This was originally written as a prize to a friend on tumblr because she accurately guessed how long it would take for me to eat the M&Ms I had balancing on my stomach. Its a long story. And not as good as the one you're about to read. So enjoy. =)
Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural or any of its characters.
Dean still felt the air whirring around him. Noises like waves crashing into one another vibrating through his ears. His body felt light, non corporeal. Probably lost at sea. But he knew otherwise, it was lying lifeless on Bobby's living room floor. The grand plan had worked but suddenly, now surrounded by dense forest and vibrant colors, he wasn't so sure. It seemed like this place ran on a whole different color spectrum, shades of blue and green that he'd never seen before popped out. Maybe this was just true color, and in Earth, it was dulled by the human perception.
This was Heaven.
The heavy weight of metal was in his hand. His fingers curled around a weapon like no other. In any other situation, he'd be laughing. A sickle. To think all those childish cartoons about Death were true. Wasn't there a show on Disney or some kid station where a hooded skeleton carried one just like this? It was cold and stained. Millennia of tarnish covering it.
The journey to this exact clearing took what his human perception deemed two days. Ash had met him upon his arrival. Smiling his drunken smile, Jo vibrant at his side. She was just as he remembered. Blonde, pretty, and soft mouthed. She'd taken him by the hand, pulled him in. He thought she was going to kiss him; instead he received a bone crushing hug. One that he knew wasn't meant to welcome, but to console. Did everyone else know before him?
Did they all know that this happening would almost kill him? That the loss of one angel could send him down a spiral that none of them could control?
Well, one thing they didn't expect was that all of this would be his idea. Bleeding an innocent dry to conjure Death. Taking a week to slowly drain his body of energy in order to store it securely for his return. The shaman who kept his body safe on the Earthly plane, pushing his soul towards the heavens. The last time he'd come up here, he never felt a transition. Just silence and dark before opening his eyes. This time, he felt the world heat up around him before plunging into ice cold water.
He felt his soul rip from his tired body. He'd screamed in agony, sure that every angel in creation could hear him. Maybe even God.
Castiel.
Not Cas. Never again will he be Cas.
It seemed like the sun shone brightly but he could not spot the satellite. Like this part of Heaven was self-illuminated. Or maybe it radiated from the being yards ahead of him. Hunched on a stone bench, dark hair tousling in the wind. Dean knew that form. He would know it anywhere.
He told his legs to move, to bring him closer to this being. To reap him as he should be reaped. Betrayal and guilt and confusion filled his belly at once. A vision of bright blue eyes and a stubborn chin flooded his mind. The quivering of too chapped lips as their owner tried to comprehend the words spoken to him. Constant stubble aging a face too pretty to be male. Wrinkles at the corner of too big eyes. Everything too. Too perfect. Too loyal. Too determined. Too broken. And hopeless and ruined. Cas.
But this form wasn't Cas. This was Castiel. Or God as he liked to be called now.
Today, Dean was going to reap God.
Today...I'm going to kill my best friend.
He chased the thought away, pushing his legs forward. His gait shakier than usual. Everything trembled, his knees, hands, and lips. He wished for tears. Anything to fill this moment. To make it feel less dead. But it was dead, wasn't it? Technically he was, and so was Cas. So was their friendship.
Dean centered on that thought. He thought of that Cas. The beautiful one. The one that could stop his heart with one head tilt. He thought of this Castiel that took his body, took his face. Something in him howled for blood.
He raised the sickle.
A whimper broke the air, staying his hand two inches from Castiel's skull.
"Do it," came a voice, all gravel, "Dean. Do it."
That's when he realized the whimper wasn't from Castiel. It was from him. He felt the wetness covering his cheeks, the telltale snot coming from his nose, the snivel as he sucked in a breath. It dropped. The sickle looking crude and out of place on the lush grass.
"I said," the voice got higher, commanding, "Do it!"
