𝐼𝑛 𝐻𝑒𝑙𝑙, 𝐼'𝑙𝑙 𝑏𝑒 𝑖𝑛 𝑔𝑜𝑜𝑑 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑝𝑎𝑛𝑦 ( open )

[righteously]

Who: Dean Winchester & Open.
When: April 1 - early May.
Where: Aquila; Cadens; The Horizon;
What: Demon shenanigans part 1 — featuring hobo'ing through the Horizon, hiding out in Aquila, and then returning to the Free Cities.
Warnings: Rated R for sexual content, demonic violence, psychological abuse, and suicidal ideation.

𝐻𝑒𝑙𝑙'𝑠 𝑏𝑒𝑙𝑙𝑠, 𝑚𝑖𝑠𝑠-𝑠𝑝𝑒𝑙𝑙𝑠, 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑐𝑘𝑠 𝑚𝑒 𝑜𝑛 𝑚𝑦 𝑘𝑛𝑒𝑒𝑠
𝐼𝑡 𝑑𝑖𝑑𝑛'𝑡 ℎ𝑢𝑟𝑡, 𝑓𝑙𝑖𝑟𝑡, 𝑏𝑙𝑜𝑜𝑑 𝑠𝑞𝑢𝑖𝑟𝑡, 𝑠𝑡𝑢𝑓𝑓𝑒𝑑 𝑠ℎ𝑖𝑟𝑡, ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑔 𝑚𝑒 𝑜𝑛 𝑎 𝑡𝑟𝑒𝑒
𝐴𝑓𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝐼 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑡 𝑑𝑜𝑤𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑟𝑒𝑒 𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑑𝑠, 𝑖𝑛 𝐻𝑒𝑙𝑙 𝐼'𝑙𝑙 𝑏𝑒 𝑖𝑛 𝑔𝑜𝑜𝑑 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑝𝑎𝑛𝑦
𝐷𝑒𝑎𝑑 𝑙𝑜𝑣𝑒 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑𝑛'𝑡 𝑔𝑜 𝑛𝑜 𝑓𝑢𝑟𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟
𝑃𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑑 𝑜𝑓, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑑𝑖𝑠𝑔𝑢𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑏𝑦 ℎ𝑒𝑟
𝑃𝑢𝑠ℎ, 𝑠ℎ𝑜𝑣𝑒, 𝑎 𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑡𝑙𝑒 𝑏𝑟𝑢𝑖𝑠𝑒𝑑 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑏𝑎𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑑
𝑂ℎ 𝐿𝑜𝑟𝑑, 𝐼 𝑎𝑖𝑛'𝑡 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑔 ℎ𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑦𝑜𝑢
𝑀𝑦 𝑙𝑖𝑓𝑒'𝑠 𝑎 𝑏𝑖𝑡 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑐𝑜𝑙𝑑𝑒𝑟
𝐷𝑒𝑎𝑑 𝑤𝑖𝑓𝑒 𝑖𝑠 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝐼 𝑡𝑜𝑙𝑑 ℎ𝑒𝑟
𝐵𝑟𝑎𝑠𝑠 𝑘𝑛𝑖𝑓𝑒 𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑘𝑠 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑜 𝑚𝑦 𝑠ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑𝑒𝑟
𝑂ℎ 𝑏𝑎𝑏𝑒, 𝑑𝑜𝑛'𝑡 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝐼'𝑚 𝑔𝑜𝑛𝑛𝑎 𝑑𝑜

Comments

[unwings]

[ yeah, it's a little embarrassing. he was half sure it would end this way regardless. Standing by, allowing Dean to be lost alone inside this chaos, wasn't an option. Cas has been at his side for nearly every trial and tribulation since dragging him back into this cruel, violent, lonely life. He accepted the charge of guiding this man free from the underworld. As long as Dean still carries hell around inside him, his mission isn't finished yet. Whether it's plaguing his mind, or corrupting his soul. So here he is and here he'll remain, no matter what Dean does to him, what he says, until that mission's either complete, or he's run out of forms and dimensional planes to pursue it through.

