fic: Thickening the Air I'm Breathing
Title: Thickening the Air I'm Breathing
Characters: Dean/Castiel, Sam, Bobby
Wordcount: ~2,500
Rating: PG13
Spoilers: for 7x02, Unbetaed, all mistakes are my own.
Warnings: mature language
Disclaimer: They ain't mine (but I'm working on it)
Summary: Endings are hard. But goodbyes are harder. (ie: Dean has to learn how to let go of what may or maynot be real)
A/N: Everybody's doing a trenchcoat fic, and I had to get in on the action. Dean seems to be in need of serious inner monologuing/self therapy, so that's all this drabble really is.
Dean's been gone for a while now, long enough to have the warning bells in Bobby's head going off. He didn't like the idea of leaving the younger hunter alone today, but Dean has viciously attacked anyone trying to coddle him, leaving no doubt of his desire to be "left all the hell alone for once." There's a lot of shit hitting the fan lately, especially a lot of shit hitting Dean at once and Bobby knows enough then to think leaving him to stew on his own for more then a few hours time is a wise idea.
Sam, for all his Beautiful Mind craziness is prone to agree and decides to pitch in on the manhunt. He wanders outside to search the scrapyard while Bobby's left to scour his house for the missing Winchester brother. He calls through the rooms, expecting to find Dean sprawled on some hard surface, drunk as a skunk with plenty of backup liquor left to go before he hits the right level of blackout. It's the normal go to coping mechanism of hunters worldwide and Dean has always been a champion coper so Bobby, while concerned, doesn't really let the flutter of fear at what he might find bother him too much.
He should have though, should have known to trust his instincts that so rarely fall him. He should have seen Dean's breaking point coming.
He finds Dean in the empty darkness of the panic room, slumped with knees to his chin just inside the door, a half empty bottle of rotgut dribbling into the dust from where it's been tipped over. There's a dark mass of cloth clutched in Dean's arms and one hand keeps stroking it at a smooth, unwavering rhythm that suggests he doesn't even know what he's doing. It's too dark for Bobby to see his lowered face, but Dean's breathing is a tad too fast and too shallow for Bobby's heart not to give a lurch.
"Hey boy, you're gonna give me a heartache lurking around here like some ghoul. I've been calling for you for damn near 15 minutes," he says in way of greeting, waddling over to squat beside Dean's hunkered figure, who doesn't seem to realize he's got company. Bobby rightens the bottle of whiskey and lays a weathered hand on Dean's knee in question.
"Now what the hell are ya doin’ down here?"
The younger man raises his head and Bobby can't help but recoil. He can't even find Dean in those eyes.
It's like everything's been scooped away and replaced with a wild tangle of shadows and desperation and something Bobby can't name but he knows it horrifies him. He can't pick out a shred of the usual control in that green stare. There's only agony and the gaze of a man standing on the edge of a tall cliff over an abyss that's beckoning.
He recognizes this look because he saw it in a dingy reflection the night his wife died.
"I'm not ok, Bobby," Dean whispers, the sound so breathy and cracked it's almost inaudible.
"I know you're not, son." And damn it all if the backs of Bobby's eyes don't start stinging for that broken kid huddled on his floor clutching a dirty, tattered trenchcoat like it's a lifeline.
Somehow he manages to coax a few heavy duty sleeping pills down Dean’s throat and settles him onto the threadbare cot in the middle of the room. It’s a long wait for sleep to claim Dean and Bobby lies and promises things won’t be quite so shitty when he wakes up.
***
He dreams of Cas. It’s the only time he allows himself to.
He’s by that golden, no-name river again, but today it’s overcast and humid, the clouds minutes away for giving everything a good dousing. He’s sitting, feet swinging off the edge of that fishing dock, but there’s no bait and no tackle and there’s a discerning tingle on his spine like he’s being watched.
His jeans are rolled up to the knees like he's about to go wading. Yet for all the water looks inviting, there's something in the back recesses of his brain telling him to stay away from the water. There's something dark in the water.
“Hello, Dean.”
