Title: Take Your Leave
Pairing: Dean/Castiel
Rating: PG (?)
Word Count: 474
Genre: Angst
Warning: Character Death
Summary: A reverse chronological telling of the events leading to Castiel’s final journey to Heaven.
Castiel’s fingers are cold as they slowly fold musty shirts and worn in jeans. His chest seems to ache with some emotion he had not yet felt before in his time on Earth.
The dirty sheets on the motel bed were a sickly green color; Castiel avoided looking at them as he finished putting everything into a box.
He sighed heavily, his vessel feeling a thousand pounds heavier than he remembered - but perhaps that was his soul instead. He closed his eyes, and with a near silent flutter of wings, was gone from Earth forever.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The room was dead silent, and no one had the strength to move nor speak. Sam’s head was in his hands, and not even his hair moved an inch, save for the light shaking of sobs.
Castiel simply stood at the window, his arms hanging by his sides; his once bright eyes bored holes in the glass, but saw nothing that lay before him.
Bobby cleared his throat as though to speak, and Castiel moved for the first time in hours. He spun his head to face Bobby, a warning in his eyes that Bobby quickly heeded and fell silent again.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The music was beautiful of course, but Castiel cold not hear it. His eyes were unfocused, his chin drooped slightly, and his classic inquisitive head turn was a gesture of the past.
Sam stood at the front of the very small gathering, which was taking place in a barn; Dean had requested it to be this way, because he wanted the first place he saw Castiel to be the last place that Castiel saw him.
Sam’s voice was thin and shaky, but Castiel was not listening to the words. His eyes moved to the small wooden casket covered in markings that would prevent anyone from misusing Dean’s bones, and he found himself wanting very much to be gone from this world.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Dean had charged in head first, like he always did on a hunt, with Castiel on his heels. The motel room appeared empty for a few seconds, before flooding with demons on the hunt.
Castiel was grabbed from behind with a stolen angel blade to his throat, and instead of fearing for his life he looked up to find Dean’s green eyes locked into his own; before either Castiel or the demon could react, Dean had a knife through the woman’s neck and his arms around Castiel.
It only took a moment of hesitation for a blade encrusted with anti-angel sigils to fly through the air and plunge into Dean’s back. And it was only seconds (or perhaps a thousand lifetimes) before Dean’s gleaming green eyes faded and he fell from Castiel’s grip, landing on the sickly green sheet of the motel bed.