Supernatural doesn't belong to me. Otherwise the show would be made of happy characters and Destiel kisses.
Written as a gift to TheoryofChaos, who helps me write again by bitching around. All my love, gurl.
Warning: spoilers for 8x23. I sugest you don't read this until you've watched the season finale.
and I really have enjoyed my stay (but I must be moving on)
"So that's it. E.T. goes home."
Next to him Castiel sips his beer, with nothing on his face to indicate what he feels. He could just as well be talking about the weather. Dean'd say that's usual, except it's not—not anymore. If it ever was. When he concentrates, he can vaguely remember a time when Cas's eyes weren't full of emotions. Now every shared glance is like a kick in the stomach.
Dean keeps a hand around his own bottle. His palm is damp against the perspiring glass. He doesn't drink. If he drinks now, he knows he'll drown.
The bartender keeps busy with the only other customer, a bearded man in with a cap on his head. They seem to know each other somewhat. Dean's still waiting for the providential chick to show up and put an end to this. They'll get the cupid charged with this perfect couple, take its bow, and that'll be it.
E.T.'ll go home. Cas'll be gone—dead—forever.
He doesn't really get why Castiel even needs him on this one. Maybe a few years earlier, when Cas still spoke funny on the phone (when Cas still bothered to call) and didn't know how to lace his shoes. But Dean's pretty sure Cas can do whatever he wants in public and not make a complete mess of himself by now.
Dean doesn't let himself think that Cas might want to have a proper goodbye. Anything proper between him and Cas that doesn't involve Sam scares him. He can't think that way, not when Cas just told him he was planning to die. Not ever.
He can't even cry. He tries to bring up the furor he'd felt at Cas's last betrayal. Tries to find it in himself to resent him. To view him as he ought to have done from the start: a supernatural being, an enemy, something to be destroyed. What does it matter if he has free will. What does it matter, that he came out of God's ass rather than the devil's.
What does it matter, that Dean fought for a year to find him, that only Dean's voice was able to break Naomi's spell, that every time the feathered bastard appears Dean feels like he's having a heart attack.
What does it matter, indeed, when all of it was for naught.
He shouldn't even feel disappointed, really. It's not like he expected something to happen in the first place. Good things don't happen. He has said so to a number of people and he still believes it in parts of himself even Sam can't access. He's not sure what he was expecting. (He can't let himself hope.)
Good things don't happen. That's the truth of it all.
Castiel seems to notice that Dean's been watching him a little too intently. He turns his head to better see him, and it's here again, that feeling of helplessness and affection mixed together.
I don't want you to shut down heaven, he wants to say.
I don't want you to go there with them and let them kill you.
Please stay with me.
He says nothing. The words sting his lips and his tongue. His whole mouth feels on fire. Actual tears gather up in his eyes, and blinks fiercely, chasing them as discreetly as he can.
Suddenly Cas's hand is as his elbow. "Dean," he says. Dean wants to jump away from the contact, wants to rasp out 'what is it, now', but his throat feels raw and painful, and grief flutters inside him like a living thing. Everything burns.
Cas's eyes are on him when they fill with understanding. He hesitates. His hand, still on Dean's arm, press into the fabric of his shirt until he can feel its warmth on his skin.
"Dean," Castiel repeats. He sounds dried out, parched. His beer lays forgotten on the counter.
"Dean, I-"
They separate brusquely when the door opens with a light sound. A woman comes in without looking at them, a smile on her face in the direction of the barkeep, and Dean thinks that's it and at the same time no. No. He doesn't want it to end like that.
The three of them—the woman and the two men—exchange a few words. He doesn't hear them. He looks because it's easier than looking at Cas and seeing the love in his eyes again.
The woman grabs both men's shoulders with a smile and leaves.
And then, just a second before the two guys look at each other in wonder, Dean gets it. She was the cupid. And with that brief contact, she gave birth to love.
A hand on a shoulder.
It's silly. There was no cupid in hell on the day Cas rescued him. No bow to link them when Castiel put a hand on him for the first time. But they were linked all the same. Irremediably. So much so that despite everything they continue to crawl in each other's direction, to dig a path in the dirt of the world and walk, hauling all the pain and betrayal behind, until they reach again.
And it must have been predestined too, part of some great celestial scheme, because everything in Dean's life is to blame on Destiny. Maybe a cupid did touch them that day. Maybe, as Meg had once said, they were well and truly lost from this very moment.
Dean wants to turn around and touch Castiel, create a contact to be sure he's not dreaming. But Cas is already up, walking towards the exit without a look behind. Dean follows him.
Outside, the cupid is waiting for them. She hands them her bow willingly, which is—surprising, and little bit suspicious. Cas doesn't seem to care. He carves it out of her palm with brisk, precise movements, and doesn't look at her face the way Dean can't help doing. She seems to be in immense amounts of pain. He doesn't like sympathizing with creatures, but she's hardly dangerous for a non-human, and he feels her sacrifice deep in his chest.
He wonders if taking a cupid's bow is equal to taking an angel's grace, or a human's soul. The thought leaves him feeling queasy.
When she's gone, Cas cradles the little black bow in his hand. Blood drips on the ground, a clearer red than what Dean's used to. The little stains it makes on the asphalt glow softly in the streetlight.
"Castiel. Cas," Dean says. He hasn't used the angel's full name in so long now. Castiel is that creature who pulled him out of hell. Cas is the friend he made and loves.
His hand reaches out to press on Cas's shoulder. There is warmth there. Muscle and bone. The long-dead body of Jimmy Novak, given another life by Cas's grace and God's sense of humor. Cas doesn't ask what he's doing. His eyes know—Dean wonders how long they've known. He doesn't pull back when Dean lowers his head to travel across the inches still separating them and press their mouths together.
It's just that. A press of lips against lips. They don't move for fear of breaking the moment, for fear of something else falling from the skies to tear them apart.
They have this instant together, and it's like every single nerve in Dean's body is aware only of Cas. Cas's lips, Cas's bony shoulder under his palm. Their toes barely touching. Dean's eyelashes flattened against Cas's cheek.
"I don't," he begins, but he can't talk. They haven't parted yet. Dean feels fragile, frail, as if the night breeze would be enough to shatter him if he were to let go now.
"I don't want you to-"
His throat closes up.
Cas doesn't say anything. His free hand lands on Dean's face, fingers spread from neck to ear. His thumb rests on the corner of Dean's eye. He lifts his head and kisses Dean's forehead, gently, so gently Dean might cry from this alone.
This kiss is a goodbye.
He isn't surprised, a few minutes later, when Castiel doesn't listen to Naomi's arguments. Cas is already gone. Wherever he is in his head, it's not with them. Heaven, maybe, where he will die in a few days, maybe a few hours. With the bees he so adores. With Meg's memory, or the brothers he lost—the brothers he killed.
But it's not here, standing outside a sad little bar in which two men just fell in love and two souls entwined for the longest second in the universe.