Dean sighs and takes his time turning to face the looming figure at his shoulder. He knew it wouldn’t be that easy to cut Cas out. It’d be easier to cut off one of his own limbs. But he doesn’t want this sad, pale imitation of the angel he pines for here. It feels dirty somehow, and invasive. It feels like cheating. "You can't be here. If you're here haunting me it mean you're really gone," he spits, clumsy in his haste to push away from the spectre standing too close to him.
"I'm not a ghost," Castiel replies simply.
"What are you then?"
"A part of you."
"Lucky me. Jesus, I wish you weren't."
"I know. But I wish you didn't. I have never regretted being attached to you, Dean." Fake Castiel watches him in a way that’s eerily similiar to the angel he’s imitating - like Dean is something holy and mysterious. Yet there are shadows in his gaze which whisper of bone-deep regret and grief, just like there were the last time he and Dean spoke. I’ll find a way to redeem myself to you. I mean it, Dean. Dean is annoyed by it and tries to ignore the way that tilt of the head threatens to open the floodgates to memories he can’t afford to suffocate under right now. He scoffs and shifts a bit further away because he can’t stand to be pinned under that intense blue for too long.
“There’s no connection between me and Cas. He’s nothing now but a puddle of goo and formally the dick who chose a demon and a hole full of monsters over me.” His laugh is bitter and humerless.
“I can only say I’m sorry so many times. We are connected still, no matter how much you deny it, yet you refuse to extend to me the same forgiveness you are so quick to offer your brother. Is my sin so much worse that I am to be forever punished in your eyes?” Cas asks, so matter-of-factly and sternly that Dean can’t ignore it. There’s some truth to the words and it scares him that he can’t tune them out here like he did when he was awake and Cas was still alive.
"It shouldn’t have even come to this, you asshole! You should never have sided against me. You were supposed to be mine. You were my touchstone." Sammy broke my heart, but you ripped out my soul and stomped on it.
"I'm sorry."
"Yeah, you're sorry. I'm sorry, everybody's sorry! That’s not good enough. Stupid son of a bitch! You fucked it all up,” he bellows, blindly lashing out in his rage. His fist connects solidly with Cas’ face before he can even register moving, the wet crack echoing over the water and settling around both stunned men like ash. Dean stares in shock, somehow not expecting his blow to have actually landed.
Cas turns his head to spit an arch of blood onto the grass, his too-wide eyes never leaving Dean’s. “You have every right to hate me, Dean,” the imposter angel says firmly, raising his hands defensively and moving slowly toward Dean like one moves to restrain a mad person. “But I would have made the same choices if given the chance to repeat history. And so would you. I will always be ashamed of betraying your trust, but I cannot regret any course of action I’ve taken in attempt to save you. I do everything for you, you know that by now.” He reaches for Dean’s arm only to have it snatched away like the angel’s touch is poisonous.
“That’s bullshit! Get the fuck away from me,” Dean snarls, face twisting into something dark and wild like that of an animal cornered with no place left to run. Castiel does not obey, only bats away the second fist swung at him and uses Dean’s own momentum to bring their two bodies closer and traps the man against his unyielding chest. “Stop. Please don’t fight me, Dean. You know I can’t hurt you anymore,” the doppleganger murmurs softly.
“How can you say that?” Dean gasps incredulously, struggling with all his might against the hold Cas has on him. “You’re killing me, Cas. I’m wasting away here without you.”
If it wasn’t true before, the look on Castiel’s face sure runs him clean through. Dean’s furious at the stab of guilt in his gut.
“Please, just leave me alone. Don’t touch me,” his voice quivers, but his hands reach for the lapels of the trenchcoat in front of him pathetically. That fucking trenchcoat, it’s more a ghost to Dean then this Castiel haunting his dreams. And this coat feels the same as the one currently balled up with him in Bobby’s panic room. His fingers can’t find a difference and they curl contentedly around the familiar fabric. He can’t help it, he wants so badly for this Cas to be his Cas and this reunion to mean something.
