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Part 2 of An Assortment of Destiel Ficlets and Codas
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Published:
2016-11-03
Completed:
2016-12-21
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2,496
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3/3
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Home

Summary:

A three-part coda re: Mary leaving in "The Foundry."

Notes:

Chapter 1: Home

Summary:

The first of my three-part coda re: Mary leaving in "The Foundry." This one from Cas's perspective.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Fifty three minutes had passed since Castiel had heard the pieces of the aborted prayer.

 

Precisely twenty two minutes had gone by since the text message that had filled in the gaps.

 

The elapsed time leading Castiel to one sure decision, made behind the wheel of a stolen truck pummeling down a road towards an uncertain destination.

 

“You need to go,” he growls gruffly towards his passenger, who has thus ignored the angel’s many requests to turn off the sound while playing that infuriating game.

 

The demand is met by an indignant finger (not that one) thrust in the general direction of the driver. They had collected hundreds of miles of asphalt since putting Cleveland in the rearview mirror. The two were following a vague intuition of Rowena’s that Lucifer would flee towards the Bible Belt to lick his wounds.

 

The irony was lost on neither angel nor demon.

 

When the last candy had been crushed, Crowley finally turns towards the driver. “Let me guess. That text you risked our lives to read was from Loverboy?”

 

Cas furrows his brow towards the being he had begrudgingly accepted as partner. “Neither of us would be mortally wounded in the event of a vehicular incident, Crowley. Unless this truck was forged from demon and angel blades. Which I seriously doubt, given the ordinary nature of the man from whom I took it.”

 

The two were a hundred miles outside of Louisville. Cas drove with one arm out the driver’s side window. Like he would on a night like this. The darkness of the night sky was pierced by pinpoints of starlight. The air smelled of cedar and ozone. The scent was a comfort, contrasting with the gnawing feeling that had taken residence in Castiel’s gut since he had received the two word text two exits ago.

 

She left.

 

“You didn’t answer my question.”

 

“That is because I find you irritating,” Castiel responds shortly.

 

Crowley smirks at the assertion. “Oh Cas. Deny it, evade it, dress it up however you please. You are whipped. And not in the sexy way. And just when I thought you had finally grown a pair down there…”

 

“At least I didn’t have to make a crossroads deal to grow three inches down there.”

 

Crowley raises his eyebrows in acquiescence, impressed by the angel’s pettiness. “Touché.”

 

The driver clears his throat, cherishing the momentary shift in power. Because when anyone brought up Dean, Cas could admit: he felt powerless. But Crowley was deserving of contempt, not confessions. “Besides - you do not need to be in the passenger seat to travel. Why are you here anyway?”

 

The usurped King of Hell exaggerates a wounded expression, its dramatic flourishes concealing the slightest tinge of real pain he feels at the rejection. Because, when one considered how many times he had run to the aid of the Winchesters, tripping over himself and his Infernal duties in the process, by now he deserved - at the very least - tolerance. Still, Crowley takes a page from Dean’s playbook, masking his feelings beneath a well-timed joke.

 

“I would have thought you would have enjoyed the company with - you know - you still not being able to get it up and all.”

 

Torture. That is what this road trip is. Crowley always was creative.

 

“My wings are not an it. And they can get up just fine. It’s just that --- ”

 

“Oh sweet Cas, save all those reasons for your boyfriend. I’ll be in touch.”

 

With a snap, Crowley disappears.

 

The absence is a relief.

 

The highway ahead diverts in two directions: one southerly, one westward. A road towards duty and a road towards purpose, towards a life with meaning. Two unfinished chapters in Castiel’s life.

 

He glances again at the phone, to the two word confession that had made his heart fill with so many things all at once. Feelings. Human feelings. Anger. Disappointment. Pity.


But most of all, love.


He can picture the fingers that sent it, shaking against the screen. A body slumped against a bedroom door in an underground home. The air that leaves that body in quaking gasps. The smell of cheap whiskey on the breath of a man whispering quietly through tears.

 

Why wasn’t I enough?

 

And just like that, it’s clear. Maybe only for tonight, Castiel no longer feels burdened by his past, by his mistakes. Rather, his heart and mind and body and grace work as one, shouting in unison that the Devil can wait.

 

There are no longer two roads, but one.

 

It leads west to Lebanon.

 

To Dean.

 

Home.

