Oblivion

There are times in the night when Dean wakes up, suffocating in his memory-foam mattress, sinking within the depths of his blankets, lips parted, on the verge of crying out—but to what, or to whom, he can never remember. He shakes off the heavy blanket and places his bare feet on the cold floor. It can't be any earlier than three in the morning, but sleep has left him already. He can't wake Sam this early or he'd get an earful, but he decidedly can't stay in his half-empty room either. His half-empty room that he can't seem to fill no matter what he puts in it.

He shrugs on a gray robe and makes his way downstairs to the kitchen, mind set on a cup of coffee or maybe something stronger. It's become a daily ritual to weigh the pros and cons of drowning his depression in whiskey or to give in to his brother's nagging and start the day off with something milder. Today he gives in to himself. Let Sam nag me another day, he thinks as he pours himself a glass of Scotch. His hand shakes momentarily and the alcohol splashes over the rim of the glass and onto the counter.

His hands automatically clench into a fist around the Jack Daniels bottle and he grips the counter as the first wave of nausea hits him. His heart shudders in his ribcage and he shuts his eyes close, trying to push back the bile rushing up his throat. He sees sparks behind his closed eyelids, flying electrical flares that light up an enclosed space, and a thunderous shaking that echoes in his ears.

It takes several long minutes for the thunder to fade, the sparks to disappear. When he finally opens his eyes, the resolution is hazy and his stomach is still turning. The gifts you receive for saving the world, he thinks humorlessly even though his mouth twists into a grimacing smile. He puts the bottle back, hastily capping it with numb hands, and wanders upstairs to the library-slash-dining area.

Not wanting to wake up Sam, he turns a couple lamps on and rests in a chair closest to the stairs, ready to head back downstairs if need be. His eyes catch on an envelope, a thick parcel that had been hastily stuffed with papers, in the middle of the table. He lazily reaches over and plucks out a loose, handwritten note from the envelope.

Dean and Sam,

Within the envelope is the manuscript for the latest Supernatural novel. Please let me know if I've missed any information or gotten anything wrong. The publication date hasn't been set yet, so review as much of it as you can and get back to me on any mistakes I need to correct.

Charlie.

"Supernatural?" He growls, sipping away at the final drops of his whiskey before he grabs the envelope, taking out the entire manuscript. "What the fuck, Charlie, I thought you were on our side."

His eyes skim over the cheesy title, and yep, the book is about one of their exploits from last year. The fight over the angel tablet with himself and Metatron, against Naomi. He sucks his teeth as he flips through the pages, eyes running over familiar names, events, places.

"Dean, you've got to take the tablet without me, I can't touch it. Go. Go!"

"I'm not gonna let you die here, Sammy. I can't do that."

"Go, Dean, now!"

Dean shuts his eyes, sucking in a breath of pain, exhaustion. His whole body shakes as he exhales, and he looks back onto the manuscript, eyes glazing over the many, many pages. Too many pages. There was a time when books and movies could have held his attention for hours. Days, even. He rubs his forehead, trying to push back an oncoming headache, and stuffs the manuscript back in its envelope. Let Sam deal with it in the morning.

He takes his glass back downstairs, deciding to forgo another drink in favor of two pills of aspirin. And when that doesn't do anything, another two pills. He drags his wretched frame back to his room, only to pause at the entrance and glance around the neat bedroom. The feeling, that feeling, that always turned up when he looked around his room for too long, bubbles up in his chest. Like he's forgetting something important.

Unsettled, he walks over to the wall that holds his guns, takes one off its rest and tries to get comfortable in the hard, wooden chair in the corner of his room. There are plenty other, much more comfortable chairs around the Bat Cave, but none of them fit in the goddamned room like this one does. Not just physically, he thinks as he tries to align himself so that the frame of the chair doesn't end up splintering his back. There's something else…

Grabbing the cleaning kit from under the chair, he takes the magazine out of the gun, briefly checking if the barrel's empty, and disassembles it into parts. He cleans the inside of the barrel mechanically, allowing his mind to wander. He remembers teaching Sammy, little ten-year-old Sammy, how to shoot his very first gun. It was his very own sawed-off gun, too, and Sam nearly cried the first time it went off.

