There seemed to be great blackness looming slowly out of the East, eating up the faint blurred stars.
'I am too late. All his lost. I tarried on the way. All is lost. Even if my errand is performed, no one will ever know. There will be no one I can tell. It will be in vain.'
Overcome with weariness he wept.
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, J. R. R. Tolkein
Dean looked up to the sky, face pale, flecked with blood, tears forming in his eyes. A raindrop fell down and smashed against his forehead. Just one raindrop, the first of many.
Castiel didn’t die. He didn’t. This body, these burned wings, these belong to a double, a false-Castiel, a Castiel from the other timeline.
He didn’t die. This is a trick. Lucifer behind it, maybe. Cruel and heartless and smirking, Lucifer. ‘How do like that Dean. How does it feel that I killed your boyfriend?’
Castiel didn’t die. He couldn’t have, he couldn’t… He loved you and he told you he loved you and he never knew. You never told him back, you stupid, sorry, son of a bitch. The tears in Dean’s eyes start to fall, with the rain.
This is a shapeshifter, shifted to Castiel’s form to mock Dean, to punish him for the deaths of so many of its kind. This is a dream, a djinn from another alternate universe that shows not what a heart desires, but what it fears the most. He only has to wake up. He only has to…
He shakes his head, face now wet with rain and tears that stream off with the motion. His hair is heavy and plastered to his forehead.
It’s not. It can’t be. Castiel isn’t dead. He’s pretending, Gabriel painted his wings on the rock with pop rocks he dyed black, a stupid joke, a ruse. To draw Lucifer out? To lull the nephilim? Just to be a dick, Gabriel would do this, he’s such an asshole, he would... Castiel’s going to stand up any second now, he’s going to open his eyes and then narrow them; he’s going to stretch his jaw and open his mouth and say “Hello, Dean.”
And Dean’s going to fall to his knees and take Castiel in his arms, take the back of Castiel’s head in one hand and wrap his other around his waist, underneath that goddamn trenchcoat, where Castiel’s body-- where Castiel will still be warm. He’ll pull him close, so close that he’ll only have to whisper. “I love you,” will be the first words that Dean says. The last words he says for a while. “I love you goddammit, I love you so goddamn much.”
...And you never told him.
Dean’s hands grasp open and closed on nothing, on air that is too cold, on air that is black. He died and he never knew and now he never will, you useless, broken…
It’s a witch, it’s a spell, he fucking hates witches. One somewhere was about to die and she could only survive if she took the life of someone else. All he has to do is find her, and kill her, and he’ll get Castiel back, Cas, his angel.
Not yours. Because you never told him. Because you were afraid, you were a coward. He LOVED you, you fucking asshole.
The tears are coming harder than the rain, now. Even though it’s not… it can’t be real, it can’t be. He’s seen visions of the past before, and the future. The past can’t be changed but the future can; Castiel didn’t have to become a drug addict, Sam didn’t have to say ‘yes’ to Lucifer, Dean didn’t have to become a brittle shell of himself living in an armed encampment and throwing his life away like it didn’t matter. (It doesn’t matter). This, this must be the future. He can change it. He has changed the future before. He can change it, he can, and then he can tell Castiel. He can say it, he can finally say it. “I love you Cas,” it will be so easy, and then Castiel will finally know.
He looks up at the sky again, face contorted into an anguished twist. Chuck can come back, Chuck is God, he can do anything. Even if Castiel is dead, even if those really are his wings, his beautiful wings, God, Dean never got to touch them, not even once, but Chuck can come back, he can fix it, he can do anything. Even Death, or Amara; they could come back, they could fix it. He could call them, he knows how. He could take on the Mark again, he could make taquitos again, he could...
His knees hit the dirty, stony ground where Castiel’s wings are burnt out around him. He didn’t even notice he was falling.
