[fic post] Reach Your Hardest
Title: Reach Your Hardest
Rating: PG
Genre: Angst
Pairings or Characters: Dean/Castiel, Sam
Warnings: spoilers for 5.14 and 5.17
Word Count: 578
Summary: Coda to 5.17.
Author Notes: THOSE LAST THREE MINUTES DIDN'T HAPPEN. I REFUSE TO ACKNOWLEDGE THEM. AHHHHHHHH.
Reach Your Hardest
Sam storms back into the motel room, ignoring the preacher, and walks right up to where Cas is laying disoriented on one of the beds. He drags the angel up and on to his feet and shakes him by the arms.
"Find him!" he shouts. Castiel's head rolls and his eyes remain unfocused and Sam swears, shaking him harder. "Fuck, Cas, snap out of it and find him."
"I can't," Cas grunts, eyes squeezing shut against the unpleasant motion, even after Sam stills. "I do not know where he is nor can I locate him unless he lets me or decides to start praying." Sam lets him go and Castiel stumbles until the backs of his knees knock into the bed and he falls over.
"He's going to do something really stupid if we can't find him--"
"I am well aware," Cas interrupts, staring at the ceiling that appears to be dancing above him. "Dean is going to say 'yes' to Michael."
"After everything? After all the speeches and the 'fuck you's he's tossed at Zachariah and Lucifer and God? He's just going to give up and say yes? He wouldn't. He can't! ... Right?"
"Loss of faith can make one desperate, Sam."
Sam falls into a chair and rubs his hands over his face tiredly. The preacher is still standing with an ice pack against his head, and for being rather new to this apocalypse stuff, has been following the conversation pretty well despite missing a few key pieces of information.
"Many people reach the hardest for what they've always wanted when they have lost the last of their hope," he says slowly. Sam glances at him before burying his face back in his hands.
The angel is still trying to get the ceiling to stop making him feel so dizzy, but he replies with a single word.
"Love."
"What?" Sam asks through his hands.
"Dean will reach for who he thinks will love him."
"How do you know?" the preacher asks, curious.
"His want to be loved. It pours out of him so strongly I am surprised no one else can see it. It is all I can see, sometimes."
"I thought he didn't want anything. Famine didn't affect him."
Cas sighs and shuts his eyes again. He wants Sam to understand what he knows so well -- that Dean needs love, family, so strongly that Famine could not make him want it any more -- but his mouth is feeling cottony and his words grow more sluggish every moment. He wonders briefly if he shouldn't have taken that entire bottle of aspirin earlier.
"I will find him," he says instead, determined and strong, "And I will stop him."
He doesn't say how, because he isn't really sure at this point. He doesn't point out the consequences of Dean's answer, because both he and Sam know them very well. He doesn't mourn his inability to show Dean that he loves him -- that he always has and always will -- through his rebellion against Heaven and his Father for Dean's cause, because Dean does know. Dean knows these things, but he refuses to understand.
So Castiel resolves, then and there, underneath the dancing ceiling tiles, that he will not let Dean say 'yes' to Michael, and he will make Dean understand that he is loved.
"Once I can stand up properly, I mean," the angel mumbles in a groggy voice.
And then promptly passes out.
Rating: PG
Genre: Angst
Pairings or Characters: Dean/Castiel, Sam
Warnings: spoilers for 5.14 and 5.17
Word Count: 578
Summary: Coda to 5.17.
Author Notes: THOSE LAST THREE MINUTES DIDN'T HAPPEN. I REFUSE TO ACKNOWLEDGE THEM. AHHHHHHHH.
Reach Your Hardest
Sam storms back into the motel room, ignoring the preacher, and walks right up to where Cas is laying disoriented on one of the beds. He drags the angel up and on to his feet and shakes him by the arms.
"Find him!" he shouts. Castiel's head rolls and his eyes remain unfocused and Sam swears, shaking him harder. "Fuck, Cas, snap out of it and find him."
"I can't," Cas grunts, eyes squeezing shut against the unpleasant motion, even after Sam stills. "I do not know where he is nor can I locate him unless he lets me or decides to start praying." Sam lets him go and Castiel stumbles until the backs of his knees knock into the bed and he falls over.
"He's going to do something really stupid if we can't find him--"
"I am well aware," Cas interrupts, staring at the ceiling that appears to be dancing above him. "Dean is going to say 'yes' to Michael."
"After everything? After all the speeches and the 'fuck you's he's tossed at Zachariah and Lucifer and God? He's just going to give up and say yes? He wouldn't. He can't! ... Right?"
"Loss of faith can make one desperate, Sam."
Sam falls into a chair and rubs his hands over his face tiredly. The preacher is still standing with an ice pack against his head, and for being rather new to this apocalypse stuff, has been following the conversation pretty well despite missing a few key pieces of information.
"Many people reach the hardest for what they've always wanted when they have lost the last of their hope," he says slowly. Sam glances at him before burying his face back in his hands.
The angel is still trying to get the ceiling to stop making him feel so dizzy, but he replies with a single word.
"Love."
"What?" Sam asks through his hands.
"Dean will reach for who he thinks will love him."
"How do you know?" the preacher asks, curious.
"His want to be loved. It pours out of him so strongly I am surprised no one else can see it. It is all I can see, sometimes."
"I thought he didn't want anything. Famine didn't affect him."
Cas sighs and shuts his eyes again. He wants Sam to understand what he knows so well -- that Dean needs love, family, so strongly that Famine could not make him want it any more -- but his mouth is feeling cottony and his words grow more sluggish every moment. He wonders briefly if he shouldn't have taken that entire bottle of aspirin earlier.
"I will find him," he says instead, determined and strong, "And I will stop him."
He doesn't say how, because he isn't really sure at this point. He doesn't point out the consequences of Dean's answer, because both he and Sam know them very well. He doesn't mourn his inability to show Dean that he loves him -- that he always has and always will -- through his rebellion against Heaven and his Father for Dean's cause, because Dean does know. Dean knows these things, but he refuses to understand.
So Castiel resolves, then and there, underneath the dancing ceiling tiles, that he will not let Dean say 'yes' to Michael, and he will make Dean understand that he is loved.
"Once I can stand up properly, I mean," the angel mumbles in a groggy voice.
And then promptly passes out.