(no subject)

[always_enduphere]

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.

Comments

[godless_son]

"Most likely we will send it back to Hell, where it may not stay for eternity, but long enough to keep Dean safe," he says, eyes locking on Mike's.

"I won't risk healing Dean to waste the grace to destroy it fully. Once it is out, we send it back under and take care of Dean."

[forthedog]

He nods. Understanding. If he were more vindictive he might almost consider destroying it worth the risk, but...

No. Actually. If it's going back to Hell, that might be all manner of best. No matter how vindictive he is or isn't.

And he still has one more question.

"Does he know? How much you love him?"

[godless_son]

Castiel's eyes widen, steely concentration broken by the very unexpected question.

"I don't...I don't know how he could not," he says softly, hands unclenching. "Accepting it is quite another matter. But there is no condition to it. He does not need to love me back. It doesn't affect how I feel. I will always love him and only him."

[forthedog]

"That's not what I asked. I asked if he knows." He turns his attention back to Dean and pulls in a breath.

"I think... It matters that he knows. I think it might be all that matters. We can do all we want to try to save him, Cas, but it's not gonna make any difference unless he wants to be saved."

He looks at Castiel again, direct and open. "Unless he has something to come back for."

[godless_son]

"He knows," Castiel says with a frown, turning back to Dean. "I told him I was in love with him. He knows that I will always be with him, in whatever capacity he will allow."

[forthedog]

"Then don't let him forget it. Whatever happens. Keep telling him. Even if he knows. Even if you think he knows."

He thinks of Neil, pale and unconscious in a hospital bed, and everything in him clenches into something that's almost pain.

"I know you will. I know you do. I'm just... saying."