The rain stops.
Dean looks up to the sky, eyes tracing the outlines of soft, smoky grays. A narrow but unrelenting sunbeam fights its way through the clouds, a harbinger of a potentially sunny afternoon.
The day might turn out to be quite warm after all.
Still, Dean shudders in his damp jacket, the rain having seeped through all of the seemingly countless layers of his clothes.
"Shit, I'm cold," he mutters before his gaze drops from the skyline back to his lap.
Cas's wet hair clings to his forehead, and Dean reaches out to gently brush it aside. Once he's done, he can't quite bring himself to pull his hand away, so he lets it hover over Cas's face. Cas's cheeks are covered with haphazard raindrops, and Dean wipes them away one by one with the pad of his thumb.
"It looks as if you were crying," he says, a tone of surprise in his voice. "Ridiculous, right?"
A gust of wind blows through the churchyard, sneaking its way beneath Dean's collar and making Cas's tie flip against his chest. Dean ignores the chill on his skin and leans over to flip Cas's tie back for him. As he smoothes it down, he can't help but give a strained smile.
"I could never resist fixing it for you, could I?"
The sky starts to clear now, clouds scattering in all directions to make way for the April sun. The weather seems to recover, but Dean doesn't.
"Perhaps we could stay here," he muses. "I mean, staying in the church would be stupid, what with me being an atheist and you having rebelled against all that heavenly crap, but… outside? Just like this, like now. Almost on the threshold, but with our backs turned from it. Symbolic. I'm sure you'd appreciate the poetic value."
He looks around them, as if taking in the surroundings for the first time.
"I dig the view," he decides, gaze swiping over the field that stretches in front of them. It's just greens and browns and yellows, as far as the eye can see. The church behind them doesn't throw a shadow their way at this time of day, so it's easy to forget it's there at all.
Dean gathers up Cas's slumped form in his arms and cradles him to his chest.
"You should be confused now," he reminds him. "Because I've never held you like this before, and new things confuse you."
The churchyard is eerily silent as Dean burrows his face in the crook of Cas's neck, eyes closed, inhaling the smell of ozone, rain, and blood. He stays like this for ten minutes, maybe fifteen. Twenty, tops. As he withdraws, he notices he's not so cold anymore. A quick look up reveals a completely clear sky, as if all the clouds hid away from the horror of what has happened, leaving Dean and Cas alone with the bright yellow globe shedding light over their heads and breathing heat onto their skin.
Dean's gaze slides back down and catches the charred outline of wings. First smudged by the rain, it has dried under the reemerged sun, the contours of Cas's feathers twisted by the humidity.
"No," Dean murmurs. "Those aren't yours."
With sudden determination he's been completely devoid of for the past hour or so, he yanks the angel blade from Cas's stomach and throws it aside. It clutters against the stone bricks, a stray ray of light reflecting briefly along its edge.
Dean fists his hands into Cas's shirt and shakes him hard against his knees, so vehement in his grief that it feels like no effort at all to lift Cas's entire body up.
"Those aren't yours. Wake up."
When there's no reply, and Dean's repeated "wake up, wake the fuck up" doesn't cause Castiel to magically come back to him, Dean sinks back to his heels and lets Cas's body fall into his lap.
Suddenly, he can't look.
He still nestles Cas to his chest, but he cannot force his gaze down. He just can't. Maybe if he doesn't, he can pretend Cas's eyes are open and as blue as the fucking sky above. Maybe he can pretend he doesn't see the bloodstains on the trench coat. Maybe the burnt-out trace of wings will turn out to be something else, like tire marks or mud or smeared tar.
Since denial has always been strong with this one, it takes another quarter of an hour for Dean Winchester to finally look down and crumble.
Castiel is dead.
His eyes are closed, his body is cold, his vessel's stomach has a gaping hole in it. The wings spread across the churchyard were his.
The rain picks up again, this time limited to the expanse of Castiel's face, showering it with salty, angry, desperate tears. Two hands slide feverishly across Cas's cheeks and jaw while a pair of lips chokes out nonsense against his forehead, the words "sorry" and "no" the only distinguishable ones.
Time passes, and Dean exhausts himself. He's so tired, he wants to stop, yet he keeps blabbering incoherently against every area of Cas's skin he can find, like if he mouths the words directly into it, Cas will be able to hear him somehow. He kisses apologies into the bridge of Cas's nose, his eyelids, his brow (slightly furrowed even in death), his hairline, the dip of his chin, his wrists and fingers and the insides of his hands.
It's been almost two hours now since the blue light erupted across the churchyard, and Dean has no air or care left in him.
He gently deposits Cas's body on the ground and stands up on shaky legs. He looks around himself, lost and numb. What now?
He turns, and a reflection of light catches his eye; the blade. He walks over and picks it up, weighing it in his hands.
He wipes it with his clothes, smearing blood against his jacket and shirt, the red soaking through the material. The action seems futile – if not plain stupid – but Dean either doesn't notice or doesn't care. He goes back to where Cas lies, bends down and places the blade in his still palm, closing Cas's fingers around it.
Read the Bible. Angels are warriors of God. I'm a soldier.
"You didn't rebel against God, Cas. I hope you know that." Knew that.
"I hope the old man tells you that Himself. In fact, I hope the two of you are having that long overdue talk right now, drinking fucking margaritas up there."
Dean tries to smile, but it's too soon.
"You better talk it out with Him. Because if you left me here for anything other than having a heartfelt chat with God, then I'm warning you, I'm going to be pissed. And I'll-"
He pauses, and a terrible thought strikes him.
"I don't know if I'm going to Heaven or Hell after I kick it," he blurts out. "If I go to Hell… I won't…"
Suddenly the rack itself, together with any torture it can provide, has nothing on the fact that being sent downstairs after he finally beats it would mean never seeing Cas again. Not only in this life – not even in the next one. Just, never.
Dean fights a new wave of nausea. That's unacceptable. He has to logic his way out of this, find a loophole, something. He must, or he'll start howling.
Spontaneously, he grabs at one of the very few constants he's always known to be true.
"But you'll find me, right? I suppose you'll just have to bust me out again. There's no way I'm rotting down there without you. I bet you're tired of saving my ass by now, but it will be the last time, I promise. Will you come meet me there if I can't come to meet you?"
He considers it a success that he doesn't feel like throwing up when there's no reply.
Huh. So it can be done.
Dean lifts his eyes to the horizon.
Two hours.
Two hours he's managed to live without Castiel so far.
Two hours and counting.