These stains on our souls...
Title: These stains on our souls...
Author: fate_incomplete
Rating: R
Warnings: Angst, memories of torture
Spoilers: Nothing specific, general season 4, hints of season 6 I guess
Characters: Dean, Castiel
Word Count: ~2,700
Summary: In his feverish state, Dean doesn't know if still being hell is the hallucination, or if his rescue by Castiel was...
A/N: Set post series I guess. Written for this prompt at the hoodie_time feverish!Dean comment fic meme.
...................
Fog swirled through the tree trunks, twisting and churning randomly at the whim of a cold breeze. Dean tried to convince himself that the patterns he thought it was forming were nothing more than an effect of the fever that was coursing through his body.
He stopped for a moment, swaying slightly on legs that only begrudgingly did as he told them. He rubbed his hands against the bare skin of his arms, as he looked up through the fog. He could see the hazy outline of the sun hovering above the horizon. He stared at it, trying to force his mind to work. He had no idea if he was looking east or west, if it was night or morning.
Dean rubbed his arms harder, trying to stop the uncontrolled shivering that was making it near impossible to remain standing. He couldn't decide if the shivering was due to the fever or cold air. Maybe it was both. He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts.
He was alone, running through woods he didn't recognise, wearing only a torn black shirt and jeans. He struggled to piece together fragments of images from the last few days, but couldn't get them to form any sort of story that made sense.
He remembered arguing with Sam over something stupid, but couldn't remember what. He remembered driving somewhere in a hurry, though he had no idea where. He vaguely remembered calling Bobby, possibly for help with his current condition. Dean had no idea where the car, his phone or any of his other possessions where. He would settle for just knowing where the hell he was at the moment.
His surroundings weren't proving overly helpful. He was standing amongst trees, lots of them. He could barely see through the fog that seemed to be thickening by the minute, and it was dead silent. Nothing indicated that Dean was anywhere near civilisation. He picked a direction and started walking again, hoping his luck would change.
An idle wondering if he was in bear country drifted through his mind, though instinct told him there was probably something worse out there, why else would he be here after all. He cursed as he stumbled over the uneven ground, falling to his knees. Pain sliced though his grazed knees as he slumped forward, cold, damp earth pressing against his palms. He took a deep breath, pushing the pain aside; it was nothing more than a nuisance.
Dean tried to steady his breathing before getting up. It was coming in hard, short burst, like he had been running for his life, though he didn't remember running. He looked around , suddenly alert. What the hell had he been running from?
Dean pushed himself back to his feet, quickening his pace again with a surge of adrenaline, and wishing he could remember why he was suddenly drowning in a sense of urgency. He ran, no direction seeming any better than the other. The underbrush whipped him as he pushed through it, a branch catching him across the cheek, leaving a welt and small trial of blood.
Dean could feel his fever deepen as he ran, burning up energy he didn't have to spare. The unknown reason for the sickness causing far more fear than the fever itself. He stumbled through some thick bushes and just about fell into a stream. He sloshed along it, knowing he should probably stay dry, but the urge to get away from whatever was chasing him, if there even was something chasing him, was more pressing.
He followed the stream, his breaths now coming in gasps, the cold air starting to sear his lungs as he struggled for air. He couldn't run forever. He stumbled again, causing further bruising to his knees as he landed with a splash. He crawled more than walked out of the stream, making his way to a group of boulders that looked vaguely defensible that caught his attention.
Dean slumped to the ground, the solid comfort of rock at his back. His jeans were soaked from the knees down. He was shivering. He'd had enough fevers in his life to know this one was serious. For the hundredth time he wished he knew what had caused it.
He ran his hands over his arms again, this time feeling for any injuries. He found something a minute later, a puncture wound on the tip of his shoulder blade where his shirt was torn. Poison maybe, he thought, but poison from what.
Now that he had stopped moving, the shivers returned tenfold. Dean's teeth began to chatter. The muscles across his shoulder blades tightened to the point that every fibre of them began to scream in pain. Dean closed his eyes, knowing he should probably keep moving. Even as he thought it though, his hands dropped to his side and he lost consciousness, fully caught in the grips of his fever.
...................
Castiel moved through the fog, it swirled around him, as if it was unable to touch him amidst the waves of anger and frustration that veritably rolled off him, seemingly keeping it at bay. Tiny beads of moisture clung to the fabric of his trench coat, glistening globules of colour in the murky light, evidence that at least some of the fog had found its way through.
