FracturedA.N. While this is not the first story that I've ever written, it is the first story that I've put together in five years. Think of it as an experiment. I tried to have it line up with the series up to season 7 or so but it is definitely AU at the end. Also, it's definitely Destiel. Obviously I don't own any of the characters and any mistakes are mine. Let me know what you think!
When Dean woke up, he felt hollow but the emotion was nothing new. It was, in a way, familiar and comfortable. He went to bed hollow. He woke up the same. Nothing ever changed. But it was a sensation that he come to rely on more than once. Maybe it was protection, his mind's way of keeping him sane. And hadn't he seen enough things to make a man insane? He had seen Hell, had lived in the pits of fire and ash. He had been held on the rack for decades, slowly tortured again and again and again and even now, he could hear the screams. Screams that had echoed throughout Hell, agonizing, endless. Screams that he couldn't be sure were not his own. He had hated it, oh God how he had hated it and he had prayed. Prayed to God in that darkness, searching for a light that he knew he would be denied.
"Help me. Please, God. Please. Please, please, please, anyone….God, Sammy. Sammy, Sammy, Sammy. Please"
But God hadn't come. Castiel had. When Dean was fractured and succumbing to the ever clinging darkness, when Dean was falling,
Falling, falling….
Castiel had come.
He had died and had been resurrected by an Angel of the Lord and together, he, Sammy, and Castiel had tried to stop the apocalypse. Had barely managed to do so. Sometimes, he had wondered why God had brought him back from the Pits. He was resurrected to find his baby brother addicted to demon blood. He had found himself caught between an age old war between Heaven and Hell. The entire world was collapsing around him and most of the time, he felt so helpless, so lost. He was human. He wasn't meant to save the world and Dean had hated God, had hated Castiel for putting it on him, on Sammy. It wasn't right. It wasn't fair. The world shouldn't have been theirs to try to save. But they tried anyway. What else could they do? And somewhere along the way, Castiel became Cas. Less Angel of the Lord, more ally, more friend. And Dean realized that Cas had become someone to him, someone important.
Dean sat up on the couch, noticing the time, too goddamn early to be awake but he knew that he couldn't fall asleep. Not again. He had slept for two hours, the most he had managed before it had happened. His body craved rest but his mind was killing him. There was a thin line between tentative peaceful sleep and agonizing nightmares and the nightmares always won. In his head, every night, he would hear the voice, that voice, low, almost a growl, the same few words on repeat.
"Hello, Dean. Dean, Dean, Dean, Dean…"
And Dean would wake up, whimpering, his chest aching in a way that he hadn't felt in a long time. Because, oh God, he wanted to hear that voice again. He could hear it perfectly in his mind but he wanted to feel again. Feel how his heart would slam within his chest when Castiel would speak to him, feel the pleasurable chills that would race along his skin whenever Castiel was near him. But it was gone.
Gone, gone, gone.
Dean stood up from the couch, thought briefly about making coffee before deciding against it and walked down the stairs to Bobby's panic room. Carefully, he opened the heavy, metal door and looked in.
Castiel.
Tied to a chair.
Bobby and Sam said that it didn't make sense. Castiel had been overthrown by the Leviathans, his vessel becoming theirs before exploding in the reservoir, the human form unable to cope with that much evil, that much destruction. Dean even had his trench coat (locked up in his trunk with everything that he considered important and vital). Bobby and Sam were worried because they knew that it was over. Castiel had been forced out of his (true) vessel, maybe he had returned to Heaven, and the body was gone. But they had been driving to Bobby's and they had found Castiel wandering alongside the road. He didn't have the trenchcoat (how could he when it was locked up tight in the trunk) but he was wearing the same bloody clothes, looking exactly like he did before that moment when he had walked into the reservoir, a memory that was burned into Dean's mind with agonizing detail. He didn't speak, he never spoke, but they had thrown him into the backseat of the Impala anyway. Sam had probably used more force than necessary but Dean had been frozen and he had simply stared, because oh God, he wanted to believe. He wanted this to be true. He wanted Castiel back. Back with them like it had once been. Before the apocalypse, before the fucking tenure as God, before the goddamn, forsaken Leviathans. Back with him. Bobby and Sam insisted that they keep Castiel in the panic room until they could figure it out and for once, Dean had been silent, allowing them to do whatever they wanted. They said that it wasn't Cas, that it couldn't be Cas.
