You Were Meant for Me
Pairing: Sorta Destiel
Warnings: Just a little bit of cursing and drinking. And angst.
Word Count: 1,527
Description: It's been a year, to the day, that Castiel died. Dean deals with it the best he knows how.
Author's Note: Just a short semi-Destiel one-shot. It's heavily inspired by Jewel's "You Were Meant for Me," which you can listen to here. Don't let the angst scare you away though! It has a happy ending.
When Dean wakes up, it's six AM.
The alarm clock beside his hotel bed is going off, so he forces his eyes to open before turning the alarm off with an irritated sigh. He falls back into the pillows, closing his eyes and just thinks.
It's been a year.
It's been a year since Castiel swallowed up all of Purgatory's souls and let loose the Leviathans. It's been about six months since God brought Gabriel, the angel who Dean never liked too much in the first place. Gabriel even has his old shortstack vessel.
Apparently, in Scripture, Gabriel is the one who was supposed to kill the damned things in the first place. So of course he'd need to come back. And of course, he smited all of the monsters that Sam and Dean had so much trouble with. And that's all well and good for Sam, who's taken a liking to the snarky archangel as of late, but damn. God couldn't bring the stupid sonovabitch that had helped them for years back, either? At least Gabriel was truly sorry about that, though.
"Castiel was my little brother too, dickwad." He'd said to Dean months back. "I didn't see him die, but he was a good guy. Too good to die like that."
But Dean doesn't cry as he lies in bed, back to Sam as his brother stirs to wakefulness. It feels so far from the times when he and Cas were friends, when they were saving a world that didn't even know it needed to be saved.
-x-x-x-
When the boys are up and in slightly better spirits because of morning showers, they head out for breakfast at a small diner. The waitress seems to sense that Dean's not feeling his best, because she seems extra nice and charming. When she comes back, she's smiling, and sets Dean's plate of eggs and pancakes down. The food is arranged into a smiley face, and somehow, it feels like a punch to the gut.
Castiel would have gotten a kick out of this, Dean thinks almost bitterly.
"Dean, why did they prepare it this way? Sam says that people shouldn't play with their food."
But Dean forces a smile at the girl, and Sam gives his brother a worried look as Dean wonders how long the angel would torture him like this, so long after he'd been gone.
-x-x-x-
Sam can tell that Dean wants to be alone.
He leaves their hotel room as Dean starts fixing coffee, murmuring something about taking a walk. Dean merely nods in answer, and when he's alone and sitting down with a freshly made Styrofoam cup of coffee, that's when he almost starts to cry. Because he has to be strong. Everyone expects Dean Winchester to be strong.
He expects himself to be strong.
It's ridiculous to Dean, being on the verge of tears, being so weak, because you're thinking that you're supposed to be strong. It's almost poetic. And Winchesters don't do poetry.
Dean's tired eyes flick over the newspaper that's sitting on the small table he's sitting at, and he opens it up because he's got nothing better to do. The front page headlines are what they always are, of course. People dying, people killing, something about a politician's marriage. Nothing that sounds like work for Dean and his brother, and that's his only comfort.
-x-x-x-
It starts raining in the afternoon. Sam had taken the car someplace, so Dean is still alone in the room. There isn't much to do but drink and watch TV, so he does both.
There's a movie on TV. It's about a rich businessman who meets a prostitute, and they fall in love, of course. It's a fairytale ending. Dean feels like the chick flick should cheer him up, but by the end of the movie he's feeling worse and more lonely than he did before. Maybe it's because the movie was too happy. Or maybe he's just too sad.
-x-x-x-
When Sam comes back in the evening, Dean's drunk himself to the point where he can mostly ignore the concerned looks Sam's throwing his way. He's snapping at his brother at every little thing, and at every little thing that reminds him of Castiel. Dean's not usually like this at all, but damn it, he feels like he has a right to because a mere year ago, he was pulling his friend's trench coat from the water. But there's only so much of Dean's self-hating dramatics that he can take, especially when Dean won't talk to him about it.
"That's it, Dean!" Sam twists in his chair, suddenly snapping after Dean's muttering about a Burger King commercial. His older brother fixes him with a surprised and dazed look, and Sam continues, standing from his chair with a clatter.
"We are going to talk about this. It's getting out of hand, man. I mean, look at you!" Sam gestures to his big brother, who's arm is hanging off the side of the bed, beer bottle dangling from his fingers by its neck. Dean just scowls at him. "It's been a year. And I know this is how you grieve, but this has gotta stop. That, or you need to talk to me about it. Because I think you've got all kinds of stuff on your chest-"
"Sam, I don't need to cry on your fucking shoulder!" Dean sits up so fast, he nearly wobbles. "You're not my damn shrink, okay? I've gotten through worse. It's not even fucking about him."
Sam's eyes narrow. "…How do you know Cas is what I'm talking about?"
Dean's mind is swimming pleasantly beneath the boiling of his rage, and he can't form an accurate answer to retort with, so he simply growls out "…I don't know, Sammy." He presses the heels of his hands against his eyes after setting his booze down.
"It's the same old story, Sam. Don't have much to say on it. People are always leaving us. People leave, and people die. It happens when you have a life as fucked up as ours. What do you want me to do about it, huh? Sit on my ass and whine, or go out and save as many people as I can so that their life can be just a little freakin' better?"
Sam almost wants to say "you're doing a real good job with that right now, aren't you?" but he keeps his mouth shut and slowly lowers himself back into the chair. "…Whatever, Dean. Just go to sleep."
And so Dean does, after another swig from his bottle. At least, he tries very hard to. He lies in bed and pulls the sheets over his head, but somehow, he doesn't want to sleep. Sam can tell that his big brother's still awake after a long while, and he feels a stab of pity. Softly, he asks "…How you feeling?"
Dean snorts bitterly. "Half alive, mostly dead."
-x-x-x-
Dean's dreams are disturbing.
Dark figures, demons, memories of Hell, and, most of all, Castiel. Or when the Leviathans had his body. Castiel's eyes were filled with that terrible, sadistic glee as he did horrific, unspeakable acts to the faces from Hell that Dean simply cannot forget.
He wakes up in a cold sweat, eyes snapping open to find that the sheet that covered him was halfway on the floor, and halfway on the ground. He squints because the light from the bathroom is still on, and it's the only light in the darkness. His head's already started the quiet, steady throb that'll probably be a lot worse in the coming hours. He waits a few seconds before pushing himself up, and he blinks hard at what he turns to see.
Sam's talking to someone almost frantically, in that five-hundred-word-a-minute way that he does when he's excited. The door's open, and it's stopped raining at least. It's also probably like three in the morning. Dean squints, but the person Sam's talking to is blocked by his brother's large frame. Frankly, Dean doesn't care who the hell it is right now, so he falls back into the blankets before covering his head with a pillow, having every intention of going back to sleep and getting this day over with.
Unfortunately, Sam is by his bedside and shaking him into alertness seconds later, his voice still excited as it was a moment ago.
"Dean," He breathes, "Big brother, come on. Get up! Something's happened. We can't explain it, but-"
"Damn it, Sam," Dean hisses in irritation, forcing himself up with a great huff. "What the hell is so important that you've gotta wake me up and…" The hunter sits up, but his gaze is drawn to the door.
Dean's eyes widen, and his whole world stops because Castiel is standing in the doorway, still in his holy tax accountant get-up, minus a beige trench coat. The man (because somehow, something's missing about him, and Dean somehow gets the funniest feeling that Cas isn't an angel anymore,) steps into the room, over the salt line, and his lips twitch like he wants to smile but doesn't know how.
"…Hello, Dean."