The crease between his brow an outward sign of his concern as he searched, frustration creeping along his spine, deepening the stiffness of his movements. He wanted to tear the forest apart, but couldn't, he wanted to unfurl his wings and disperse the irritating fog with their mighty beats, but he couldn't. There was something unusual about this fog, something he hadn't quite deciphered yet, so he remained grounded, searching on foot, though every fibre of his being screamed it was taking too long.
Castiel's paces where steady and sure, carefully measured as he resisted the urge to run. He stared straight ahead as he walked, though he wasn't truly watching where he was going. His heightened senses where reaching out through the fog, tumbling and flowing with it, reaching as far as they could, but not finding anything useful. He kept moving, kept searching.
It felt like he had been searching for hours, though in truth it was less than thirty minutes, when he finally felt something, a tug on his consciousness, something that was out of place in the woods. He followed it.
He could see a slight glow in the fog ahead, his pace quickened without thought as he closed on it. He knelt down and brushed aside the leaf matter that was partly obscuring the source of light. He picked it up, fingers tightening around it as he looked up, eyes desperately searching.
He looked back down again at the dim light of Dean's phone , his fingers curled even tighter, threatening to crush it.
"Dean," he whispered.
...................
Dean's eyes flitted behind his closed lids erratically, in response to whatever images gripped him in his fever induced state. He moaned, every muscle in his back snapping taut, and arching his body off the ground where he had slumped. A scream ripped from the depth of his lungs, reverberating in the fog. His eyes snapped open.
Dean looked around wildly, scrambling back until he was pushed against the rock behind him, leaving him nowhere to go. His feverish mind tried to make sense of his surroundings, the memory of running through the woods slowly came to him, but he still had as little idea of why he was here, as he'd had when he collapsed earlier.
He could see something moving in the fog, indistinct shapes that flowed and merged. He blinked, screwing his eyes shut as he shook himself. When he opened his eyes the shapes where still there, circling him, closing in.
His heartbeat echoed loudly in his ears, his breath caught in his throat, as he heard a voice. It drifted in the fog, seeming to come from nowhere and all around him simultaneously. A taunting, mocking voice he knew all too well, that had spent decades sliding around his insides, alongside the ever present blade it owner wielded entirely too skilfully.
"You're dead," Dean whispered involuntarily.
A throaty chuckle came from somewhere to his left.
"You really think so? Oh grasshopper, you have much to learn. I hear you mumbling to yourself while I let you rest, pretty words, about angels and rescue."
"No," Dean whispered, his eyes trying to follow the shapes in the fog and find the source of that voice, trying to deny the insidious implications of those words, of that voice that he had never truly left behind.
"No one is going to rescue you Dean, why would they, when we are beginning to have so much fun. I hear you whisper to yourself every night, whispering sweet nothings to yourself, about destiny and saving the world, about your sweet Cas. Really Dean? An angel? And why would an angel, rescue you?" The voice continued taunting, coming from first the left, and then the right, moving, disorientating.
"No, no, no," Dean repeated over and over, knowing the words were a lie, but unable to resist them.
"We are never letting you go anywhere, we have you right where we want you," Alistair said, emerging from the fog.
"Screw you" Dean yelled.
The fog swirled around Alistair, clinging to him for a moment, before dissipating. Dean closed his eyes, not strong enough to see what it revealed.
"You never left, and you never will," Alistair whispered in his ear.
...................
Castiel still held the phone in his fingers as he knelt, his eyes closed. He shrugged his shoulders, resisting the urge to stretch his wings. His head tilted to the side as he reached out though the fog. It resisted him, growing thicker. He could feel more and more of it cling to him, each droplet weighing him down, tying him to this place, and dampening his powers.
The urge for haste was becoming too much to resist. He was running out of time. He stood, acting on instinct he picked a direction, and started to run.
...................
Dean screamed as Alistair's blade sliced and twisted in his flesh. The pain was never ending. He kept screaming, long past the point where any sound emerged, his throat raw, blood streaming from between what was left of his lips.
He wanted to die, but it wasn't possible, not here. He tried to escape into the recesses of what was left of his mind, but even that eluded him. A single word drifted in his thoughts, and he clung to it, like a life raft in a sea of blackness.
His screams stopped, and his bloodied lips parted, a soft rasp of air passing over them as he whispered a name.
"Castiel."
