always_enduphere | (no subject)

(no subject)

The chapel is small. Built for mourners on the edge of the dead, its walls are clean and white, sturdy, meant for shelter. Wood and brick, not meant to contain the darkness now held within them, twitching in the form of the body strapped prone to a hasty trap made of splintered pews.

It's quiet inside, removed enough from the city that the only sounds are rattling breaths from the body in chains, snatches of anxious voices and the occasional rumble of the floor, creaking and groaning from unseen onslaught, but holding.

There's an energy in the air, an electricity that raises hackles along with hairs, pouring from the ravaged body in an angry throb, but within the trap it can't do more than rattle walls, beneath the chains that smoke its skin, it can't do more than hiss curses on borrowed breath, and promise agonies yet to come.

In the center of the trap, the thing wearing Dean Winchester bares its teeth, blinking black towards any with stomach left to look at him.

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In the rare and fleeting moments left alone in his head, Dean's thought of him, closed his eyes and seen Cas hanging there, ragdoll limp and bleeding out. Said he was sorry a dozen times, but never expected anyone to hear it.

"Hurt you," he says now, pushing the words out of his ruined throat. Always hurting him, comes the gleeful reminder inside his head, and Dean closes his eyes. "Sorry, Cas."

"Don't," Castiel chokes out, face pained as he leans in close, hiding Dean's face from the group for a moment.

"Please, don't. It wasn't you. I owe you the deepest apology for allowing this to happen and I will make it up to you, Dean. I'm going to save you, I promise. You must hold on, alright? You can't leave me here."

"Tryin'," Dean whispers, but it's hard to remember what he's clinging to. There's a weight on his chest he's felt before, a heaviness sinking deeper than any demon could go. He's dying, or near to it, and it's so hard to get his hands around something to hang onto.

"Tired, Cas."

"I know, Dean, I know," he murmurs, pressing his forehead to Dean's. It's reckless and dangerous but he can't hold back the little comfort he can offer, not now. "It will be over soon and then I will bring Annie to you. I'm a terrible pet owner, Dean. She needs you to come back to her. And you know that if you try and leave, I will just follow you."

Annie. Dean misses her, just as he's missed all of them, but the ache is mixed with guilt, a need to make things right with her kindling, faint but there.

"Miss her," he says, and would laugh if he could, standing in the middle of all this ruin and missing his fucking dog. He lets Castiel take his weight, keep his head upright so Dean can open his eyes and look at him. "Don't you fucking dare. If I go anywhere, you stay. You look after all of them."

"I go where you go," he repeats, easily taking Dean's weight, trying to ease some of the strain. "I will come after you every time, Dean. But it would be much easier if you just stay with me. We're going to end this, but we'll have to weaken the demon, further. You know what that means. We will do everything we can to spare you and I promise I will fix you when it's over."

"What if it's not in me, Cas?" Dean asks, and he hardly has the energy to breathe, but he finds the strength, somehow, to be brave. To face this, and at least die as a man before he can become something worse. "What if it is me? You can't know for sure, and if this is the only way to kill it..."

Dean holds his eyes.

"The demon currently possessing you will be exorcised and destroyed and you will be fine, Dean," Castiel growls, eyes hard and determined. "I was destined to be the one who found you in the pit and I will not fail you now. I was made to rescue you, there is no other option that I will accept. Do you believe me?"

Castiel is so sure. He's always so sure, and whatever Dean did to the Cas in his reality, this one has never given up on him, not even for a second. It's the first good thing he's felt in weeks, and the thing in him rebels against it, stops up his lungs and squeezes so tight around his heart, Dean thinks it might stop this time, but he leans forward with the last of his strength, vision graying at the edges when he presses his torn lips to Castiel's.

Edited 2013-04-16 03:53 (UTC)

Castiel presses close, arm tightening on Dean's waist just long enough to kiss him back. His breath stutters in his chest, thoughts betraying him as he wonders how long it will be before he gets to have this again and pulls back, unwilling to let Dean die over this.

"I love you," he murmurs, brushing his fingers down Dean's face. "Angels are not supposed to be capable of it and you changed me from the first moment I saw you. We're going to end this now, Dean."

Dean nods, but he can't hold on, and this time the darkness doesn't bowl him over so much as lightly push, laughing as he goes down like the dead.

"You do, and the only thing you'll end is him," i say, smacking the blood from dean's lips. "I give his heart..." i hum. "An hour. Half that, if you try pulling me out of him."

"It won't take that long," Castiel promises, face cold once again as he steps out of the trap.

"It's time to do this," he announces to the others. "Like we discussed."

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