“Dean-”
Dean’s so sick of words, he’s about to scream if he hears another one, so he shuts Cas up the most efficient way he can think of. He crashes his mouth down onto the angel’s in a harsh, demanding kiss. His tongue swipes the blood from Cas' lips, darting in to seek the sweeter, less coppery taste and Cas moans, jerking Dean forcibly up from where he stands and into his lap as they sink in a tangle to the ground. Dean collides against him without protest, straddling the angel's thighs and shifting closer, as close as he can, hands splaying over dark hair and stubbled jaw and hunched shoulders all at once. They kiss like they throw punches - aimed and swift and merciless. It's a battle in itself, each one trying to overpower the other in a clash of teeth and lips and tongue. Neither one of them was capable of backing down in life or death and now it would seem, even in dreams and romance. Dean wonders idly if needing oxygen is romantic. Cause that's the way he needs Cas.
“One time. Just this one time,” he murmurs into Cas’ mouth to convince himself he can allow this indulgence and have it be enough to last him a lifetime. He’s panting, each probe of Cas’ tongue wringing a moan from him because his imagination is too good and this feels too real. Cas is so warm and tastes like heaven and breathes fire into Dean’s very soul, like he did once before. Christ, how can Dean be expected to survive without this? He doesn’t want to wake up to a world where kissing Castiel is no longer a possibility. He could stay here, a traitorous nagging sounds in the recesses of his mind. He could stay here with this Cas, he could learn to love him as he does the old one, he could learn to forgive if he tries.
"No," he croaks. What he's talking about, he's not sure anymore because there can never be enough of this. It can’t ever be enough. He can’t take this happiness, it doesn’t belong to him. This was nothing but a beautiful mistake. It’s just a fantasy, the after effects of a lose his brain is struggling to handle. Just another lie to live, and he’s batshit crazy to even entertain the idea. Castiel is gone and now Dean has to kill his memory. He has to bury him or else perish beside him.
"Cas, I am gonna wake up and I'm gonna burn that damn trenchcoat and I'm never gonna think of you again after this," he swears, steeling the resolve in his voice so it won't stumble over the words.
"Why?" The pain in that gravelly voice almost makes Dean recoil and back down.
"Because I can't. I just can't. Don't you get it?" I have to try to heal and you can’t be here with me if I’m to do that.
"I loved you," Cas whispers into Dean's neck, the admission wrought with a quiet sort of resolution that makes it impossible for Dean to swallow. He can't bear to call the angel out in a lie that sounds so fucking honest.
"I wish like hell I could believe that." He’s ashamed of the way his lip trembles, but Cas doesn’t care and this is his dream after all. He’ll let these tears drown the two of them if he wants. There’s no one here to ever know.
Castiel sighs like he's suddenly tired and lays his head on Dean's shoulder, a mirrored position of the man he's holding. The clouds are dispersing and fading, a preview of what’s about to happen to the two figures wrapped in each other by a forgotten river.
He can risk just a few more minutes though. A few more minutes couldn't hurt anything. Just a few more minutes and Dean swears it will be enough, he’ll make it so.
"Goodbye, Cas. Where ever you ended up, I hope it's easier for you to forget this then it will be for me."
"Why would I want to forget this? Forget you?" Cas groans, shaking his head like he's trying to loose the suggestion from his ears.
"Because it'll be better that way. We can't hurt each other anymore."
Castiel doesn't reply. He only clings to Dean tighter and tries to be content with the brush of Dean's breath on his face till their time in this place runs out. It's shorter then Dean expects and the final touch of Cas' lips on his forehead is more absolving then parting. A promise to set free what should never have been locked away. Dean feels suddenly weightless in Castiel's arms. And when the illusion says his name this time, it's a farewell instead of a prayer like it was in the past and it chills Dean straight to the bone.
"Dean."
***
He wakes to the thunder of his pulse loud enough to hear over the whirl of the Panic Room's fan and cold wetness on his cheeks.
In the morning, he goes to burn the trenchcoat. Instead he just convinces himself it will be forgotten amongst the crap in the back of his baby's trunk, so it gets placed reverently in a crook and covered with the supplies he and Sam will need for the coming day's hunt.