"He doesn't exist," Alistair growled, twisting further and deeper.
"Castiel," Dean screamed, holding onto the single word, as though it was all that existed, in defiance of Alistair.
...................
Castiel stopped dead in his tracks. He cocked his head to the side, straining to hear, praying it wasn't just frustrated hope.
"Castiel," came the voice again, drifting on the fog, the sound seeming to come from all directions.
Castiel stilled, closing his eyes, resisting the urge to destroy everything around him. He needed to concentrate. He remained as still as a statue, as the fog swirled around him, dampening the calls, Dean's calls.
He could sense movement in the fog, but he ignored it, ignored whatever was hunting him, hunting Dean, no matter how close they came. He didn't break his concentration, his senses drifting with the fog again, searching until he found what he was looking for.
"Dean, I'm coming," he whispered.
...................
Dean lost track of time. His body writhed from pain, both physical and mental. The insidious whispering of Alistair, and the pain, becoming his entire existence. His screams and whispered hopes had long since died away, and with them, his will to resist. He gave in, as he always knew he would. It had only been a matter of time.
He took the knife Alistair offered, and started slicing, desperate for each slice to ease his torment, until he lost count of the souls placed before them. However many, it was never enough, no matter how many he tore into, his suffering never stopped.
Dean stood passively; waiting for the next soul. Blood dripped from the blade clasped in his hand. It covered his arms, it streamed down his chest. His hands were stained red, and he knew those stains would never leave him.
A shadow moved at the edge of his vision. He didn't bother to look up, even when he heard his name whispered. It had been so long since he had heard it, that it no longer seemed to belong to him. He didn't deserve a name, not after everything he had done.
"Dean," came the voice again.
A memory stirred, of running through fog, in some forest he didn't know.
"I know you," Dean whispered without looking up, his voice hoarse from disuse.
"Yes, I've been looking for you."
Dean closed his eyes, wanting to turn away from the voice. It couldn't be real. He will never escape this place. It was just another torment. He wanted to turn away, but he couldn't. He opened his eyes and looked up instead.
"You're too late," Dean said, his voice cracking on emotions he thought he had forgotten.
"No Dean, you were saved."
Dean held up his hands, stained red with the blood of every soul he had tortured. "It will never come off."
Something in the angel's yes softened, as he reached out a hand, gently placing his fingers on Dean's temple, a faint, comforting heat spreading from them.
"Castiel?" Dean asked bewildered, as memories tried to push their way into his mind, his body beginning to shiver uncontrollably.
"If I was too late, you wouldn't still care," Castiel said quietly.
Dean stared into age old blue eyes. He felt fog swirl around them, felt the coarse press of rock against his back. He blinked, the memories of hell coalescing with the fog confusingly for a moment. Memories that threatened to consume him every time he closed his eyes, which would never leave him.
"Cas, where are we?" Dean asked.
"Utah. You were on a hunt. Whatever you were hunting is using the fog, and it's weakening me. You're injured and I can't heal you here. We have to leave, now."
Dean nodded absently. "I'm sorry I wasn't stronger," he whispered, the memories of hell still as fresh as the day Castiel had dragged him out, which was years ago now, the fever twisting them into hallucinations so real, he could still feel the blood on his hands.
"I'm sorry I wasn't faster," Castiel whispered in reply, placing a hand on Dean's shoulder, and flying them to safety.
He wishing the memories and guilt were as easy to escape, for both of them.
Dean assumed Castiel would take them to Bobby's, but they appeared next to the Impala. She was parked outside a cabin, at the foot of a mountain. Dean looked up, he could see fog swirling around the peak above them, and it looked completely unnatural.
He still didn't really remember much of the last two days, but his head felt much clearer. Castiel had healed him as soon as the landed apparently. Every ache in his body had disappeared, every physical one anyway.
Castiel was staring at the fog above them, Dean could practically see anger emanating from him.
"Cas?"
"I can't leave her there after what she did to you." Castiel answered, without taking his eyes of the fog.
"Her?" Dean asked, but the sound of wings was his only answer.
He half heartedly cursed, but part of him was grateful. He stood watching, half an hour later a scream echoed from the mountain peak, and the fog dispersed.
It didn't undo everything that had happened, the memories that were with him every day, but he smiled anyway. They both had a lot of sins to make up for, and killing one monster at a time seemed as good a way as any. The strange understanding between them, after everything they had been through together, more comforting than Dean cared to admit.
