"I hurt myself today…" His voice deep and like worn sandpaper. A kind of roughness that makes me think of thorny bushes growing in the middle of a creek. He's beside me but just behind me but it don't matter because he's held on to me, relaxed and trusting. Everything about him like a siren in the night. Everything about him calling out, announcing him for miles around and he couldn't care less. When he sings it's like he's forgotten he's not alone, like his armor drops and he's just Dean, some kid just left behind and he's in no hurry to catch up. I've got that reassuring warmth of his hand in my hand, his fingers curled through mine and it's like his heat is seeping into me, his heartbeat thrumming in my veins, every moment making me more him... more his. I can feel how content he is. The adrenalin from the fight wearing out of his system and the kid is so impressed with himself he's floated through the last few miles just grinning to himself.
He'd been humming the tune for a while before he started singing. I don't recognize it but the tone is familiar. "To see if I still feel." He's moving steady with me and there is little underbrush here and since he's passive, following my lead, it's been an easy stroll through this part of the forest. The light beginning to creep in around us, a subtle glow hazing through the fog and canopy above us and it's nearly light enough he shouldn't need to have hold of me to guide him but he doesn't seem in any hurry to let me go. It's eerily quiet around us. Now, this kid, he lets the words escape clinging to their notes, "I focus on the pain." I glance over in time to see a momentary wince play across his features. It's the way his shoulders curl. The way he dips his head to the side like maybe he's trying to hide from only God knows who. It's the way his nose scrunches and his eyes close like the words are a painful reminder that he has little else to focus on but the next breath is solid, the notes true, "The only thing that's real."
He looks up, catching my eyes, catching me looking back at him and he smiles this little twitch of his lips that makes me want to throw myself off a steep cliff but that flutter breaking out in my chest anchors me here and I just smile, reflecting back the ease and contentment Dean's showing me. He hums a few bars of his song and I swear I can feel it in my chest, the vibration of the notes pulling through his throat and out of my heart just this steady buzzing inside until I realize it's not Dean I'm feeling at all, it's the angel and I have to force myself not to tense up. Deans singing, quietly now, but there's a pleasure to his tone and when I tighten my fingers around his hand as I guide him along, I catch another smile tugging the corners of his mouth as he forms the words. Now, I know the angel is near, though. Now, I know he's listening. I can feel him.
"What have I become," the tune almost pretty but the vibration inside me, the one heralding the angel, climbing in pitch till I'm fighting my every reaction when this kid, his hand still relaxed in mine, sings, " my sweetest friend?" and the words are so tender, so sweet, I'm filled with this anguish, this sorrow so intense I know it ain't mine. Angel? I'm thinking and it might be a prayer, just a question sent out, but that vibration is stronger, strong enough I'm starting to feel dizzy. Cas, I can feel you. and just like that the vibration cuts out like a candle snuffed by an unexpected gust of wind. I'm sure he's gone again like he does but there's still this sorrow in my gut, this ache and anger and pain I'm pretty sure ain't me. Stay, I plead to him.
"Everyone I know goes away," Dean pauses, long enough to draw a shuddering breath, and I'm filled with this longing to wrap myself around him and for the first time I'm not sure if it's the angel's or my own, " in the end."
"You could have it all. My empire of dirt." This kid, this kid. His voice is starting to waver, the notes to shake, and I slow our pace but I don't look his way. I don't want to see this, this crash of emotion. This low after the high of the fight. Father, brother, hunter, husband, friend, Dean Winchester is an emotional gamble either way you deal the hand. I feel it, his heart beat quickening, his breath rate hitching, and though he holds true to the tune, I know he's faltering. I know it's happening to him and I feel it happening to the angel. It's a phantom feeling, this itch between my shoulder blades like the stretching out, expansion of power and safety and I'm overwhelmed with this need to wrap that feeling around , the angel is overwhelmed with that feeling. I'm just feeling him feel it.
"I will let you down. I will make you hurt." His voice falling deep, digging the notes from the ground itself, "hurt" comes out like the blade of a knife, instant regret and sorrow coursing through with the realization of death. It's loss, that note, and it drags out with a sadness raw and pure. I feel him slowing, then stop, the gentle tug in my hand as he pulls away. I'm left cold. When I turn, he's got his face upturned to the canopy above. He's got his eyes closed and he's taking a deep, steady breath.
"Dean?" I ask, watching him try to still himself. The smallest glow of light filters around him and it seems to shine but this shadow left over from the night clings to him, darkening his features. "Talk to me?" I say aloud, while mentally begging the angel Listen. Listen. Listen.
"That's all I do, man. Hurt the people I care about. Let them down. I've spent my whole life taking care of Sammy and I let him go to hell. I left him on his own and he teams up with a demon. I let him walk around without a soul. I've tried to keep Cas safe and he winds up working with Crowley, and killing other angels, and doubting God. I mean, they told me that Cas just touching me when he pulled me from Hell corrupted him. It's like no matter how hard I try or what I do... I fail. Benny, I'm a fuck up."
He's gazing up into the trees like the patterns of the leaves might give him some kind of message, then he blinks, looking away. I can smell the salt in his tears, a memory of how they taste is on the tip of my tongue and I'm the one shifting weight trying to hide that I know he's crying. There's this emptiness hollowed out inside me with a niggling of anger at the edges. Listen. Listen to him. I'm praying, the thoughts feel accusing and harsh even to me. If you care about this kid, you listen to him. Hear him. Another wave of sorrow washes through me but I can't muster up any sympathy for the angel. What's going on between him and Dean I can't pretend to understand but what he's doing to Dean makes me want him to suffer.
"I know you're taking me to the way out, Benny," Dean looks at me, his voice firm, gaze unwavering, wet tracks down his face, "and I know you're doing that so you can get out but you got to understand, I ain't leaving without him. Cas is here. He's here and he ain't answering me. He ain't coming when I pray for him. That means he's in trouble and ... I got to get him. I can't leave him. "
The angel hardens, I can feel it, an ache, an anger, a determination like a wall of heat building up. It's more forceful than I intend when I say, "You ain't responsible for him, brother."
"He's... important to me. I won't lose him!" A force in his tone that dares me to argue with him. "...Not again." He adds and the emptiness I feel is from me, now. The angel blinking out, leaving me to myself. Leaving me to Dean. Leaving this kid to me, again, and I'm more confused than ever.
"Okay, brother. We'll find him." I say, stepping toward him. He's staring off into the woods ahead, his eyes glazed over with thought but when I reach to take his hand again, to feel that familiar weight in mine, to warm near him, to walk with him in comfort and trust again, He focuses on me, his eyes a dare and stony with confrontation. He looks beyond me, then moves in that direction, smoothly stepping around where I stand in his path. His shoulder brushes against mine as he passes and it's the second time I want to take a desperate fall from a tall peak but this time it ain't nothing to do with his perfections and everything to do with his cracks and faults and it's a welcome sigh of thankfulness that escapes me when I hear the distant rustling of leaves. I know when I turn I'll see Dean raising his blade, preparing to fight. I know I'll see him hard, and cold, and the words already packed behind his pursed lips. "Where's the angel?"
"Where's the angel?"
As I raise my own blade, as I turn to join this kid, as I prepare to hear him ask them "Where's the angel?" I can't help but think Fuck the angel.
