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tibbinswrites · 5 years

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Suptober Day 23 - No Exit

Warning for Major Character Death in this one.

Dean pulled out his phone, grimacing as the movement sent a fresh wave of warm blood gushing from the wound in his stomach. He had to use both hands to hold it, which meant no one was keeping pressure on the wound, which sucked. He had to try several times to unlock the thing, his fingers were sticky and the touch wasn’t really registering. What the hell had been so wrong with buttons that phone companies decided to do away with them altogether? Maybe Bobby had had a point in his aversion to computers, or maybe Dean he had just gotten old enough to be falling behind. At least he had signal in here. He tapped on the name and it began to ring. Dean winced as he reapplied pressure to his stomach with one hand, not that it would do much,

“Hello Dean,” The voice was as warm and gritty as wet sand and Dean instantly relaxed, slumping back against the wall, though that wasn’t the voice he’d been expecting to hear.

“Where’s Sam?”

“He’s meeting with that paranoid office worker, he said he had some information on the thing’s location but made Sam promise to leave his phone behind.”

“Oh yeah, ’cause that’s not concerning.” He tried to push back the crushing disappointment that he wouldn’t be able to hear his baby brother’s voice one more time. He still had Cas.

“Sam said you’d say that,” Cas said, the hint of a smile in his voice. “Don’t worry, we checked him out beforehand, went through his whole life story in paperwork, he is who he says and ‘he’s not the droid we’re looking for’.”

Dean laughed, okay, it was half a laugh, half an extended, pained cough. It was a horrible, hacking sound, not one that could be passed off as anything other than concerning. “Man, I’m so glad I made you watch Star Wars.”

“What’s wrong?” Cas asked, voice instantly hardened, serious, “are you alright?”

“Uhh...” He considered lying, he did. He already missed the warmth of happy, calm Cas. Then he shifted and coughed again and knew that Cas would never forgive him if he lied now. “No, buddy.”

“Where are you?” Cas was all business now, and he could hear the light static of air passing through the speaker as the phone moved, keys jingled in the background, the sound of a door.

“Cas-” it was too late, he wanted to say, Cas wouldn’t get here in time. Dean was lying in a pool of what he judged to be about five pints of his own blood. He was woozy and feverish, steadily dripping out more, and to top it all off, he was in a solid stone room so even if Cas made it before Dean croaked, getting in would take more time than he had.

“Where!” Cas shouted.

“The… the theme park outside of town. The maze room. Thing was a freaking minotaur, you believe that? Not heard of them outside of Greece before.”

“Was,” Cas repeated the sound of a car engine rumbling through the phone, “You killed it?”

“I think you could say we killed each other at the same time,” Dean said, glancing over to where the misshapen lump of the minotaur lay. “I just… haven’t gotten around to dying yet.”

“Don’t talk like that. I’m on my way, you’re gonna be fine.”

“I’m bleeding out, Cas. If I go quiet don’t think I’m ignorin’ ya, alright?”

He could feel it, the sleepiness that came with blood loss, the way his head kept dipping. It wasn’t too bad yet, he’d had practise at this after all, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to fight it much longer. The minotaur had gored him, and then it had thrown him backwards just as Dean had managed to get the wire around the thing’s neck, unknowingly killing itself when it threw Dean away, the wire slicing through spine and muscle and tendons half a second before Dean hit the wall.

“Hold on,” Cas ordered, voice desperate. Dean would bet Baby that the gas pedal was on the floor. Even so, the theme park was a quarter of an hour away. “Hold on just a little longer. Please, Dean.”

“I’m glad you picked up,” Dean confessed. “I don’t… I don’t wanna be alone.”

“I’m right here.”

“Yeah,” Dean said quietly. “You’re always here when it counts.”

There was a small sniff from the other end of the line, or at least that’s what Dean thought, but blood loss and pain could do all sorts of funky things. He pressed a little harder to the wound and hissed as it shot lightning through all his pain receptors.

“What the hell made you go after this thing alone?” Cas demanded, “You couldn’t have called me?”

“Save the lecture till after I’m dead, Cas.” He said, trying to sound jokey, but it rang hollow.