Characters: Dean/Castiel, Sam, Bobby
Wordcount: ~2,500
Rating: PG13
Spoilers: for 7x02, Unbetaed, all mistakes are my own.
Warnings: mature language
Disclaimer: They ain't mine (but I'm working on it)
Summary: Endings are hard. But goodbyes are harder. (ie: Dean has to learn how to let go of what may or maynot be real)
A/N: Everybody's doing a trenchcoat fic, and I had to get in on the action. Dean seems to be in need of serious inner monologuing/self therapy, so that's all this drabble really is.
Dean's been gone for a while now, long enough to have the warning bells in Bobby's head going off. He didn't like the idea of leaving the younger hunter alone today, but Dean has viciously attacked anyone trying to coddle him, leaving no doubt of his desire to be "left all the hell alone for once." There's a lot of shit hitting the fan lately, especially a lot of shit hitting Dean at once and Bobby knows enough then to think leaving him to stew on his own for more then a few hours time is a wise idea.
Sam, for all his Beautiful Mind craziness is prone to agree and decides to pitch in on the manhunt. He wanders outside to search the scrapyard while Bobby's left to scour his house for the missing Winchester brother. He calls through the rooms, expecting to find Dean sprawled on some hard surface, drunk as a skunk with plenty of backup liquor left to go before he hits the right level of blackout. It's the normal go to coping mechanism of hunters worldwide and Dean has always been a champion coper so Bobby, while concerned, doesn't really let the flutter of fear at what he might find bother him too much.
He should have though, should have known to trust his instincts that so rarely fall him. He should have seen Dean's breaking point coming.
He finds Dean in the empty darkness of the panic room, slumped with knees to his chin just inside the door, a half empty bottle of rotgut dribbling into the dust from where it's been tipped over. There's a dark mass of cloth clutched in Dean's arms and one hand keeps stroking it at a smooth, unwavering rhythm that suggests he doesn't even know what he's doing. It's too dark for Bobby to see his lowered face, but Dean's breathing is a tad too fast and too shallow for Bobby's heart not to give a lurch.
"Hey boy, you're gonna give me a heartache lurking around here like some ghoul. I've been calling for you for damn near 15 minutes," he says in way of greeting, waddling over to squat beside Dean's hunkered figure, who doesn't seem to realize he's got company. Bobby rightens the bottle of whiskey and lays a weathered hand on Dean's knee in question.
"Now what the hell are ya doin’ down here?"
The younger man raises his head and Bobby can't help but recoil. He can't even find Dean in those eyes.
It's like everything's been scooped away and replaced with a wild tangle of shadows and desperation and something Bobby can't name but he knows it horrifies him. He can't pick out a shred of the usual control in that green stare. There's only agony and the gaze of a man standing on the edge of a tall cliff over an abyss that's beckoning.
He recognizes this look because he saw it in a dingy reflection the night his wife died.
"I'm not ok, Bobby," Dean whispers, the sound so breathy and cracked it's almost inaudible.
"I know you're not, son." And damn it all if the backs of Bobby's eyes don't start stinging for that broken kid huddled on his floor clutching a dirty, tattered trenchcoat like it's a lifeline.
Somehow he manages to coax a few heavy duty sleeping pills down Dean’s throat and settles him onto the threadbare cot in the middle of the room. It’s a long wait for sleep to claim Dean and Bobby lies and promises things won’t be quite so shitty when he wakes up.
***
He dreams of Cas. It’s the only time he allows himself to.
He’s by that golden, no-name river again, but today it’s overcast and humid, the clouds minutes away for giving everything a good dousing. He’s sitting, feet swinging off the edge of that fishing dock, but there’s no bait and no tackle and there’s a discerning tingle on his spine like he’s being watched.
His jeans are rolled up to the knees like he's about to go wading. Yet for all the water looks inviting, there's something in the back recesses of his brain telling him to stay away from the water. There's something dark in the water.
“Hello, Dean.”