He breathed hard, trying to find the air. He felt the waves around him again. The ice cold water seeming to freeze him from the inside out even though it was the other way around. The form moved, slumped further, slammed its palms into the stone bench, stomped a foot. Blades of grass came undone under the Oxford covered foot.
Suddenly nothing looked perfect.
Not this plan, not this God, and certainly not this heaven.
Castiel turned his head to the side just enough for Dean to make out the corner of his eye. And thats when Dean spotted it. The bruising scraped skin on the side of Castiel's face. Marks not unlike burns surrounding eyes that were took dark to be Cas'.
"Cas..tiel.." the name caught in his throat, scraped raw from his unchecked crying.
The imposter stood, covering his face with his hands, "Don't look."
The words seemed superficial. Don't look at what? The rotting flesh of Jimmy Novak? Too weak to handle the vast amount of souls and grace crammed into it. Too small to be God but too hard to be Cas. Everything too again. And Dean hates it.
"Don't look at you?" he whispered harshly, as if any louder and this moment would spin out of control, "I don't want to. I couldn't."
"Dean..."
"Don't say my name like you know it. Like you have the right," it was empty now, this whisper losing meaning and sense, "I won't look at you. But you should. You're no better than Lucifer was."
"Please," less hollow, pain laced with something Dean couldn't identify, "Just do it."
Dean can't help it when his feet move him forward, he wants to scream. He wants to rip this thing before him into shreds with his bare hands. This thing that stole his best friend. But he doesn't. No.
He holds it in his arms.
The smell of ozone and notes of musk fill his nostrils. Skin still soft at the nape of a too warm neck. Obviously burning from the inside out. The pale skin is unmarked there and Dean cares to change that, digging the pads and nails of his fingers in and holding on for dear life.
This whimper isn't his.
It's familiar, one he's heard filled with pain before. But this time it's different. Heavier, tangible, needy as Dean drinks it in. Because somehow his lips had found chapped lips, still too.
"Dean," and this time he allows it, "Dean."
And he swallows his own name. Tastes Heaven and Hell. His mind suddenly bombarded with images. Fire singeing wings as illuminated fingers grab onto a shredded ugly thing. Same fingers piecing together ligaments and organs. Taking care, not minding the blood soaking up its arms. The smell of burnt feathers and ozone familiar and beautiful and so intense that he shudders. He sees what Castiel sees. Freckles sprinkled in all the right places. Across the bridge of a nose, over high cheekbones and the odd two between eyebrows. A smile so genuine as its owner gazes at the sleeping form of a man, one he'd raised from only months old. Pouty lips that wrap around the rim of a beer bottle as eyebrows lift curiously, those two freckles raising as well. A well sculpted shoulder, baring the beginnings of a mark too complicated to understand. A single handprint. Simple in design, with a hundred thousand different definitions. Friendship, understanding, dedication, loyalty, trust, love. Salvation.
He breathes the word. Salvation.
As needy lips press against his, something heavy is pressed into a free hand. Teeth scrape the underside of his chin as a sob that doesn't belong to him wracks his body. And he understands.
He fills his nostrils with that scent one more time, grasps a stubbly chin. Eyes that are at once too blue again meet his. And there it is. What this always has been. Living as though the next minute you won't be. Loving until there is nothing left inside of you. Letting go when its time.
"Cas." And its better than I love you.
The man in his arms jerks once, eyes still locked onto his. Wide and blown and full of love. Blood coats Dean's hand, dripping from the sickle half buried into Castiel's stomach. One more brush of lips and the brightest light Dean has ever witnessed begins to pour out of Castiel's eyes and mouth. He forces his eyes to stay open, watching as souls pour from the same lips he'd just kissed thoroughly. Buries a hand in dark hair, sobs and whimpers openly as he knows he won't again. Not for Castiel.
But for Cas.
Through the haze of images flitting, light bursting, sparks flying, laughing, crying, touching, holding, he heard it….
"Dean Winchester has been saved."
FIN