And maybe they were right.
But every morning , Dean went down to the panic room. Every morning, hoping, praying, to hear that voice again. Every morning, he would simply sit on the floor in front of Cas, and his heart would break and break and break. Bobby and Sam were worried. They said that Dean was losing it. Not to his face, of course, but he heard the whispers. And maybe he was. After Hell, after Sammy, after Cas, maybe he was finally losing it all, going batshit crazy. Maybe that endless hollow feeling was a precursor to eternal numbness.
Somewhere in the back of his fractured brain, Dean knew that something, something, was wrong with Cas. Maybe it was his eyes. Castiel's eyes were a shade of blue that he had never seen before, mixed with gray, like the skies just before a thunderstorm. They were alive, penetrating and intense. And even Dean knew that this Cas, this man before him, was wrong. His hair wasn't as brown, wasn't as messy and rumpled. And his eyes were too dull, too gray, not enough blue, not enough life. But still Dean hoped. Hoped that his fucked up mind was forcing him to see things, that maybe Bobby and Sam's words were causing him to doubt.
Every morning, Dean would sit in front of Cas, analyzing the man in front of him. The man would stare back. And every morning, Dean would lean over, freeing the man's hands, dragging one up to his face to cup his jaw line. Every morning, Dean would close his eyes, waiting for the moment when the man's hand would touch his skin, his heart and mind aching for the familiar contact. Castiel had touched him like a lover, like Dean was his, like he was precious, cherished. And every morning, he would shiver and groan when the touch came, so cold, so alien, so fucking robotic, and he knew, he knew, that this wasn't Cas. Somewhere in his splintered and broken mind, there was some clarity. This would never be his Castiel, that it was likely some fucking shape shifter that they or Cas had encountered somewhere, and Dean would clumsily re-tie the man's hands before falling back on the floor, his palms digging at his eyes painfully as his heart tore again and again and again.
The man who wasn't Castiel was silent, always silent, and Dean hated that more than anything. He could hear his own harsh breathing echoing off of the walls of the panic room, and it scared him how close to breaking he was. The silence stretched on but it didn't comfort Dean. It never did. His mind would wander and all he could picture was Castiel. Castiel smiling. Castiel looking at Dean, head cocked in that endlessly confused way whenever Dean would say something that Castiel hadn't understood. The moment when Dean had first met him, when he had stood before Dean, a Servant of God, cold and calculating, so far removed from the Cas that remained a firm imprint on Dean's heart. Dean remembered how lightning had struck, the quick, harsh light making Castiel's blue eyes seem violent, constantly chaotic. Lightning again, and this time, Dean had seen wings, black, so large that they filled the room, stretching in a display of power, of control. That image had haunted Dean. But now it was all too much. Because Castiel was gone, gone, and he was lost and Dean hated it. Hated how much he wanted Castiel back. Hated how the fucking creature in front of him looked so much like his Cas, stealing his image, but he wasn't him. Not really. And he never would be. Dean wanted to kill him, this imposter, this monster, wanted to end the shifter's life like the hunter that he was, but he couldn't, not when it looked so much like Castiel and God, Dean wanted to cling to that. It was fucked up, but it was all he had because his angel was gone and the shifter who wasn't Castiel was all he had left. A shifter and his memories. And the anger, the hopelessness, the agony swelled higher, higher within Dean, threatening to burst, threatening to make him shatter and break, irreparable damage but he fought it down, down, praying, God yes, praying to keep it together.
Eventually, Bobby or Sam would wake up. Eventually, he would be helped off of the floor, up the stairs and into the kitchen. Eventually, a cup of coffee would be placed in front of him, as though coffee could somehow calm the aching void and chaotic rage in his chest. And Dean would sit there as Bobby and Sam conversed around him, silent, pitiful and aching. Today, it was Sammy who picked him off of the floor, Dean shaking with suppressed rage and despair and need. Sammy with a cup of Columbian Roast, Dean's favorite.
It was the same routine, never changing. But not today.
"He's a shifter, isn't he?" Dean asked quietly and immediately, the conversation between the two other men paused. Sammy sighed, glancing at Bobby before nodding.