Dean sighs and takes his time turning to face the looming figure at his shoulder. He knew it wouldn’t be that easy to cut Cas out. It’d be easier to cut off one of his own limbs. But he doesn’t want this sad, pale imitation of the angel he pines for here. It feels dirty somehow, and invasive. It feels like cheating. "You can't be here. If you're here haunting me it mean you're really gone," he spits, clumsy in his haste to push away from the spectre standing too close to him.
"I'm not a ghost," Castiel replies simply.
"What are you then?"
"A part of you."
"Lucky me. Jesus, I wish you weren't."
"I know. But I wish you didn't. I have never regretted being attached to you, Dean." Fake Castiel watches him in a way that’s eerily similiar to the angel he’s imitating - like Dean is something holy and mysterious. Yet there are shadows in his gaze which whisper of bone-deep regret and grief, just like there were the last time he and Dean spoke. I’ll find a way to redeem myself to you. I mean it, Dean. Dean is annoyed by it and tries to ignore the way that tilt of the head threatens to open the floodgates to memories he can’t afford to suffocate under right now. He scoffs and shifts a bit further away because he can’t stand to be pinned under that intense blue for too long.
“There’s no connection between me and Cas. He’s nothing now but a puddle of goo and formally the dick who chose a demon and a hole full of monsters over me.” His laugh is bitter and humerless.
“I can only say I’m sorry so many times. We are connected still, no matter how much you deny it, yet you refuse to extend to me the same forgiveness you are so quick to offer your brother. Is my sin so much worse that I am to be forever punished in your eyes?” Cas asks, so matter-of-factly and sternly that Dean can’t ignore it. There’s some truth to the words and it scares him that he can’t tune them out here like he did when he was awake and Cas was still alive.
"It shouldn’t have even come to this, you asshole! You should never have sided against me. You were supposed to be mine. You were my touchstone." Sammy broke my heart, but you ripped out my soul and stomped on it.
"I'm sorry."
"Yeah, you're sorry. I'm sorry, everybody's sorry! That’s not good enough. Stupid son of a bitch! You fucked it all up,” he bellows, blindly lashing out in his rage. His fist connects solidly with Cas’ face before he can even register moving, the wet crack echoing over the water and settling around both stunned men like ash. Dean stares in shock, somehow not expecting his blow to have actually landed.
Cas turns his head to spit an arch of blood onto the grass, his too-wide eyes never leaving Dean’s. “You have every right to hate me, Dean,” the imposter angel says firmly, raising his hands defensively and moving slowly toward Dean like one moves to restrain a mad person. “But I would have made the same choices if given the chance to repeat history. And so would you. I will always be ashamed of betraying your trust, but I cannot regret any course of action I’ve taken in attempt to save you. I do everything for you, you know that by now.” He reaches for Dean’s arm only to have it snatched away like the angel’s touch is poisonous.
“That’s bullshit! Get the fuck away from me,” Dean snarls, face twisting into something dark and wild like that of an animal cornered with no place left to run. Castiel does not obey, only bats away the second fist swung at him and uses Dean’s own momentum to bring their two bodies closer and traps the man against his unyielding chest. “Stop. Please don’t fight me, Dean. You know I can’t hurt you anymore,” the doppleganger murmurs softly.
“How can you say that?” Dean gasps incredulously, struggling with all his might against the hold Cas has on him. “You’re killing me, Cas. I’m wasting away here without you.”
If it wasn’t true before, the look on Castiel’s face sure runs him clean through. Dean’s furious at the stab of guilt in his gut.
“Please, just leave me alone. Don’t touch me,” his voice quivers, but his hands reach for the lapels of the trenchcoat in front of him pathetically. That fucking trenchcoat, it’s more a ghost to Dean then this Castiel haunting his dreams. And this coat feels the same as the one currently balled up with him in Bobby’s panic room. His fingers can’t find a difference and they curl contentedly around the familiar fabric. He can’t help it, he wants so badly for this Cas to be his Cas and this reunion to mean something.
