Dean, calm down, it's alright.”

Dean blinked slowly, each movement of his muscles a task on its own.

”Drink this,” Sam pleaded and brought a straw over to his chapped lips.

Dean opened his mouth willessly and sucked water through. He felt his brother's hand pass through his hair and its warmth reminded him to the presence of the one he'd held onto for the whole time.
Fear struck through him like electricity. He was certain it had been his blanket, that when he'd turn his head, he'd see the wall and know he was alone, had been the whole time.

”Dean, look - look at me.”
Dean looked at Sam and his breathing had changed pattern to one that probably screamed fear to his sensitive brother.
”Don't do anything stupid. It's taken all his strength to get you patched up, he's not going to wake up anytime soon. And please don't force him to. He's almost as weak as you are”

”H-his?” Dean whispered and almost choked on the hoarseness of his throat.

Sam offered him the straw again and seemed to have difficulties expressing his thoughts in words.
”I can't tell you much. I don't really know either. It's like last time, only... well, you'll understand better if you just look. Don't jump up - fuck, Dean, swallow it first - I'll give you privacy only if you promise you won't kill either of you.”

Dean's breathing was now trapped within his chest and he merely nodded. He was so full of painful hope he felt like he'd explode - Sam's hand upon his head was like a chain binding him to the past year, and yet he was certain that if he'd look, he'd understood it all wrong and he'd really be alone.
So he was afraid to move when Sam left. Only after he'd closed the door behind him Dean started gathering up his courage. They were back at Bobby's and his body felt exactly like he'd lost a lot of blood recently and hadn't yet recovered, so when he finally did move, eyes closed, he feared he would be too weak to ever take another look again.
He held onto his consciousness through the wave of dizziness that flushed over him and rocked his world until he felt nauseous of it all. When it settled, his heart raced like mad and he was cold from fingertips on throughout his body, trembling weakly.
His fingers wound more tightly around the hand he held and he looked.

Castiel was laying next to him, fast asleep, in a much too large gray t-shirt, covered by Dean's blanket from waist down. He breathed very faintly and he was pale, but it all didn't matter - he was one hundred percent more alive than last that Dean had seen him.

He didn't know how to react, so he broke apart, finding himself pushing against the male's chest and crying so that his tears and saliva wet the shirt the other was wearing.

”Where did you come from?” he gasped, fingers of his free hand pushing into the other's oily hair, ”Why did you keep me waiting forever?”
Before he could care, his lips were upon the angel's, and he stole the kiss like it was the only thing that could stop the moment from falling apart into the reality he feared would take over again.

*

Castiel shivered. He could hardly sit up, but Dean's warmth gave him the determination he needed to manage it. He had fever and he was constantly thirsty, and the more energy he'd pushed into Dean, the weaker he had become himself until he was as wounded as Dean was, drained of the force that held him together.

Finally he had none left. He laid his head upon Dean's chest and closed his eyes, breathing air that felt foreign inside him. Dean's arms felt comfortingly strong around him. For once, the human was so much more powerful than he was.

”It's gone,” he said weakly.

”I know,” Dean replied, his fingers digging into Castiel's hair, ”but it's not half as bad as you think. The only bite you took was a bit off, you know. There's a reason some angels really dig mortality.”

A wavering smile lingered upon Castiel's lips. Dean pressed a finger against it and sent the angel's heart racing.

”I guess it's time we stop dying repeatedly, though. Who the fuck's going to get us up next time when you're out of mojo?”

If he'd had the strength to do so, Castiel would have shaken his head and chuckled.
The feelings inside him were all bound together, a mess he'd need time to dig through. He'd never felt like this before, so strongly, so purely and so certainly. And he'd definitely never felt so much at once, so many feelings that he'd never even imagined before.
He felt so weak like a newborn child, powerless to protect himself, unwilling to leave the imaginary safety of this place.

Dean pulled his leg from behind Castiel's back and leaned it against his side instead, supporting him so that he could relax and rest against him. He felt Dean's breath against his ear and gripped his hand tighter.

”Cas...” the younger muttered, uncertain.

”It's... alright, Dean.”

”No, it's not. I missed the chance last time. I won't lose it again. And I will if I'm not brave just this once.”

Castiel felt his lips curving into a small smile. It came so naturally - like it was inbuilt. He didn't have to put thought into it, he didn't have to ask himself if it was the proper reaction. The silence of his mind that he'd feared had made space for a whole new reality to take hold of him.
He felt Dean's fingers stroking his hair and the touch sent shivers down his spine.

His ears picked up on the sound of the younger licking his lips, preparing the words.

”I love you, Castiel. Don't you ever fucking dare to leave me again.”

It was hard to breath.
Castiel felt his body trembling, growing cold, and his heart jumping in his chest, something suffocating him and a tiny sound slipping past his guard while he was unsure of how to take control again.
When he felt Dean leaning down upon him, close enough for him to feel his breathing against his face from the odd position they'd taken, his reflexes pushed him into a kiss that felt like the most natural thing he'd ever done.

The only right thing to do.