...................
Author: fate_incomplete
Rating: R
Warnings: Angst, memories of torture
Spoilers: Nothing specific, general season 4, hints of season 6 I guess
Characters: Dean, Castiel
Word Count: ~2,700
Summary: In his feverish state, Dean doesn't know if still being hell is the hallucination, or if his rescue by Castiel was...
A/N: Set post series I guess. Written for this prompt at the hoodie_time feverish!Dean comment fic meme.
...................
Fog swirled through the tree trunks, twisting and churning randomly at the whim of a cold breeze. Dean tried to convince himself that the patterns he thought it was forming were nothing more than an effect of the fever that was coursing through his body.
He stopped for a moment, swaying slightly on legs that only begrudgingly did as he told them. He rubbed his hands against the bare skin of his arms, as he looked up through the fog. He could see the hazy outline of the sun hovering above the horizon. He stared at it, trying to force his mind to work. He had no idea if he was looking east or west, if it was night or morning.
Dean rubbed his arms harder, trying to stop the uncontrolled shivering that was making it near impossible to remain standing. He couldn't decide if the shivering was due to the fever or cold air. Maybe it was both. He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts.
He was alone, running through woods he didn't recognise, wearing only a torn black shirt and jeans. He struggled to piece together fragments of images from the last few days, but couldn't get them to form any sort of story that made sense.
He remembered arguing with Sam over something stupid, but couldn't remember what. He remembered driving somewhere in a hurry, though he had no idea where. He vaguely remembered calling Bobby, possibly for help with his current condition. Dean had no idea where the car, his phone or any of his other possessions where. He would settle for just knowing where the hell he was at the moment.
His surroundings weren't proving overly helpful. He was standing amongst trees, lots of them. He could barely see through the fog that seemed to be thickening by the minute, and it was dead silent. Nothing indicated that Dean was anywhere near civilisation. He picked a direction and started walking again, hoping his luck would change.
An idle wondering if he was in bear country drifted through his mind, though instinct told him there was probably something worse out there, why else would he be here after all. He cursed as he stumbled over the uneven ground, falling to his knees. Pain sliced though his grazed knees as he slumped forward, cold, damp earth pressing against his palms. He took a deep breath, pushing the pain aside; it was nothing more than a nuisance.
Dean tried to steady his breathing before getting up. It was coming in hard, short burst, like he had been running for his life, though he didn't remember running. He looked around , suddenly alert. What the hell had he been running from?
Dean pushed himself back to his feet, quickening his pace again with a surge of adrenaline, and wishing he could remember why he was suddenly drowning in a sense of urgency. He ran, no direction seeming any better than the other. The underbrush whipped him as he pushed through it, a branch catching him across the cheek, leaving a welt and small trial of blood.
Dean could feel his fever deepen as he ran, burning up energy he didn't have to spare. The unknown reason for the sickness causing far more fear than the fever itself. He stumbled through some thick bushes and just about fell into a stream. He sloshed along it, knowing he should probably stay dry, but the urge to get away from whatever was chasing him, if there even was something chasing him, was more pressing.
He followed the stream, his breaths now coming in gasps, the cold air starting to sear his lungs as he struggled for air. He couldn't run forever. He stumbled again, causing further bruising to his knees as he landed with a splash. He crawled more than walked out of the stream, making his way to a group of boulders that looked vaguely defensible that caught his attention.
Dean slumped to the ground, the solid comfort of rock at his back. His jeans were soaked from the knees down. He was shivering. He'd had enough fevers in his life to know this one was serious. For the hundredth time he wished he knew what had caused it.
He ran his hands over his arms again, this time feeling for any injuries. He found something a minute later, a puncture wound on the tip of his shoulder blade where his shirt was torn. Poison maybe, he thought, but poison from what.
Now that he had stopped moving, the shivers returned tenfold. Dean's teeth began to chatter. The muscles across his shoulder blades tightened to the point that every fibre of them began to scream in pain. Dean closed his eyes, knowing he should probably keep moving. Even as he thought it though, his hands dropped to his side and he lost consciousness, fully caught in the grips of his fever.
...................
Castiel moved through the fog, it swirled around him, as if it was unable to touch him amidst the waves of anger and frustration that veritably rolled off him, seemingly keeping it at bay. Tiny beads of moisture clung to the fabric of his trench coat, glistening globules of colour in the murky light, evidence that at least some of the fog had found its way through.
