((Supernatural Wincestiel Big Bang)) Something Worth Protecting (Part XI)
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Dean.
Dean doesn't know how he knows, but something is wrong. Something is sticking in his chest and aching there, rough and uncomfortable. Something is seriously, majorly, completely fucking not-okay.
And he doesn't have the slightest idea what to do about it.
“Faith?” he calls hesitantly, not sure if it's even worth his time. “Something feel...off to you?” It seems like a pointless question, because what doesn't feel off about this place? But she's had some kind of insight into what's going on lately, it seems - or at least more than he does.
The only response he gets is silence.
“Faith?” he says again, but he still hears nothing. He pulls on the chain, but it snaps tight, not giving in the slightest, and when he looks over, it's no longer disappearing into a hole in the stone, continuing through to the other side; now, it's attached to the wall with a dark metal bolt, holding fast. He's cut off completely now.
His stomach drops, because that can't be good. What if Faith was never there to begin with? What if he imagined the whole thing, and he really is alone in this place, utterly, completely? He tugs on the chain halfheartedly a few more times, but it’s fruitless.
“Dean...”
He whips his head around to look, and by the barred window now is a figure, curled up on the floor, weak and shaking and bleeding and...
Sammy.
It's the same vision from before, of Sam, but as he was years ago, as he is sometimes in Dean's mind even now that he's a head taller than his older brother. He's a child: stubborn little Sammy.
And it looks like he's dying.
“Sammy!” His voice is so ragged and broken as he cries out that he almost doesn't recognize it. He tells himself, somewhere deep down, that this isn't Sam; it can't be, but that doesn't matter. In this place he doesn't know what to trust, and even if it's only his own mind desperately reaching out in search of something to hold on to, it's all he has.
So he lurches forward, reaching out for him, but the chain holds him fast, and he's left looking on helplessly, the metal digging into his wrist as his little brother uncurls himself, coughing, and looks up at him.
“Sammy...” Dean breathes again, his throat tightening up and burning raw. “What are you doing here, Sammy? Geez, what are you doing here?”
Sam says nothing, merely reaches out, his hand scratched up and trembling, reaching toward Dean. Dean doesn't know why, doesn't make a conscious effort to do so, but he's so driven by his need to get to his brother that he reaches out too. Their fingers are just a breath apart, just mere inches from brushing.
He falls short, grunting in frustration and fear as he slams down onto his forearms on the cold stone. Sam is still reaching, breathing Dean's name, and god he needs to get to him. He'll break his own wrist if he has to.
The chain squeals obnoxiously as Dean pulls again, gritting his teeth against the frigid bite of metal against his skin and bone. He can feel tendons stretching, cartilage protesting angrily as he wrenches against the shackles that bind him, reaching, reaching for his brother, whether he be real or not.
He's four. Sam is curled against his body, shielded from the flames as he runs, runs and doesn't look back, fleeing from the house. Run, don't look back. Take your brother outside fast as you can and don't look back. Don't look back. Never look back.
The chain is cracking, bright white light pouring out of the fissures that appear in its hard, rusted rings. The very floor beneath him groans like he's kneeling on old, water damaged floor boards rather than on tough stone. Light pours in from the barred window behind his vision of Sam, like a door somewhere far away is opening and letting the sunlight stream in. It floods around Sam, framing his head like a halo.
He's falling, pitching forward on the stairs, heart hammering against his ribs like his feet on the ground. He's flying, landing unharmed on the solid floor, Sam safe in his grasp. He doesn't have time to think; it's all a blur of fire and fear. Run. Just run. Run and don't ever look back, no matter what.
The chain snaps just as Dean calls out Sam's name one last time, and light floods his vision. The ground gives out beneath him, and he's falling.
Someone calls after him, softly, but desperately. Not just one voice, but two: Sam's and Castiel's.
Sam.
“D...ean...” he managed to croak as the fire receded. He was still alive, which was a miracle in and of itself, but darkness was creeping around the edges of his vision, and his fingers were going numb. The burning pain in his back bled through his whole body, like needles biting at every inch of his flesh. All he could see was his brother. He barely heard Asaph huff in annoyance, growling something about “archangel grace” before the angel's voice faded away entirely.
“Dean...” he breathed again, the sound of his brother's name like a balm, albeit barely effective. He leaned forward, resting his forehead against Dean's chest, the metal of Dean's necklace cool against his skin.
He'd come too far to lose him now...all over again.
He'd grown up in battle with Dean by his side as they'd trekked through their childhood boot camp. He'd seen things at the age of twelve that could drive grown men insane with fear, and yet the nightmares had always been worse. But when he'd woken up screaming in the middle of the night in a musty motel room, Dean's arms had been around him in moments, without a word, without judgment, but merely with silent understanding that never needed to be addressed in the morning. Dean had pulled him from the fire twice and then faced the hottest fire of all for him.
Dean had faced Hell for him, and so Sam had faced Heaven, but this time, there was nobody to pull them out.
It was all Sam could do to whisper, “I'm sorry...” against his brother's shirt as darkness encroached. Sorry for not being strong enough, for not being fast enough, sorry for coming all this way just to die in his arms for - unbelievably - the second time.
Just as the numbness began to take over, his arm burned. He didn't have the strength to look down, but it lit up his body like a flare, fire coursing through his veins in lieu of blood. The wound on his back tingled anew, and he let out a breath - one that he thought could be his last - as the power radiating from the sigil on his forearm was set alight. It was a different kind of burning, not like the kind that Asaph had set to blaze in his back, but like the soothing hot chill of a balm applied to an injury. And suddenly, he could feel Grace pour through him; he knew it was Grace, could sense it was Grace, but hadn't had any idea what Grace really was until that very moment when it possessed him: the Grace of an archangel. Gabriel.
It flooded him, pulsed through him like adrenaline, burning away shadows he hadn't even known existed in his bones, melding with the smoldering residue that Asaph's attack had left on his body and surrounding it, removing it, pulling it from his flesh like white blood cells attacking invading microbes. It took an instant, and an eternity, both at the same moment in time.
And then there it was. There he was. Castiel. The angel's presence broke through an invisible barrier erected in his soul by the demon blood and took its place where Gabriel's remaining Grace receded. This must have been what it felt like to be guarded, to be watched over by an agent of Heaven. This must have been what it felt like to have a Guardian Angel.
He was just thinking that it would have been nice to experience the feeling a little longer before succumbing to the darkness that was still creeping in on the edges of his vision, when Dean opened his eyes.
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