Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters, they belong to the CW and Kripke.
A.N.: Set during Season 6, up to 6x11 Appointment in Samarra. Takes the concept of the Wall within Sam's mind, except of course this fic deals with Dean and Cas' relationship.
The Walls of Troy
There is a wall that is not a wall. It's a ruined glory, weathered and beaten like those of ancient Petra. A wall sandblasted into the sands of Time itself, rebuilt over and over again upon its shaky foundations like those of Troy herself. And through it all, it bleeds upon the scorched but healing landscape of its homeland. Dean's wall is anything but a wall.
It wasn't always like this, Death notes as he watches Dean pray for Castiel. There was a time when Dean truly had a wall, a beauty to behold. When Bobby questioned if Dean felt okay, but none dared to question why he wasn't losing his mind. How no one pondered the meaning of a profound bond between man and angel. Only three beings out of Creation know the truth.
Three years past, the angel Castiel builds a wall constructing it with the smooth glass texture of his Grace to hold back the tide of 40 hellish years. It's a tall glistening wall fit for a Righteous Man, making kings and pagan gods envious if they saw. Yet like all things, its' glory doesn't last. Souls are powerful creatures and soon the blemishes of Dean's soul pounding away at the intrusion are enough for Hell to flash before his human eyes. Then the wrecking ball of the ghost sickness breaks through spilling out the memories in a black flood.
Within the rubble of his Grace, Castiel acts fast. With skilled hands, he reshapes the shattered wall into a chain-link fence while Dean lays prone on the ground, chest still, heart flat-lining. It works. Through the frame openings, memories trickle in, no longer drowning Dean as he grips his tenuous hold on sanity tightly. His soul bows in submission with childlike fingers running a stick up and down the rings. A truce has been called between Dean's soul and Castiel's Grace. Then Castiel breaths and Dean gasps back to life.
Time passes with the weaving of vines dancing between the ying and the yang, the dark and the light, the forgotten and the remembered. Outside, Dean confesses to Sam. But what he doesn't mention is how he feels as if he's missing something. In true Winchester fashion, he pushes away the feeling while subconsciously seeking it out.
Dean's instincts serve him well, for there is a gap. A memory the angel keeps hidden, buried in a box out of reach from the vines. The box shields Dean from a harsh truth: no soul touched by an angel walks away without consequences. But like all boxes and secrets, they are meant to be broken.
Days melt away after Castiel's death by Raphael before a ring in the fence corrodes away and a corner of the box glistens, a tease at the back of Dean's mind. Nothing odd stands out, till Castiel appears. Hiding behind his arms as two angels die, Dean catches a few seconds of the searing Grace. The tiniest blast of light should have burnt out his eyes. Yet green gems remain in tact. No one ponders over it.
Castiel mends the fence as he carves sigils into the brothers' ribs. Normalcy returns as an angel's Grace seeps out of him like a bleeding wound. In his weakening state, he can only watch as the vines wind around the wires, spreading out from beyond the fence like weeds.
Famine's greedy fingers claw at the ground, dragging the box to the surface letting it fester within the black pit of Dean's despair. It isn't till the Whore's barbs slice into Castiel that the fence buckles upon itself. Dean's helpless rage sears through the bend, scorching the land and melting away the glass lock on the box. Pain bursts from the brief contact, crackling Castiel's Grace into Dean as he kills the Whore.
The act is not lost to the others, for how can such a man do such a heavenly feat. Castiel fears the worst as he gazes down at the charred box. Gathering a very human resilience, he pushes Dean's soul away from the box and back into the remembered realms before heaving up the fence, making it stand weary but tall once more. It doesn't last long, not in the angel's weak condition as his Grace within the fence corrodes away. Then the angel does something stupid, as if he had given up hope on the fence, on Dean.
Castiel banishes himself to kingdom come with enough force to rip his remaining Grace out of him. Gazing down at the shaking figure on Death's doorstep, God shrugs. Death sighs. Castiel is Dean's wall and the human needs the fallen angel if he is to succeed in preventing the Apocalypse.
Smoke reigns in Dean's mind, the banishment like dynamite. A hole sears into the fence. The heat crackles the box open spilling its secrets out for all to see. Glistening remains of Castiel's Grace wash a tiny piece across the border. The effect is monumental. Staring into the inferno of Zachariah's death, with holy flames reflecting off those golden green orbs, Dean remembers. Remembers a split second of being in Hell as a burning light stood before him and he quips about not being Moses.
As quickly as it came, it vanishes as Dean slams into the wall, the brief memory dissipating into the rest of the gray that is his past.
