Fragments

Cas? Cas! We're coming. Hold on. You there? Hey, we're coming. Be there in twenty- no, ten, okay? Where are you? You said you saw us?… We're- just sit tight. We're gunna-

Three hearts are beating, fast and heavy. Three hearts are beating with deep ticking thuds. Sam and Dean verge on furious panic, their grey world bursts and cracks into golden flames. Castiel lives in blackness still pulsing, a heartbeat born of fear and misery. Three hearts are beating. They beat in perfect sync.

'What he say?'
'Its gone dead.'
'Damn it, Cas.'

When time become lost into turmoil, the world becomes thick with pandemonium. People panic, don't think clearly. Most often they are swarmed with a few snapshot glimpses. Shards and splinters, flashes, brief snatches. Confused highlights that last no more than a second.

Fragmented heartbeats that run as follows.

Castiel blinks in twitches, listless on the ground. Tentative new rainfall pricks his broken skin, dragging down cold air from dark skies above. Hanging limply by his face is a blaring drone wrapped in plastic, a forgotten receiver that was once so important. Sam's voice is long gone. Its replaced only by mocking mechanic tones.

The impala races restless. It plummets back into familiar territory and painfully slows to prowl the streets. In the soft beginnings of rain it rakes its eyes unblinking, over people, over streets, over the whole world if it has to. Deep in its heart sit two souls of tremor. Their eyes are as wide as it, and flicker fast and relentless.

Castiels world is plummeting fast. The rain gently lulls him with false hushes of peace, but he can't listen to the whispers, wont listen to the lies. Dean and Sam are coming. Dean and Sam, Sam and Dean. Torrents of rain hide his whimpered voice as he forces himself to stand. Sickness crawls in his stomach, pain forces him blind. He punctuates the rain with discordant footfalls.

Dean stops the car, forces his way out, screams a name. He is answered with only the pitter-patter of water, the rain hangs in thick curtains that shrink the world into a cage. Muffled echoes sound of Sam calling the same. The payphone stands in solitude, noCaswhereisCas? They shout once more, run and scatter through oily pools.

The minutes tick past. The rain still falls.

The Impala sits quiet and subdued, its inky skin glistening in the weathered night. It sits and it waits; feels the rain beating down, cool rivulets of water running. It hears near silent footsteps. It smells damp and dirt and blood. It feels whispered fingers ghosting, trailing through the rain on its back.

Castiel stares at the most important object in the universe. Its real and its there and he reaches out to touch, tentative and shy. The rain is so loud he can't hear his own breath. The world is so sharp he can barely see. Time has stopped and the universe can swallow him, he doesn't need to fight it anymore. The broken pulse flares weakly within his skull.

He raises a weary head and looks straight into the terrified eyes of Dean Winchester.

Dean stares at Castiel and doesn't believe he's real.

The figure before him stares back, one hand resting lightly on the car. Same dark pants, same shirt, same hair, same face. A filthy, rotten coat clings to him like unwanted skin, its too big in some places, too small in others, and looks like its doing more harm than good. His hands are bare and bloody. His feet are bare and bloody. He holds himself wrong, to stiff and to unsteady. A hunter's mind quickly fills in gaps, some kind of torso injury, but the dark coat is to sodden to show any blood.

'Cas?' Dean manages hoarsely.

Even in the dark his face looks a mess. His skin lies in ruined colours; nightshade purple and sallow blue that swell outwards from his eye. They plunge heavy and deep, fringed by sickly yellow and green. The bruise pools over his cheekbone, seeps down to his jaw.

But at the sound of Deans voice, he still flickers with timorous hope.

He's a complete and utter wreck; exhausted and broken, and so completely overpowered by the world he's unmastered. He is undone, soaked to the bone in heavy rainfall. But he's standing and staring, he's awake and alive. He looks at Dean and though Dean and after everything he's been through, he's still fucking standing. He is unbeatable. And completely beaten.

'Shit,' Dean says, because its all he can think of.

And then he's striding forward and engulfing with leaden arms. Everything becomes sharp proximity; hands on cloth, a small intake of breath, rain dully thudding, creaking muscles and bone. No hello is needed, hello only leads to goodbye. Castiel feels cold and hot, an unsteady pulse that struggles through staggered breaths.