And he remembers watching Charlie and Krissy hit the targets in the practicing range with dead accuracy, high-fiving them each after their rounds finished. And he remembers…

No, he doesn't. Because Garth already knew how to shoot, even if he preferred staying upstairs to research with Kevin. And Kevin was too busy translating the tablets to give two shits about guns or the like.

His eyes start to water with the burn of fatigue and he hastens to lubricate the bore of the gun, trying to find relief from the throbbing of his mind. From the unidentifiable ache in his chest. What is he missing? He glances down at the disassembled gun in his hands. The action, he remembers, taking the gun brush out of the kit. Maybe it's too early for this.

He shakes his head and returns to the final steps of the procedure, his sanctuary from the nightmares and the constant pain of loss. Loss and loss and loss. He'd given enough, thank you very much. He'd given himself, he'd lost his brother—nearly twice—he'd even lost Bobby. Did they have to take him, too?

"Cas." It is just a slip of air, gliding around his tongue and through his chapped lips, but it crashes against the beating of his heart with a frenzy of split-second memories and a sharp stab of anguish that doesn't dull with time. "Cas," he croaks again, trying to grab onto the fleeting word, trying to put an image to the word, trying to feel the sense of that man, that being, who managed to flip his world upside down.

And suddenly, the gun is gone, the chair is gone, his room is gone, and he's running into the library to grab the manuscript, to flip through the pages again, to find him, but he can't, and he can't, and he can't. He slumps into the nearest chair and squeezes his eyes shut, ignoring the burn again, though this time of salty tears. Cas… Cas… Cas…

—

"Dean, the tablet cannot fall into Naomi's hands. The breaking of this tablet requires a sacrifice, just like closing the gates of Hell required one."

"But—" Dean is cut off as their surroundings shake with the power of a hundred earthquakes. He clutches a barely-conscious Sam to his chest, reaching out to touch, just touch Cas, even if it is for the last time. His fingers barely brush the angel's dirty overcoat, yet still Cas tenses. "Cas, please, just come with me."

And for a moment, one glorious moment, Cas lets himself be selfish. He takes Dean's hand, clutching it like he's a drowning man, and raises it to his lips. The press of his mouth to the back of his hand releases and constricts Dean's chest in a single, piercing motion. There is nothing he can say. There is nothing more to say.

Light shines in from the windows, though the night set in a long time ago. Cas takes the tablet and presses it to Dean's chest, gazing at his face as if to memorize every single detail, as if to paint Dean's face into his eyes so that he could see no one else. His voice is raspy, aching.

"Take your brother outside as fast as you can—don't look back, Dean. Go." Don't wait for me. "I'll hold her off, I'll hold them all off. Just take Sam."

"Cas—"

"Go!"

And he runs, he runs from the one man that could save him (that had saved him), and he runs from the one man that he could save (that he had saved). But he can't run for much longer, not with the weight of the tablet meant for angels, nor with the weight of his brother. He trips, falling over a misplaced chair, landing on his baby brother. The one he'd sworn to protect.

"I'm sorry, Sammy."

"No, Dean, just take the tablet and go."

"I'm not gonna leave you, Sammy. Not you. Not after Cas."

"Dean…"

"Well, ain't that a touching brotherly moment," a low, exasperated voice resounds from the doorway. Dean swings his head wildly to look at the newcomer.

"Metatron!" He nearly cries in relief. He's late, but the angel is there, and maybe he can help Cas—

"I told you to quit callin' me that," the man doesn't look like much, but he gives off an aura of power, especially since he's finally accepted his role in this war. "Now go get your ass out of this building so I can save your nerdy, gay angel."

With new-found strength, Dean lifts Sam's torso off the ground, trying to keep as little pressure on his chest and legs as possible. The Metatron makes his way up the building, to where the lights are flashing, and all Dean can think is, Cascascascascascascascascascas… in his mind. They make it out of the building, but the surrounding area is devastated—the roads are damaged, sewage is spewing out into the street. There's no way an ambulance will be able to make it here.

They have no choice but to wait. The minutes tick by slowly as Dean tries to make Sam as comfortable as he can get, tries to close some of their wounds. But in the end, the only thing they can do is grip each other's hands like when they were kids watching a scary movie, and hope their angel got back to them. The stars twinkle above them, a mockery of a still, quiet night.