"Yeah, Dean. We've been telling you that, man." Sam said, his voice low and soothing and not for the first time, he wondered at their reversals. How Dean had always taken care of him. How Dean had always seemed so powerful, so in control, a chaotic, destructive force unto himself. How broken he was now.
"He doesn't feel the same, Sammy. His eyes aren't right, and his hair isn't right and when he touches me, I'm cold and he doesn't speak." Dean whispered, his deep voice wrecked, his fingers digging into the coffee mug forcefully. "He doesn't fucking speak!"
Bobby and Sam jumped when the mug shattered against the wall, the brown liquid staining the old wallpaper.
"He doesn't speak, Sammy. He doesn't, and I need him to. I need, I want, I need…" Dean said, his voice harsh and close to sobbing, more vulnerable than Sam had ever heard him, his hand fumbling for Sam's arm. He tugged on it, and Sam knew what he was asking for. Sam went willingly, holding his brother as he fell apart in his arms. It wasn't right. It wasn't fair. Heaven and Hell had taken more than their fair share of the Winchester's and it wasn't right that Dean would be left like this, slowly going insane and so broken. Before, Dean had hated physical contact. Before, Dean had hated feeling helpless and weak. Emotions, even talking about them, were to be avoided. Now, he clutched at Sam, holding him to him like he was a lifeline, as though somehow, Sam could keep reality at bay. And Sam simply held on, determined to be there for as long as his older brother needed him.
Dimly, Sam heard a knock on the door and watched Bobby move to answer it. He heard Bobby curse,
"What the hell?"
Heard a crash as something fell, heard a thud as though something was smashed into the wall.
"Sam! Get your ass in here now!"
Sam went immediately, leaving his brother at the table, his head in his hands. Vaguely, Dean heard Sammy's own curse, heard the soft clink of a knife being pulled out of somewhere and the soft grumblings between Bobby and Sam. Sam returned to the kitchen after a few minutes, an eternity, grasping his brother on the shoulder and pushing him toward the living room.
"Come on, Dean. Something you gotta see."
And Dean went quietly, not really caring, not really seeing. Until he went into the living room and saw the man standing there, unsure and vulnerable.
How? You were gone and your vessel was gone and…
He saw the brown hair (the right shade), saw how messy it was. Saw those blue, blue eyes, the absolute perfect color, exactly right, but so haunted and Dean froze. He was rumpled, blood lightly oozing from a small cut on his forearm from the tests that Bobby and Sam had put him through. But he was there. He was human, or close enough to one, and Dean knew, he knew, that this was his Cas, not some fucking shape shifter. Could read it in how the man stood, his shoulders hunched over in shame. Could see it in his haunted eyes, the knowledge of his mistakes, the agony of not knowing how to begin to fix them. He was weighed down by the knowledge of what he had done, what he had done to others, playing at God, unleashing an unholy evil on the world and Dean, God help him, forgave him for it all.
And then Castiel was standing in front of him and slowly, he reached out, his hand coming to rest on Dean's shoulder and Dean was shattering. He felt the heat of his hand through the thin fabric of his shirt, and he stared at Castiel, his green eyes wandering over his face, the familiar jaw line, the soft wrinkles next to those gorgeous eyes. And Castiel let him look, gazing at Dean with such a familiar sense of longing and devotion and Dean wanted to speak, wanted to say something, anything, but he couldn't. So he grabbed Castiel instead, pulling him against his body roughly, his fingers tangling in Castiel's shirt, holding him tightly. He smelled the same as Dean remembered, clean, with a gentle hint of cologne warmed by his skin and Dean closed his eyes, drank him in, committing everything to memory again. His memories had kept him company but there was nothing, nothing like Castiel standing before him, gorgeous and so familiar. Castiel held him just as tightly, one hand hard against his back, the other tangled in Dean's hair as he buried his face into Dean's neck, inhaling him like he could never get enough. And Dean waited, wanting, needing to hear Castiel again, to hear the sound of that voice that had haunted his dreams. He heard Castiel sigh softly, peaceful, content for once.
"Hello, Dean."
So deep and rough and so achingly familiar and soothing.
It was enough. It was everything.