Weeks pass on and the fence crumbles slowly into dust. Dean's soul stands before the hole, sees the box with that last shred of memory laid out before him. It's a crossroad, a choice and Dean wisely steps away from recovering the memory. It's is too precious, too powerful, too intimate for him. So, Dean does what he does best. He patches the hole, tries to gather the broken pieces of the fence and fix it while fighting to keep the powerful memory buried beyond his reach. His stubborn denial saves him.
Castiel returns. Then in a span of a heartbeat, the fallen angel dies at the hands of Lucifer. This time it doesn't take days or weeks for the fence to collapse into a heap of twisted wire, rust and rotted out Grace. Kneeling alone in the cemetery, a battered piece of humanity, Dean mourns his family. He's too tired to fight as the memory tumbles into existence. Grass and soil staining his jeans, graveyard air chilling his bones, Dean remembers his own salvation at the hands of an angel and how he wishes he could do the same for Sam.
Temptation teases Death with the notion of what would happen to Dean. If he would live up to his brother's promise and seek a simple life knowing that he had come back from Hell different. That, he could hear the pure silence in Heaven as the angels gaze down in total shock at seeing their General locked in the Cage with Lucifer. Knows why he's the exception to the rule in killing angels.
If Dean would kill himself. He can't live without Sam, live with this memory.
God whispers to him and Death nods in agreement. Resting his hands over his cane, he knows that no man should have that power or at least remember it. Dean Winchester is dangerous, even if Death hates to admit it. So he releases two souls. God breathes Castiel back to life, making him an angel once more, standing tall and bright behind the last Winchester.
Dean stares up and sees the real Castiel, the one of fire and light. Without pause, Castiel lays two gentle fingers against the human's brow. The fence snaps together, firm and strong, the vines burning away as Castiel plucks the memory of salvation before the roots take hold. Placing it gently in the box, he buries it under stone and water deep within Dean's mind. All traces of remembrance are forgotten while Dean stares up at him taking in the flesh and bone of a vessel, the wind filling the air instead of the cacophony of Heaven.
Life inches onwards and when Dean searches him out, Death frowns as he takes in the state of Dean's fence. To his chagrin, the vines are climbing as rust eats away, the Grace so thin in some places that it would only take a tiny pinch for it to snap. It's a pitiful sight next to his creation of Sam's majestic oak wall.
The reason appears in a flurry of wings outside the panic room, tension mounting. Their friendship strains, groaning under the weight of heated stares. The disrepair becomes apparent in how ragged and weary Castiel is. A flickering Grace trembles under fear and paranoia, eating away at him like the rust on the fence. A selfish worry spreads on how there would be nothing left. No more profound bond. No more friends. No more closeness.
It'd be over. And only three outcomes can arise if it ever came to pass that Dean learns the truth. The angel would become lost, turn into another Lucifer or simply fall onto his own sword joining Death's house permanently. Or there's the choice of Exile. Falling is not an option anymore. There is no winning for the angel. But Dean, oh Dean's future has many outcomes and it drives the fate of Castiel.
In one hand, Death sees a gray-haired Winchester with knobby fingers holed up in ratted down house mumbling to dead ghosts. In another world, he's a middle-aged man who's kicking and screaming bloody murder as Sam holds him close to his chest. A blink later, Dean stares with dead eyes out the passenger window, withering away into an empty shell as Bobby and Sam argue outside.
Flash of blackness and Dean is shaking at a dying Castiel yelling at him why he was so goddamn secretive and selfish. Same field, Dean actually kills Castiel with a mixture of hatred and tears running down his face. Another world, another place and Dean smiles completely at peace as Castiel stands before him in his true form to bring him home. Another has Dean chuckling and amused as Enochian floats in the air, only for him to hear.
In a dark place, Castiel and Dean snarl at each other, taking each other out in a blaze of light. A blink and there's a world where they simply cease all communication, say their goodbyes and never see each other again. Elsewhere, the two are like they are now, stagnant on the surface, a geyser waiting to erupt underneath. And in a twisted world, Dean is his old self but wiser and becomes a wall himself as he brushes fingers through dark hair as a very human Castiel goes through another nightmare.
The probabilities are endless. Dean's fence already has weathered two close encounters of complete collapse. He's survived through the absence of Castiel. So maybe nothing will happen when the angel finally dies and the fence collapses exposing the memory once more. Or maybe, all Hell will break loose and Death will reap Dean himself.
Either way, Death ponders, only time can tell. And as Dean and Castiel whisper in bickering tones outside the panic room as to not wake Sam, he watches as a tiny rain of rust from the fence flickers down a vine and paints the grass red. Dean's wall is bleeding.