“Don’t-”

“Thing jumped me anyway. Knocked me out. I woke up in the middle of the maze. Only know that’s where it is ’cause we were in here, what, two days ago?”

When the three of them had first rolled into town the first thing Dean had seen was the theme park, and seeing as they would’ve had to wait until the next day to get started on the case anyway they decided to go. It had been a great day. Dean dragged Cas to the bumper cars and laughed his ass off as the guy drove around the track like a jittery grandmother.

But as it turned out, Cas loved roller-coasters.

In the maze they’d split up. Sam had followed a thread of interesting murals while Dean and Cas went searching for the centre; Sam text them while they were getting lost to let them know he’d already found the middle and the exit and that he was going to go get them candy apples while he waited. They found it eventually, a cool and dimly lit stone room with a bell suspended on wire in the middle to ring to prove you’d made it. Apparently there was also a huge stone slab that could be (and was currently being) used as a door, rolled into position and fixed in place by some mechanism that he couldn’t see and didn’t care to investigate. In fact, it was that very door that he was now bleeding out on. He had to hand it to the minotaur, this was the ideal spot for squirrelling away victims after hours, as long as those victims weren’t viciously well-trained and resourceful, of course, but that was no fault of the location.

“Dean?”

Dean shook himself, he’d been dangerously close to drifting off into his own head for a second there, “Yeah, sorry.”

“Keep talking to me,” Cas instructed, “I’m almost there.”

“Cas, you’re not gonna-” Dean began.

“Shut up!”

“Keep talking, shut up, I’m getting mixed signals here, buddy.” Dean said, his words ending in a wheeze, apparently he needed to stick to shorter sentences if he still wanted to breathe.

“Oh please, you invented mixed signals.” Cas retorted, clearly just grasping on to the thread of conversation to keep Dean talking, he couldn’t blame him, were the situations reversed he knew he’d do the same. He heard the crunch of gravel and figured that Cas had hit the theme park parking lot.

“And what’s that s’pposed to mean?” He heard his voice beginning to slur and he fought it as best he could. He was shocky, had been since about the third pint of blood ventured out into the wide world, shock he was an old hand at but now he was approaching pint six and his vision was dipping.

“We are not having this conversation now.” Cas said fiercely, and he was running, Dean wasn’t sure he’d even switched off the car engine but he could hear the rhythmic pound of footsteps, the slight hitch in Cas’ breathing, more at the force of his feet hitting ground rather than any bodily strain, damn angels. “You said the middle of the maze?”

“Yeah,” Dean said, feeling himself start to slip, the darkness was so inviting, it hurt where he was, sat on the cold stone, his own blood soaking into his socks. “S’okay, Cas.”

“Don’t you dare fall asleep, you hear me?!” Cas yelled into the phone, panicked now, his voice remarkably stable for someone sprinting full speed, Dean loved his voice, he loved how it could be soft and badass at the same time, he loved the way it formed itself around words and made them become emotion by association. “I’m almost there.”

“Mmm.”

“Dean!”

“You say my name weird.” Dean said, mostly to stop Cas from yelling at him.

“I do?”

“Yeah, like it means somethin’, not just a name, you know? But me.”

“You do mean something,” Cas insisted. “You mean a lot, you mean everything.”

“Dramatic bastard.”

Cas let out a sound then, half a sob, half relief, and then there was a bang on the solid block of stone behind him, vibrating it, making his skull ring like that damned bell.

“Ow,” he complained.

“Dean!” Cas called, his voice tinny through the phone and muffled through the door. “Can you hear me?”

Dean allowed the phone to slip from his fingers and into the pool of blood with a sick plop.

“Yeah, Cas. I hear ya.”

“How do I open the door?”

“Dunno, buddy. The thing had keys, maybe that.”

“Can you slide them under the door?”

“Can’t reach ’em.”

“Try!”

So Dean half-heartedly lifted a heavy arm before letting it drop, “Ain’t happening.”

“Not even to save yourself?” He sounded angry, good, angry was better than upset, he deserved angry.

“Cas, I don’t think I could move to save Sam right now,” he confessed.

