Title: Black and White and You
Author: OpheliacAngel
Pairings: Dean/Gabriel
Genres: Romance/Angst
Rating: Mature
Summary: There was black and white and then there was the in-between, and Dean didn't know what he was more scared of.
A/N: Written for h/c_bingo for the prompt 'falling.' Spoilers for Season 10's 'Soul Survivor.' Rated for language.
There was black and there was white, and there was also the sickening realization that nothing in Dean's life could be labeled as one or the other anymore. But everything looked gray at first glance, his face as he stared back at those hollow eyes in the mirror, that same shade as if all the color had been sucked out of the room, out of Dean's life, and Dean didn't know what was better, the tell-tale world of the deepest white and the darkest black, or that ashen hue of lifelessness.
The archangel was either there or he wasn't, but outside of his head or out of his mind Dean couldn't tell reality from fiction anymore.
And then Dean was falling.
It was the same reoccurring dream night after night, the lack of warmth and the onset of panic. The option between closing his eyes and keeping them shut tight or praying for something to break his fall was no option at all. The scream was lost in his throat probably before he even registered that he could scream. In that dream, Dean remembered nothing of who he was or what his life was all about. Not that he had a brother that he would do anything for, nor that there was someone to pray to other than the ever silent Castiel.
Praying to Gabriel wasn't a choice. It was suicide.
So the darkness set in around Dean whenever Gabriel's smile was there and then dissolved into nothing, and there was light whenever Gabriel dropped in, a quirk about his lips, sticking around if there was something good on TV, and Gabriel felt bigger than the hole in Dean's over-appreciated life. He was there when Dean wanted him to be - at least for a little while - and there when Dean didn't want him to be. Back and forth. Black and white. The gray area, however, was condescendingly nagging.
And what did Dean want? What did Dean think he could achieve by this want, this blatant need to touch, to have Gabriel mean something other than a quick one-night fuck?
What's with you lately, dude? You seem... That long pause, that horrible pause and Dean knew Sam knew more than he was letting on. You seem off.
Off. Yeah, he was off all right. Off his rocker, falling off the edge of the world, the edge of sanity and reality and the hope that Dean could ever get his head back on straight again.
There was that damn grin and those damn eyes, and who knew what they were filled with? Who wanted to know, really?
And Dean was falling again.
When that moment came where he didn't wake up, like he had all those other nights, Dean knew something was wrong. Gabriel's entrance was a clear breach of personal space, it was also fucking heaven. To know that someone knew his dreams so intimately, closely enough to have crafted them out of thin air. Just to know he wasn't alone, even if Gabriel was the maker of Dean's torment. He couldn't determine what caused the vice-like grip on his throat, the unbearable pressure in his head or the unnerving tingling beneath his quivering skin, but he knew it was all Gabriel.
The suspicion was there that it was all Gabriel's doing. His hands were around the archangel's throat before he could even register what was happening, to fight against that burning need to hate him, to hate everything he was.
Gabriel's eyes drew him in, but they were only a distraction.
When the ground opened up beneath him, Dean fell just like he always did. That same panic and nausea and that same plea with himself not to pray, for anyone or anything; it was misplaced, everything he was feeling was misplaced. There was an end to it... eventually, but when Dean woke up on the floor of his room, woke up in the darkness that seemed like a living, pulsing being, he didn't know who he was anymore.
He breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth, but he couldn't shake those golden eyes that had held him in that final, fatal moment to taunt him, to make him lose it. Gabriel hadn't been an archangel in his dream, there were no wings, nothing there short of those eyes.
It was Dean's own punishment.
He wrapped his arms around his legs and breathed, but as he closed his eyes and willed himself to sit still he could feel himself falling. It was fast and it was slow at the same time, depending if his mind drifted, depending who his mind drifted to.
Gabriel's legs were wrapped around Dean's waist as Dean pressed him up against the wall, his mouth shoved against Gabriel's and Dean kissing him until he couldn't breathe, didn't want to breathe anymore. And then that laugh, those golden eyes snapping him back to the room, to Dean's worst nightmares.
It was Dean's own punishment.
Really, though, what was so bad about falling? He had been tortured in hell for fuck's sake, had run around as a demon trying to kill his own brother, if falling was his new nightmare then so be it. But Dean craved release, needed the room to be still like he needed fucking air to breathe.
He would sink his fingernails into his arms in those dreams, tearing his skin off as if he could lose all traces of himself, grinding his teeth so he wouldn't say it, wouldn't say that damn name. Gabriel. The cause of all his problems. The reason Dean was fucked.
Dean would put his numb hands on Gabriel's face and squeeze, as if it would stave off the chill of nothingness, as if the archangel had the means to save a piece of trash like him. As if by sheer will alone he could make the archangel disappear, or even make himself disappear. But nothing was black and white anymore, and Dean had known it long before this moment.
And his hands were wrapped around Gabriel's throat. "Fuck you, Gabriel."
I love you.
Dean was sobbing because he couldn't take it anymore, waiting for the fall, waiting for the pain of knowing no one was there. He feared that one day he wouldn't wake up, just wouldn't be.
I know, Dean.
Dean's hands slipped and he opened his eyes and saw light, a warm, yellow light that picked him up and held him above the torrent of darkness. He felt those eyes on him even though he couldn't see them, loved this being even though he didn't know what any of it meant.
You impressed me, kiddo. Someone's hands wiped away the tears on his cheeks and Dean, grateful, continued to cry; he couldn't stop even if he tried. You held on for so long, waiting for me. I was waiting for you too.
Dean remembered the final dreams, the ones where Gabriel would let him fall, would let Dean tear himself apart just to feel something. He remembered the good and the bad, the black and white and the gray that seeped in where he didn't want it to go. He remembered Gabriel squeezing his way into Dean's heart as if he somehow belonged there.
He felt such a vast wave of relief that he relaxed completely and slipped out of Gabriel's hold. Instantly, Dean could feel the panic in Gabriel's head as if he were inside it, as if that were possible. He could grasp Gabriel's need too, warm and sticky and molding with Dean's own desperation. It didn't matter if Gabriel let him fall anymore or not. It didn't matter. He knew.
This time, Gabriel grasped his hand and pulled him close.
FIN