Sam starts falling asleep by the time Metatron drives Naomi back into a retreat. He has to drag Castiel out of the ruined building and Dean nearly chokes a sigh of relief when he sees Cas open his eyes to look at Dean one more time. The Metatron heals Sam without a word, though Dean forgoes it in favor of being mojo'd back into the Bat Cave.

He refuses to set up the angel-proofing wards, not wanting Cas out of his sight, even for a second, and sends Metatron off to decode the sacrificial ritual with Kevin. Sam stumbles off to his room to catch some winks and Dean is finally left alone with Cas. They don't say anything but they sit in the library, pressed right against each other, fingers intertwined in a desperate clutch.

Despite the many thoughts rolling in his brain, Dean cannot find the words to express such emotion in a few sentences that might be overheard, anyways. Dean takes to brushing his thumb along the inside of Cas' wrist, and becomes so focused on the feel of Cas, that he forgets to admonish him when Cas heals his aches and pains.

It takes Kevin and Metatron a couple hours to crack the sacrificing ritual and Dean extracts himself from Cas long enough to get Sam. When they return, Metatron looks weary and Cas determined, if a bit pale. Immediately sensing something, Dean pulls him aside and looks him straight in the eye.

"There's no point in hidin' things from me anymore, Cas. What are you planning?" Castiel doesn't return his gaze.

"Just as there were three trials to close the gates of hell, there are three trials to close the gates of heaven. And the first is to sacrifice a creature of—"

"No. We're not doin' it. I'm not goin' to watch you get killed. That's as bad as killing you myself, and I'm not doin' it."

"Dean, we have no other choice."

"We have the Metatron, he could—"

"What, take my place? You know as well as I do that he's not going to do that. And you're going to need him to decode the rest of the trials."

"We've got Kevin for that!"

"I am not going to let you sacrifice the Metatron when he's much more capable of protecting you—"

And Dean shakes his head, snorting at the notion that the Metatron could be of more worth to him than Cas. He's still laughing as he takes his Cas into a hug and cups his face, pulling him into a kiss that he can't resist. He can hear Kevin and Sam's exasperated, "Finally," and the Metatron's huff of irritation in the background, but Dean only listens to the double thump-thump of their hearts beating in sync.

But it couldn't last, nothing ever does. Castiel is hell-bent on starting off the first of the three trials, and there is no one more applicable than Dean, himself to shoulder that burden. Dean tries everything to dissuade him, but is soon shot down by his greatest weakness.

"Dean, do you remember the apocalypse? And it became Sam's decision to stop Lucifer from destroying the world? Well, this is mine."

After that, they have nothing to lose, and there are many whispered I love yous as preparations come to a head in the Bat Cave. Dean finally sets up the angel-proofing and Cas and Metatron have to leave to get the many ingredients required for the sacrifice.

Finally, the day comes when they let Cas and Metatron into the Bat Cave. Sam and the Metatron station themselves as guard posts for when Naomi attempts to crash the party, leaving Cas, Dean and Kevin to set up the ritual. Cas and the tablet are placed inside a circle that is painted in the holiest of blood, the most righteous of bone, and has the most pure fire coating the symbols around the circle.

Soon, sounds of fighting start to echo back to the main library and Dean tries to prolong it as long as he can, but his baby brother needs him. He looks to Cas, receives a smile and a nod, and grimaces as he runs to fight the angels with Cas' blade. He does not see the ritual happening, he does not glimpse Castiel's face in the final moments, he does not hear his final words. What he does remember of the whole fight is the bright, blinding light that banishes all the angels and a strange wrenching feeling in his gut that would stay with him for the rest of his life.

—

Dean is nudged into wakefulness by Sam, who hands him a cup of coffee and a raised eyebrow in request of an explanation.

"Couldn't sleep last night, so I read Charlie's manuscript. Or at least, I tried to."

"Don't know why we ever agreed to those books," Sam mutters around his own mug, and Dean halfheartedly agrees, wondering the same thing. It probably seemed like a good idea at the time. "Anyway, I have a date with Sarah today, so don't forget to feed yourself." Dean snorts, rubbing his eyes ruefully.

"As if I'd ever forget something so important."

This is just a little something I wrote up at four in the morning because I couldn't sleep. How did you guys like it?