“Dean-”
Dean’s so sick of words, he’s about to scream if he hears another one, so he shuts Cas up the most efficient way he can think of. He crashes his mouth down onto the angel’s in a harsh, demanding kiss. His tongue swipes the blood from Cas' lips, darting in to seek the sweeter, less coppery taste and Cas moans, jerking Dean forcibly up from where he stands and into his lap as they sink in a tangle to the ground. Dean collides against him without protest, straddling the angel's thighs and shifting closer, as close as he can, hands splaying over dark hair and stubbled jaw and hunched shoulders all at once. They kiss like they throw punches - aimed and swift and merciless. It's a battle in itself, each one trying to overpower the other in a clash of teeth and lips and tongue. Neither one of them was capable of backing down in life or death and now it would seem, even in dreams and romance. Dean wonders idly if needing oxygen is romantic. Cause that's the way he needs Cas.
“One time. Just this one time,” he murmurs into Cas’ mouth to convince himself he can allow this indulgence and have it be enough to last him a lifetime. He’s panting, each probe of Cas’ tongue wringing a moan from him because his imagination is too good and this feels too real. Cas is so warm and tastes like heaven and breathes fire into Dean’s very soul, like he did once before. Christ, how can Dean be expected to survive without this? He doesn’t want to wake up to a world where kissing Castiel is no longer a possibility. He could stay here, a traitorous nagging sounds in the recesses of his mind. He could stay here with this Cas, he could learn to love him as he does the old one, he could learn to forgive if he tries.
"No," he croaks. What he's talking about, he's not sure anymore because there can never be enough of this. It can’t ever be enough. He can’t take this happiness, it doesn’t belong to him. This was nothing but a beautiful mistake. It’s just a fantasy, the after effects of a lose his brain is struggling to handle. Just another lie to live, and he’s batshit crazy to even entertain the idea. Castiel is gone and now Dean has to kill his memory. He has to bury him or else perish beside him.
"Cas, I am gonna wake up and I'm gonna burn that damn trenchcoat and I'm never gonna think of you again after this," he swears, steeling the resolve in his voice so it won't stumble over the words.
"Why?" The pain in that gravelly voice almost makes Dean recoil and back down.
"Because I can't. I just can't. Don't you get it?" I have to try to heal and you can’t be here with me if I’m to do that.
"I loved you," Cas whispers into Dean's neck, the admission wrought with a quiet sort of resolution that makes it impossible for Dean to swallow. He can't bear to call the angel out in a lie that sounds so fucking honest.
"I wish like hell I could believe that." He’s ashamed of the way his lip trembles, but Cas doesn’t care and this is his dream after all. He’ll let these tears drown the two of them if he wants. There’s no one here to ever know.
Castiel sighs like he's suddenly tired and lays his head on Dean's shoulder, a mirrored position of the man he's holding. The clouds are dispersing and fading, a preview of what’s about to happen to the two figures wrapped in each other by a forgotten river.
He can risk just a few more minutes though. A few more minutes couldn't hurt anything. Just a few more minutes and Dean swears it will be enough, he’ll make it so.
"Goodbye, Cas. Where ever you ended up, I hope it's easier for you to forget this then it will be for me."
"Why would I want to forget this? Forget you?" Cas groans, shaking his head like he's trying to loose the suggestion from his ears.
"Because it'll be better that way. We can't hurt each other anymore."
Castiel doesn't reply. He only clings to Dean tighter and tries to be content with the brush of Dean's breath on his face till their time in this place runs out. It's shorter then Dean expects and the final touch of Cas' lips on his forehead is more absolving then parting. A promise to set free what should never have been locked away. Dean feels suddenly weightless in Castiel's arms. And when the illusion says his name this time, it's a farewell instead of a prayer like it was in the past and it chills Dean straight to the bone.
"Dean."
***
He wakes to the thunder of his pulse loud enough to hear over the whirl of the Panic Room's fan and cold wetness on his cheeks.
In the morning, he goes to burn the trenchcoat. Instead he just convinces himself it will be forgotten amongst the crap in the back of his baby's trunk, so it gets placed reverently in a crook and covered with the supplies he and Sam will need for the coming day's hunt.