Notes:

I am still processing all my feelings a week later. But mostly, I want Cas to know he has a home and Dean to know he is worth love. Please agree with me.

Chapter 2: Sounds

Summary:

The second of a three-part coda, re: Mary leaving in "The Foundry." This one from Dean's perspective.

Notes:

Warning - Dean uses alcohol to deal with feelings in this coda.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

I’m sorry.

 

-----

 

There were plenty of sounds that Dean hated.

 

The feral growl of hellhounds.

The wheezing of airplane propellers straining against a storm.

The distinct slice of a knife cutting into flesh: just enough to hurt, not enough to kill.

The sound of Baby stalling.

 

But this sound - the one booming through the bunker this second - was the worst of all.

 

A door closing.

 

What Dean needed most in this world walking out that door.

 

And with that, Dean’s numb to all that’s around him. A twenty man marching band could come parading through the map room and he wouldn’t bat an eye.

 

The shock’s what he feels first.

 

Then he sinks into his mother’s skin. To be pulled from heaven into this mess. True, for Sam and him, some kidnapping and moderate torture was a pretty mild start to the hunting season. But for Mary? She had known peace - no pain, no fear or doubt - to only find herself thrust back into this turmoil. Without warning and without cause.

 

Dean dreaded this moment. But that didn’t mean he didn’t anticipate it. He just hoped - he wished - he thought that maybe - maybe him and Sammy would be enough.

 

They weren’t.

 

He wasn’t.

 

And so he cuts across the map room towards the bottle of bourbon with his name scrawled across it.

 

Sammy says something as Dean’s feet quickly tread across the tile. He wants to talk. And hell, Dean wants to listen, he really does. But what words were worth saying at a time like this? They’d just be some sounds strung together that’d be all wrong. Sam could wax poetic about how she deserved time and space to herself - rationalize that this was for the best. Ever the lawyer, he could plead that case - maybe even enough to convince himself that she still loved them.

 

But none of that would change the fact that she was gone. That she had left.

 

So when Dean gives Sammy that look, he doesn’t push. Because his brother knows that Dean’s dealing with a wound that words can’t heal. So he lets Dean walk one way down the hall, bottle in hand. He doesn’t comment about the slammed door. He pretends he doesn’t hear a body slump to the floor.

 

It’s not until he’s safely in his room that Dean lets it out. In the past, when he was confronted with feelings of this magnitude - the despair at the loss of his father, the guilt he felt when Kevin died on his watch, the utter disgust he felt with himself in the wake of the Mark taking power - the results were explosive. Smashed windows, dented fenders, tables cleared. TV’s meeting their end  on seedy motel floors.

 

But this time - Dean wasn’t angry. Now, that didn’t mean he didn’t blame himself. She would have stayed if you were worth staying for. But Dean’s not angry. He’s deeply, wholly, profoundly hurt.

 

So much so that he can’t manage to move from the door’s threshold. He takes up residence on the floor, consoled only by the amber liquid held so tightly in his grasp. A failure, once again.

 

A fool to think he could ever be otherwise.

 

The cheap stuff is going down so easy - he’s drinking it so quickly small drops dribble down his chin onto his shirt. Soft circles expanding across coarse denim. Blue denim. Blue. Blue would be good right now.

 

Dean’s fingers slip into his pocket, fishing out his phone. Scrolling past names that would provide no solace to the only one that could. Breath and heart each still for the moment he glances at those three letters.

 

Cas .

 

His finger hovers over the call button, trying to muster up the strength inside to dial. But that strength is too hard to find. Dean casts the phone aside.

 

He knows Cas is on the hunt for Lucifer. Dean closes his eyes and imagines the angel behind the wheel, hears the wind rush past him - the pleasant sound of the road passing underneath.

 

He can almost hear Cas’s voice greeting him.

 

Hello Dean would be nice right about now.

 

And so Dean rehearses in his head what he will say. Hey Cas. You busy? Of course you are - hunting down Lucifer. He still powered down? You still with Crowley? What’s wrong? Oh, it’s not - what would you say - it’s nothing of import. Well, nothing near as important as finding the Devil. Nothing. Forget it.

 

Even in his mind, Dean can’t bear to say it.

 

It takes him nearly a half hour more (and several more swigs of whiskey) to find the nerve to type it.

 

She left.

