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dothwrites · 4 years

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15.13 coda--the price we pay

So it’s true, when all is said and done--grief is the price we pay for love.--E.A. Bucchianeri

---

Jack’s door closes with a small snick. Castiel watches it close. The thin barrier of wood separates him from his boy, but it doesn’t keep away the muffled sounds of sobs and sniffles.

The moment had lasted an eternity, Jack looking at Dean through tear-bright eyes, begging for forgiveness, Dean staring back down at Jack, his jaw set and eyes gimlet hard. Dean feels things more deeply than anyone else, Castiel had told Jack. He’d meant it. Joy, anger, guilt...Dean feels, so much all of the time, that it spills out onto anyone else who gets in his way.

What he hadn’t told Jack was that that was the reason that he loved Dean. Was because he felt. As an angel, a being who was never intended for emotion, the sight of a human soul, writhing with emotion so bright that it managed to shine through hell, was enough to captivate him. He’d been drawn towards Dean, helpless as a moth towards flame, and there he’d stayed, caught in Dean’s orbit. There he weathers the tempest of Dean’s anger as well as the brightness of his joy.

And he’s had time, firsthand, to experience to balm of Dean’s forgiveness.

Dean’s hand had descended towards Jack and Castiel had hated Jack’s flinch. Hated it for Jack, hated it for Dean. He knew that that flinch hurt Dean, reinforced what Dean had suspected all along--that he was nothing but a brute, nothing but a monster.

But Dean’s hand had landed on Jack’s shoulder, just a moment before Dean was on his knees, pulling Jack into a fierce embrace. “It’s ok kid,” he said, voice thick and gravel-rough. “You’re ok.”

Sam had knelt alongside them, his long arms wrapping up Jack and Dean alike, and Castiel...His work was done, in a sense. He’d facilitated Jack’s return to the Winchesters, seen his soul restored. Gotten one step closer to the ultimate goal. So Castiel had taken a few small steps out of the room, silently. No one had seen him go, no one had noticed his presence, until Dean and Sam walked out. Sam’s eyes were glassy, his face flushed. Dean’s mouth was flat, but there was something calm and peaceful in his eyes, something that had been missing for long weeks.

Anger takes a toll on the soul.

And then they’d walked away, leaving Jack’s door to close behind them. And Castiel watches--Watches his boy deal with the pain of his actions, watches the Winchesters walk away. After a moment, Castiel follows.

Dean glances up when he enters the room. Something hard glints at him. It reminds Castiel of the pain of the word idiot when it comes from Dean’s lips, the curling realization that no matter his contribution, he’ll never be valued.

Castiel is still a soldier, first and foremost. He understands the necessity of sacrifice, knows that in chess, sometimes you have to lose pieces in order to win.

He just wishes that Dean would care a little more when he’s finally taken off the board.

---

Cas looks at him with wide eyes and Dean knows that they’re going to have to talk. Probably sooner than later, judging by the stubborn little purse to his mouth. Dean takes another sip from his beer (those bastards drank them down to almost nothing, greedy little sons of bitches) and luxuriates in the swallow. He’ll put off this conversation as long as he can.

He still doesn’t know, how to put all the concern that he feels, the worry that continuously scrabbles at the inside of his skull, into words that don’t spit and fizzle like poison. He’d seen the minute little flinch in Cas’ face when he said idiot, just like he’d seen the Jack’s flinch when he reached out towards him. He’s doing better, he’s trying, but what the hell does it say about him that the people that he loves best in the world literally draw back from him?

“I’m going to bed,” Sam says, his voice still scratchy and rough. Dean knows that the deal with Jack hit him hard, but there’s something else there too. Sam’s continuous glances at his phone tell a fairly convincing story. No doubt there’s a series of texts from Eileen waiting for him.

Which would be fine, Dean’s all aboard the good ship Saileen, except that Sam’s departure leaves him alone with Cas. And Cas isn’t leaving or starting the conversation, which means that he’s going to leave Dean to deal with this whole mess.

The silence between them takes on a distinctly stony feel the longer they sit in it. It’s so damned uncomfortable sitting in it, yet breaking it would somehow be worse. Dean will give it to Cas--he’s a passive-aggressive little shit when he wants to be.

After the quiet becomes so uncomfortable that Dean’s teeth are itching, he finally decides to rip the band-aid off in one, vicious tug.

“It was a damn stupid thing, what you did.”