That's what finds him here, slammed against the cold cobblestone, air punched out of his lungs as his back hits the ground. Castiel's fragile, near-human head cracks against the rock, brain rattling around the inside of his skull, vision swimming and greying at the edges. Wheezing, Cas can't catch a breath, doesn’t even have the air to cough, much as his throat and lungs burn. Grit, determination and the inexplicably unended drive to fight for this man, the angel tries to push himself up, elbows digging into the dirt, fingertips clawing at stone, his legs scramble to find purchase. But, he may as well have been hit by a bullet train for as able as his body feels. He strains, groans, grinds his teeth, but he's weighed down, leaden.

Dean looms a foreboding shadow over him, his end circling. That’s it, all plans soundly extinguished, and what’s left is this - Castiel’s failing vessel, Dean’s ruthlessness set free on it, and his staunch refusal to leave Dean suspended in any kind of hell he can't follow him into. He’s not getting back up.

What aches in him most, sparks the fire to put up what last, futile effort he can, isn’t his own imminent demise. It’s the reality Dean, when Sam and Jo bring him back to himself, will wake to with Cas gone, his blood on the demon’s hands. Dean’s hands. He can’t leave him with that.

Beyond longing, duty or love, Dean Winchester was the first being to see him as he is, and hold faith in the goodness of him, in the soul he might have. Cas was a new, alien, threatening thing and Dean had no obligation to bring him in from the cold, but nonetheless, he found himself with a home, a family, as if he'd done anything to earn it. He found the piece of Cas that thought for himself, wanted to know freedom and life in color, and nurtured it. Even after lies, betrayal, all the stupid, disastrous, naïve mistakes he's made, after the abandonments and the hurt he saw so keenly reflected in purgatory. Dean's been next to him when Cas convinced himself he deserved purgatory, fought tooth and nail when he couldn't, wouldn't do it himself. It's the root of their bond - neither condemns himself to any manner of hell without the other stubbornly dragging him back out. Not purgatory, not grief, not brainwashing, not the Mark.

A painfully similar scene plays against the dizzying static clogging up his mind. Castiel stood over him with an angel blade, Dean beaten, bloody, on his knees: We're family. We need you. I need you. ]

Stop, Dean— [ he rasps, reaching up towards the shadow over him, fingers grasping at whatever he can - a shirt, an arm, a shoulder, digging in and too weak against the supernatural wall Dean makes. it's hard to tell if he's pushing him away or pulling him closer. ]

I know— I know you're there. [ he's speaking past the corruption, the cloud of torment and damnation slithered tight and strangling around his friend, lost somewhere deep inside. ] I'll find you. I'm not leaving without you.

[ leaving in every existential and metaphysical sense of the term. where else would he go? where else, in any dimension, any realm of this world and the next, does he belong as much as he does here, pulling defiantly at dean winchester's shoulder while the world goes to shit around them? ]

[righteously]

( He's been telling people Dean Winchester is dead. He's been telling people he's something else, something better, something worse. He's been disassociating from that name and that man in all ways. He is not Dean Winchester. He does not feel like that man.

Or maybe it's that man inside of him pushing the distance between them. Some small remnant of him clinging to a single vibrating brain cell, to a single remnant of soul. Maybe it's that small, strong, fierce piece buried underneath an ocean of anger and hate and corruption that steadfastly refuses the association. Maybe it still exists. Maybe it's in there. Maybe he's in there.

Maybe that's why Cas survives this encounter. Because that piece whispers the merciful suggestion that it would be more delicious to leave him alive, it implies that the suffering is sweeter than an end.

He stares down, this being of taint and anger and agony, watching a broken man plead, and agrees with the assessment. Dying is easy, son. Living is harder. He should know. He should know.

He rears back his fist, and he delivers one last strong, swift blow. Not enough to kill him. Just enough to knock him out.

And then he coldly walks away, leaving Castiel's broken, unconscious body crumpled in an alley for anyone to find. )