The crease between his brow an outward sign of his concern as he searched, frustration creeping along his spine, deepening the stiffness of his movements. He wanted to tear the forest apart, but couldn't, he wanted to unfurl his wings and disperse the irritating fog with their mighty beats, but he couldn't. There was something unusual about this fog, something he hadn't quite deciphered yet, so he remained grounded, searching on foot, though every fibre of his being screamed it was taking too long.
Castiel's paces where steady and sure, carefully measured as he resisted the urge to run. He stared straight ahead as he walked, though he wasn't truly watching where he was going. His heightened senses where reaching out through the fog, tumbling and flowing with it, reaching as far as they could, but not finding anything useful. He kept moving, kept searching.
It felt like he had been searching for hours, though in truth it was less than thirty minutes, when he finally felt something, a tug on his consciousness, something that was out of place in the woods. He followed it.
He could see a slight glow in the fog ahead, his pace quickened without thought as he closed on it. He knelt down and brushed aside the leaf matter that was partly obscuring the source of light. He picked it up, fingers tightening around it as he looked up, eyes desperately searching.
He looked back down again at the dim light of Dean's phone , his fingers curled even tighter, threatening to crush it.
"Dean," he whispered.
...................
Dean's eyes flitted behind his closed lids erratically, in response to whatever images gripped him in his fever induced state. He moaned, every muscle in his back snapping taut, and arching his body off the ground where he had slumped. A scream ripped from the depth of his lungs, reverberating in the fog. His eyes snapped open.
Dean looked around wildly, scrambling back until he was pushed against the rock behind him, leaving him nowhere to go. His feverish mind tried to make sense of his surroundings, the memory of running through the woods slowly came to him, but he still had as little idea of why he was here, as he'd had when he collapsed earlier.
He could see something moving in the fog, indistinct shapes that flowed and merged. He blinked, screwing his eyes shut as he shook himself. When he opened his eyes the shapes where still there, circling him, closing in.
His heartbeat echoed loudly in his ears, his breath caught in his throat, as he heard a voice. It drifted in the fog, seeming to come from nowhere and all around him simultaneously. A taunting, mocking voice he knew all too well, that had spent decades sliding around his insides, alongside the ever present blade it owner wielded entirely too skilfully.
"You're dead," Dean whispered involuntarily.
A throaty chuckle came from somewhere to his left.
"You really think so? Oh grasshopper, you have much to learn. I hear you mumbling to yourself while I let you rest, pretty words, about angels and rescue."
"No," Dean whispered, his eyes trying to follow the shapes in the fog and find the source of that voice, trying to deny the insidious implications of those words, of that voice that he had never truly left behind.
"No one is going to rescue you Dean, why would they, when we are beginning to have so much fun. I hear you whisper to yourself every night, whispering sweet nothings to yourself, about destiny and saving the world, about your sweet Cas. Really Dean? An angel? And why would an angel, rescue you?" The voice continued taunting, coming from first the left, and then the right, moving, disorientating.
"No, no, no," Dean repeated over and over, knowing the words were a lie, but unable to resist them.
"We are never letting you go anywhere, we have you right where we want you," Alistair said, emerging from the fog.
"Screw you" Dean yelled.
The fog swirled around Alistair, clinging to him for a moment, before dissipating. Dean closed his eyes, not strong enough to see what it revealed.
"You never left, and you never will," Alistair whispered in his ear.
...................
Castiel still held the phone in his fingers as he knelt, his eyes closed. He shrugged his shoulders, resisting the urge to stretch his wings. His head tilted to the side as he reached out though the fog. It resisted him, growing thicker. He could feel more and more of it cling to him, each droplet weighing him down, tying him to this place, and dampening his powers.
The urge for haste was becoming too much to resist. He was running out of time. He stood, acting on instinct he picked a direction, and started to run.
...................
Dean screamed as Alistair's blade sliced and twisted in his flesh. The pain was never ending. He kept screaming, long past the point where any sound emerged, his throat raw, blood streaming from between what was left of his lips.
He wanted to die, but it wasn't possible, not here. He tried to escape into the recesses of what was left of his mind, but even that eluded him. A single word drifted in his thoughts, and he clung to it, like a life raft in a sea of blackness.
His screams stopped, and his bloodied lips parted, a soft rasp of air passing over them as he whispered a name.
"Castiel."
"He doesn't exist," Alistair growled, twisting further and deeper.
