No Light, No Light

Disclaimers: I do not own Dean or Cas or Supernatural's Leviathans! But here is a little angst that I really kind of hope never happened, because I would probably cry.

Lyrics: No Light, No Light- Florence and the Machine. It's a beautiful song. I suggest the entire Ceremonials album.

No light, no light,

in your bright blue eyes

I never knew daylight

could be so violent

A Revelation in the light of day

You can't chose what stays

and what fades away

Every time Dean opens his eyes, Cas isn't there.

So he closes them again, and continues to pretend.

There's something unhealthy in this, he thinks, in the way Cas has filled him up like a black hole. But rather a black hole eating at his edges and pulling him sideways than the way the dreams he dreams are supposed to end. The way they ended in Real Life. Real Life isn't as much fun. Real Life he could do without.

It always starts the same. Castiel shoves him away and his eyes turn off. (In his head, Bobby isn't there and neither is Sam. They are alone in the world.) His hair drips black ink down the sides of his face. Blood covers his lips. Black veins spread out against his jaw, twines up the paths that Dean's fingers trail across.

In his dream, he changes things. He says the right thing. He does what he can that lets Cas push back. Cas battles it out in his head. Cas shreds the Leviathans apart to come back do Dean. Cas shoves them out of him, and a black flood covers the world. (The world burns. They devour it. They are always hungry. It doesn't matter.)

Cas falls forwards. Dean catches him. (Dean's arms are full.) They are unstoppable. (He makes a promise.) They save the world. Dean kisses him. (He tastes like peppermint and light.)

In this version, Cas stays. Dean teaches him the joys of jam and chocolate. (These are things he's forgotten, but he'll remember them if Cas remembers them.)

They have their own bedroom.

(They take over the world.)

Everyone is happy. Even if the world is burning. Even if they devour. (Dean runs away from the sun, in his head.)

It's true love in a '67 Chevy, and Cas will crane his head back when he laughs and Dean will be able to press his lips to his pulse and his heart will still be beating.

(World. Burning.)

And I'd do anything

to make you stay

No light, no light

Tell me what you want me to say.

They'll drive for miles until they beat the moon and the stars race in the opposite direction. They'll climb mountains. They'll start avalanches. He'll make Cas cry out and maybe even pass out, sometimes, it they will rinse-repeat.

(No. Sunlight is not allowed.)

That specific shade of blue will be burned into his retinas, and even when he closes his eyes he'll have a bit of Cas with him. Cas, he knows, will do the same, because he can feel his lips brush across his nose, his cheekbones, the ridge of his ear, face buried in his hair.

(Please.)

They'll make a picnic blanket out of an old overcoat, because neither can bear to get rid of it, even though it's riddled with holes, stains, and scorch marks.

(A moment.)

He'll take Cas to a beach, but they won't go in the water. They're there for the sand. Dean turns towards the lighthouse. He can't bear to see the tide.

(Please.)

(It's a lifetime.)

(He wants it.)

Sometimes, when he closes his eyes, Castiel isn't there. So he opens them, and the sunlight gets in, and he never realized how much it burns, everywhere it touches him. How violent the rays feel. How they burn the blue from where he hides it behind his retinas.

Real Life moves into the space in his hand that Cas's fingers slotted into perfectly. It coils on his chest the way Cas's head would rest, on his back the way Cas's hands would, around his head like a vise, squeezing reality in where he never wanted it.

(Blink. Breathe. Repeat.)

Function.

(Would you leave me if I told you what I'd done?

Would you leave me if I told you what I've become?)