He didn’t mean it to sound like that, he really didn’t. But his intentions are worthless--the words fall harsh and flat between them, like little loaded weapons. Whatever softness might have been lurking in Cas is gone.

“It was the only way to get what we needed.” Cas’ voice is tight with repressed emotion, but the words are enough to spark a wildfire in Dean.

“It was the only--what the fuck man?” he spits. He stands up, his chair skittering backwards across the floor. Its feet scrape against the wood, loud enough to send the hairs rising on Dean’s arms, but he ignores that in favor of focusing on Cas.

“The only way was to go and get yourself killed? Again?”

Try as he might, he can’t erase the image--Cas, slumped motionless in the chair, face gone that particular shade of pale and waxy that Dean knows and wishes that he didn’t. How many times has he been forced to watch Cas die, right in front of him? How many times has he said goodbye? And they’ve been lucky--for every goodbye, there’s always been a Hello Dean waiting, but Winchesters aren’t known for their luck. How long before it runs out? How long before Cas does something so monumentally reckless that there’s no coming back from it?

How long before Dean has to say goodbye permanently?

“It wasn’t like that--”

“It was exactly like that!” Dean’s anxiety and worry spills out of him in a vicious tirade. “Sam and I come back, find you--”

“So you’re the only one who can take pointless risks?” Castiel is standing now, and there’s a dangerous, sharp edge in his voice that Dean should probably heed, but he’s too far gone for that.

“That’s different--” Though it really isn’t, the difference is that Dean is just...Dean, just some schmuck who doesn’t have a trust fund, who doesn’t know any life other than that which cakes blood and dirt underneath his nails. He doesn’t matter, not in the long run. But Castiel...Castiel is made of stardust and the cosmos. It would be a sin, if Dean were left on the world while Castiel ceased to exist.

For a moment Cas is speechless with rage. Then he’s striding over to Dean, pushing an angry finger into his chest, so hard that Dean’s sure there will be small, circular bruises blooming over his skin within the next day or so.

“How dare you? How dare you assume that everyone...that I would be fine without you? How dare you think so little of yourself?”

Dean laughs, a wretched ugly sound. “Yeah? Well, right back at you pal.”

It hits him then, weights falling from the sky: how tenuous their grip on this life is. How any wrong move could be their last. How any of them could be snuffed out in the merest flicker of an instant and nothing of them would be left behind, save grief.

Dean isn’t aware of the series of events that end with him crashing into Cas. He knows that his knees buckle, that he reaches out for Cas, that Cas is there to catch him, steady as ever. He folds himself into Cas, burrowing his nose between the collar of Cas’ shirt and his neck, brushing against warm skin.

“I thought I lost you,” Dean finally says, the words dredged out of him like vomit, coming from somewhere dark and desperate that he keeps inside himself. Cas, his head lolling backward, hands limp on his stomach. Cas, light pouring out of his eyes and mouth, angel blade pierced through his chest...”I thought that I’d lost you again.”

He doesn’t cry, but it’s a near thing as his shoulders shake with the release of pent-up emotion. He tries to crawl away to lick his wounds and hide his shame, but Cas’ arms tighten like a vice around his shoulders, keeping him present.

“I can’t...don’t make me lose you again.” It’s half order, half-plea, but wholly sincere, gasped into Cas’ neck. “You think that you’re fucking expendable, that the ends justify the means, or whatever else your stupid chess metaphors say. But I need you in this with me Cas. I need you with me.”

“And how dare you assume that I don’t feel the same,” Cas answers back. “How dare you think that I could go through this earth without you with me.”

Dean draws back, just enough that he can take Cas’ face in his hands. Cas’ skin is warm against his palms. He can feel the flutter of Cas’ pulse underneath his hands, wild and thready and so very alive. “You ain’t fucking leaving me,” Dean says, before he kisses Cas.

Just before his lips meet Cas’, he thinks that he sees something flicker across Cas’ face. A hint of regret maybe, a deeper secret coiling underneath the surface of those blue eyes.

Dean pushes it aside before he kisses Cas, hard enough to bruise. Permanent.

---

“I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.”―Mark Twain

#spn spoilers #supernatural #destiel #destiel fic #destiel fanfic #coda fic #15.13 coda #15x13 coda #spn15 #spn season 15 #15.13 #dean winchester #castiel #jack kline #fare thee well spn #welcome to the end #dothwrites

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