A faint twitch of arms makes Dean think he will hug him back. He tightens his grip, but the next moment a pained gasp escapes. Dean pulls back instantly and Castiel staggers from the small movement. Bad? Bad. He grips the angels shoulders, tries to find his eyes, half steadying, half supporting, wholly at a loss.

'Woah. That hurt?'

For a second Dean thinks he wont speak; he spots the thick collar of mottled bruises that strangle fiercely around his neck. But then Castiels face goes slack, he chokes out, 'can't heal,' and his voice feels like a miracle.

'Okay,' Dean rasps. 'Thats okay.'

His eyes flicker everywhere, calm and worry overlapping like frantic tides. There is a new pressure at his side and he knows his brother has returned. Sam is soft and steady, as solid as Dean is shaken and, like a thousand times before, is an anchor in the storm. Castiel blinks hazy, pupils slowly dilating, but he's strong and he struggles slowly against the tide.

'Hello, Sam.'

'Hey Cas,' Sam's face flickers from concern to small smiles. 'You look like crap.'

A nod to Dean and he gently takes Castiels arm, moving him nearer to the car. Dean secures his other side, hand hovering an inch above his back, to afraid to touch again. The sodden coat Cas wears smells of damp and rot and the moment they open the back door, the brothers gently pull it off him. As the materiel peels away, Castiel's breath hitches. He watches Sam and Dean whenever he can, barely lucid eyes refusing to leave their faces. They grip him tight and lower him in. The back of his shirt is stained dark.

Dean crouches by the open door. 'You're okay… okay?' he reassures, partly to himself. The rain beats down but he can't feel it anymore. When Cas' eyes half close he dips is head to remain in sight. 'You're not going anywhere, right?'

'Right,' Cas agrees faintly.

Sam reappears with blankets, dry and warm, and gently folds them in place. Cas is cold and clammy, the night air is sodden and its been breathing damp chills for days. They wonder how long he's been subjected to it. They wonder how long he's been like this.

'We're gunna get you back to the motel,' Sam murmurs in steady softness. 'Hold on till then, okay?'

Cas blinks, pupils struggling to stay afloat in their pitiful ocean.

'Cas?' Dean hesitates, almost reaches out. 'Hey,' he says instead, because he can't think of anything else.

'-lo, Dean,' soft and slurred.

Dean looks to Sam, who seems as lost as he does. Not because they don't know what to do, but because they are dealing with the impossible. They'd given up. They gave up. They gave him up. Nine slowly crawling months and they stopped trying after one. They had turned their backs in defeat and, though they always looked back with vapid words of prayer, in the end they had still walked away.

Cas breathes out in a shudder, eyes dropping shut again. His forehead contorts from smooth to heavy lines, the muscles in his throat tense as he forces a swallow through throttled flesh. '…c'n hear,' he mumbles beside them.

'What?'

But he wearily shakes his head. A firm hand grips and pulls at Dean's shoulder as Sam ushers them out of the rain. They are dripping and soaked, colder than they realise. But inside the Impala breathes buzzing silence and calm. The world outside drums relentless, the world inside is muffled and warm. Dean swallows thickly, tries not to look at the hidden worry inside his brothers eyes.

'I c'n hear you,' Cas murmurs out into the silence.

Dean frowns through the mirror, Sam cranes around.

'Hear us?'

Maybe it was meant as a reassurance, a gentle reminder of I'm still here. Maybe it was half-conscious acknowledgement, I know that its you. But Cas is blearily searching their faces, forcing himself through exhaustion to look, willing them to understand, to find stillness in the deep. They find it; its relief.

I can hear you. He is saying. And the again is implied. I heard you before and I can hear you now. Dean looks to Sam and knows he understood it too. With no more than simple words, Castiel acknowledges I heard your prayers.

'We've got you, Cas.'

And maybe they hadn't abandoned him after all.

Much Cas whumping and water imagery/metaphors.

And thus ends sort of part 1 of this story, or at least in my head its kinda split into several bigger chunks. So congrats, you made it through a chunk! A million thanks to everyone who's followed/commented so far. You guys are awesome.