There was a pause then, a brief one, and if he wasn’t mistaken a sob burbled up from the blood-soaked phone that didn’t make it through the door.

“Okay,” Cas said, that glorious voice remarkably gentle now, “Okay, then I’ll find another way in.”

Another pause, and then the whole room trembled, dust floated down from the ceiling and Dean grimaced at the pain even that slight movement caused. That tremble came again, and again, and a fourth time.

“Are you trying to punch your way through?” Dean asked, half-incredulous, half-impressed. He’d also probably be a little turned on if he had any blood to spare.

“Yes.”

“Well stop it, you’re giving me a headache.”

“Dean-”

“Dammit, Cas! Just talk to me.”

If Cas heard the note of fear in his voice, he was kind enough not to mention it, though it wasn’t the dying that frightened Dean, he’d been down that road more times than he could count, no, he just… he didn’t want to spend his last minutes in a stone box listening to Cas lose his freaking mind.

“I can save you.”

“No, you can’t.” Dean said quietly.

It was definitely a sob this time, one last, tiny thump, and the sound of Cas falling to the ground, either on his knees or on his ass Dean couldn’t be sure.

“It’s okay, Cas. You’ll be okay.”

“Don’t bullshit me,” Cas said. “I’ve lost you before, I know that I won’t.”

“Yeah, well… You’ve still got Sam, and he’s gonna need you too.”

“Sam… what… what am I gonna tell him?”

“You’ll tell him that you stayed with me. You’ll tell him I told him to cut his damn hair.”

Cas laughed wetly. “He won’t.”

Dean smiled, despite himself, “Yeah, I know.”

There was a brief silence while Dean struggled to stay conscious just a little longer. He wished he could see Cas, touch him, watch his eyes turn soft and focused, looking at him like he was something beautiful and brilliant and loved.

“Never thought it would be like this,” he said after a minute, because he knew Cas was about to call his name again, shaky, and not expecting a reply.

“You never factored in ‘minotaur’?”

“Funny, right? I’ve got a long list of ways I thought I’d get taken out, but never once thought of a minotaur.”

“Sounds like bad planning on your part.” Cas replied, with forced calm.

“Right?”

Another few seconds passed, then, because Dean just couldn’t stand it anymore, “I love you.”

He heard the gasp, heard the gulp and the choke, hated himself for it, because Cas would have to live with this moment forever. Dean would be dead with the words no longer stoppering his lungs but Cas would have to carry them around with him for the rest of his life, or at least until he learned how to set them down and leave them behind. Dean didn’t like to think about either option.

“Sorry,” he continued, “I know, Winchesters don’t do deathbed confessions.”

“So, why-?”

“Because you deserve to hear it. Because I fuckin’ love you and I can be such an asshole sometimes and I’m not sure you know.”

“I know,” Cas said thickly. “I was waiting for you to say it, to be ready.”

“I’ve got the worst timing.”

“Yes, you do.”

Dean practically heard the teary smile, even as the room faded to blackness, he was still conscious, just, could still hear, but keeping his eyes open was just… too much.

“I love you too.” Cas said, “bad timing and all.”

“Good, or that would’ve been awkward.”

“Any other deathbed confessions while we’re here?”

“Just one, but if you tell Sam, I’m gonna haunt your ass.”

“What?” Cas’ voice was like a breath of clean air after a storm, air that he could barely get into his lungs now.

“I’m scared.” The words came out in a puff of air, barely audible now, “How dumb is that? I don’t want Heaven, Cas, I just wanna go home.”

“I know.” Cas said quietly. “You’re the one person who won’t be content with paradise.”

“Mem’ries ’rn’t the same.” He mumbled, his tongue thick and unwieldy in his mouth.

“But we had some good ones, didn’t we?” Cas murmured through the door. “Like the time I first made you laugh in that brothel? And when we...”

Cas’ voice faded out, a soothing rhythm of pleasant memories and feelings.

Maybe he hadn’t had minotaur on his list, but this wasn’t the worst way to go, all things considered.

@winchester-reload

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#suptober #suptoberart2019 #spn fanfic #Destiel fanfic #major character death #angst #day 23 #No Exit #prompt #writing #TibbinsWrites

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