"Castiel," Dean screamed, holding onto the single word, as though it was all that existed, in defiance of Alistair.
...................
Castiel stopped dead in his tracks. He cocked his head to the side, straining to hear, praying it wasn't just frustrated hope.
"Castiel," came the voice again, drifting on the fog, the sound seeming to come from all directions.
Castiel stilled, closing his eyes, resisting the urge to destroy everything around him. He needed to concentrate. He remained as still as a statue, as the fog swirled around him, dampening the calls, Dean's calls.
He could sense movement in the fog, but he ignored it, ignored whatever was hunting him, hunting Dean, no matter how close they came. He didn't break his concentration, his senses drifting with the fog again, searching until he found what he was looking for.
"Dean, I'm coming," he whispered.
...................
Dean lost track of time. His body writhed from pain, both physical and mental. The insidious whispering of Alistair, and the pain, becoming his entire existence. His screams and whispered hopes had long since died away, and with them, his will to resist. He gave in, as he always knew he would. It had only been a matter of time.
He took the knife Alistair offered, and started slicing, desperate for each slice to ease his torment, until he lost count of the souls placed before them. However many, it was never enough, no matter how many he tore into, his suffering never stopped.
Dean stood passively; waiting for the next soul. Blood dripped from the blade clasped in his hand. It covered his arms, it streamed down his chest. His hands were stained red, and he knew those stains would never leave him.
A shadow moved at the edge of his vision. He didn't bother to look up, even when he heard his name whispered. It had been so long since he had heard it, that it no longer seemed to belong to him. He didn't deserve a name, not after everything he had done.
"Dean," came the voice again.
A memory stirred, of running through fog, in some forest he didn't know.
"I know you," Dean whispered without looking up, his voice hoarse from disuse.
"Yes, I've been looking for you."
Dean closed his eyes, wanting to turn away from the voice. It couldn't be real. He will never escape this place. It was just another torment. He wanted to turn away, but he couldn't. He opened his eyes and looked up instead.
"You're too late," Dean said, his voice cracking on emotions he thought he had forgotten.
"No Dean, you were saved."
Dean held up his hands, stained red with the blood of every soul he had tortured. "It will never come off."
Something in the angel's yes softened, as he reached out a hand, gently placing his fingers on Dean's temple, a faint, comforting heat spreading from them.
"Castiel?" Dean asked bewildered, as memories tried to push their way into his mind, his body beginning to shiver uncontrollably.
"If I was too late, you wouldn't still care," Castiel said quietly.
Dean stared into age old blue eyes. He felt fog swirl around them, felt the coarse press of rock against his back. He blinked, the memories of hell coalescing with the fog confusingly for a moment. Memories that threatened to consume him every time he closed his eyes, which would never leave him.
"Cas, where are we?" Dean asked.
"Utah. You were on a hunt. Whatever you were hunting is using the fog, and it's weakening me. You're injured and I can't heal you here. We have to leave, now."
Dean nodded absently. "I'm sorry I wasn't stronger," he whispered, the memories of hell still as fresh as the day Castiel had dragged him out, which was years ago now, the fever twisting them into hallucinations so real, he could still feel the blood on his hands.
"I'm sorry I wasn't faster," Castiel whispered in reply, placing a hand on Dean's shoulder, and flying them to safety.
He wishing the memories and guilt were as easy to escape, for both of them.
Dean assumed Castiel would take them to Bobby's, but they appeared next to the Impala. She was parked outside a cabin, at the foot of a mountain. Dean looked up, he could see fog swirling around the peak above them, and it looked completely unnatural.
He still didn't really remember much of the last two days, but his head felt much clearer. Castiel had healed him as soon as the landed apparently. Every ache in his body had disappeared, every physical one anyway.
Castiel was staring at the fog above them, Dean could practically see anger emanating from him.
"Cas?"
"I can't leave her there after what she did to you." Castiel answered, without taking his eyes of the fog.
"Her?" Dean asked, but the sound of wings was his only answer.
He half heartedly cursed, but part of him was grateful. He stood watching, half an hour later a scream echoed from the mountain peak, and the fog dispersed.
It didn't undo everything that had happened, the memories that were with him every day, but he smiled anyway. They both had a lot of sins to make up for, and killing one monster at a time seemed as good a way as any. The strange understanding between them, after everything they had been through together, more comforting than Dean cared to admit.
...................