Flight
"Aerodynamically the bumblebee shouldn't be able to fly, but the bumblebee doesn't know that so it goes on flying anyway."
- Mary Kay Ash
Colour.
It was the first ingredient to the creation of life. With the absence of colour, there was an absence of life. And without life there was no beauty in the world. So in a sense, colour was life, colour was the beauty of all living-breathing organisms.
Colour was messy, it was at times chaotic and abhorred by many but it was always there when life was in abundance. It could be sloppy, gray, and un-attractive to the touch, taste or smell but it was always so beautiful.
When a ball of pure energy, of the embodiment of life, is hurled to the earth it is not black nor is it white. It is a medley of all colours, of all the beautiful living, pulsating organisms you can find just lying around. When it hits, when it finally ends its climatic journey to the earths soil there is no boom, no clashing of drums, no thunder storms, just a small barely there thump.
And it's so god damn beautiful.
It's so beautiful it would blind anyone who is merely mortal. Its elegance is so pure, so vivid and so right.
"The sky is never grey Dean," he says one morning when the rain is pounding on the windows and they're huddled together, preserving warmth in a cocoon of blankets. "It's never grey because it's never anything, the sky is a mystery layered upon more mystery."
"The sky is oxygen and nitrogen Cas, now come on. I'm tired."
The two men resumed cuddling but the rest of the day is spent in silence, and Dean is worried about his angel.
He sits at the window and he watches.
He sits at the window and he watches, and he watches, and he watches.
That's all he seems to do anymore.
And Dean is so worried.
He feels it boiling beneath his skin. It's a constant nagging fear that something is very wrong. But he just can't put his finger on it.
So he takes another sip of his beer and turns away hoping that next time he looks back, instead of watching the stars, the moon, the sun, the clouds, Cas'll be watching him, watching him like he used to. Like he's supposed to.
"Dean, come! Come quick!" His voice has an un-usual exuberance to it, a joy that hasn't been present for a while and Dean wonders if his worries were for nothing. He smiles when he sees Cas outside, fully clothed and pointing upwards with childish glee.
Glancing up he gasps and joins Cas' side, gaping at the millions of shooting stars gracing the sky with their wonderful presence. He watches and he laughs and he sips at his beer and it feels so good, so normal again. Being like this with Cas… It's how it is supposed to be, how it should always be.
Yet when he looks over to share one of those soul-altering kisses, he notices that Cas is crying and the worry is back full force because he's never seen Cas cry before. Never.
"Sometimes… I want to go home Dean…"
And these words break Dean's heart.
They're out shopping when it happens.
They've been walking along the sidewalk for twenty minutes now. The sun's making its presence known on the napes of their necks, a soft burning tingle that is quite painful but neither complains. Dean walks right by the dead bird, doesn't even notice it's mangled body on the side of the road, pushed aside like a broken doll.
But Cas does.
He stops and he bends down to inspect the poor thing and when Dean turns around to ask him what's wrong he screams. He screams so loud that the other citizens on the street all stop to stare at him and Dean is there, and he's trying so hard to shush him because he's embarrassed damn it.
And then he stops screaming and he looks up and his throat is hoarse and he's crying again and Dean is pulling on his arm but he won't leave the dead birds side and people are now whispering and pointing and a few teenagers are taking videos and it's all too much. It's too much.
When the news reaches him at work that his husband was found half dead on the pavement outside their apartment he rushes to the hospital and yells at anyone who'll listen that he needs to see him now. When a nurse informs him that he's in surgery and that he can't, that he'll have to wait, Dean sits down with his head in his hands and he waits.
When the nurses tell him he can go see Cas he rushes to the room, and it breaks his heart all over again seeing him so broken on the bed and he's reminded of that bird. The first thing he asks him is what he was thinking. Why he would leave Dean alone to fend for himself, with the weight of his suicide on his shoulders. He yells and he rants and tips over a few tables, all the while with tears streaming down his face and he curses at himself. He doesn't cry damn it.
When he is finally quiet and calm and collected and he's gripping Cas' hand so tight, so tight because he can't leave him, he can't let him go he hears it. Four words that end his life right then and there.
"I want to fly."
"and he suddenly knew that if he killed himself, he would die. Maybe not immediately, maybe not with the same blinding rush of pain, but it would happen. You couldn't live for very long without a heart."
― Jodi Picoult
The end.