 

The moment he hits send, it feels like pins are being pressed slowly, squarely into his chest. Which, in Dean’s case, was not so much an analogy as a visceral physical memory, courtesy of Alastair.

 

It’s only a minute before Castiel responds.

It feels like a lifetime.

 

I will call you as soon as I can. Crowley is still here and far too curious. Smiting him would not be to my advantage in the moment.

 

 

Ok

 

Three dots appear instantly.

 

…

 

I will call you. I promise.

 

More than anything, Dean wants to believe him.

 

-----

 

Dean did not answer Castiel’s first call.

Or his second.

Or his tenth.

 

He knew it was a dick move, but if there was a time for him to be entitled to a dick move, this was it.

 

Not that Cas deserved it. But he would forgive him.

He always did.

 

So Dean lies there, the hardwood floor of his bedroom the only reminder that he is, in fact, still on solid ground. Shock has faded into numb. The numb of the alcohol, sure, but also, a fatigue he’s been holding onto for weeks.

 

How tired he has been since his mom walked back into their lives.

 

Of waiting for the other shoe to drop.

 

Well, now a whole shoestore had dropped.

 

His eyes are finally giving into the nightmares he’s sure are awaiting him when he hears a sound - followed by a rhythm.

 

Faint at first - steadily increasing in tempo and volume.

 

Until he hears the sound of a door opening.

His door opening.

 

An angel standing beneath its frame, waiting to be invited in.

 

As if he wasn’t what Dean needed most in the world right now.

 

A voice trembles two words Dean’s way. A voice that is the first real comfort Dean’s had since she left.


I’m sorry.

 

It’s a beautiful sound.

Notes:

Finally have come back to this and am still feeling all these things. I have really liked how writers have confronted Dean's feelings of abandonment. I just wish Cas was part of that.

Chapter 3: Only Tonight

Summary:

Last one in this coda - hiatuses are good for finishing things put on the backburner.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

“You’re home,” Dean mumbles up towards the angel looming overhead. He uses the heel of his hand to wipe the tears away from his eyes towards his hairline.

 

Castiel does not respond immediately. Rather, he waits for the right words to come, crouching down to the other man’s level, taking his face into his hands. And then, with a slightly crooked smile, he reminds him.

 

“Dean. You know I always come when you call.”

 

The hunter snuffs out a labored laugh, the kind that just falls out of you when you are too exhausted to care it’s a horrible joke that’s got you smiling.

 

Cas’s pinkies dip into Dean’s dimples while his thumbs rub at the bottom of his earlobes. “I am here for you, Dean. Even if only tonight.”

 

In their years together, Dean and Cas had had their fair shares of only tonight.

 

It was only tonight during that time in 2009. What they thought would be their last night on earth. When Dean had made a promise that his angel wasn’t going to die a virgin. When Cas struck out with that lady of the night but, somehow, had woken up with a hickey on his neck.

 

It was only tonight the first evening spent sleeping side by side when they were reunited in Purgatory. Close enough they could feel each others’ warmth in a place that offered little other comfort.

 

It was only tonight that time in Rexford, Idaho. After Cas’s aborted date. Where Dean found another way to put Castiel out of his misery, before they went their separate ways once more.

 

It was only tonight when Cas sat slumped until dawn in front of the dungeon door, making sure the demon detox took. Staying close. Just in case.

 

There were a handful of other only tonights in the lives of Dean and Castiel. And tonight - when that jacket Dean was clinging to still smelled like Mary - when her dirty dishes were still in the sink - tonight was another only tonight.

 

And so there was no discussion as to what it meant when Cas slipped an arm beneath Dean’s knees and carried him to bed.

 

There were no words of caution when he unlaced each of Dean’s boots and cast them aside.

 

There was nothing necessary either man had to say as Castiel slid under the covers next to Dean. To do nothing other than to hold him -- to provide a steady heartbeat to the anarchic drumming inside of Dean’s chest.

 

They spent hours silently in that position.

It was good.

 

This is what Dean needed and it was enough, Castiel convinced himself. It was okay that there had been so many only tonights and they had all ended the same way. With Cas gone. Because that is just what their relationship was - and as fractured, incomplete, half-realized as it may be, it was worth it.

 

That is what Castiel told himself every only tonight before.

That is what every bone and muscle prepared itself for.

 

Because he had been tasked with a responsibility some eight years prior. To save Dean Winchester - any way he knew how. And as he listens to Dean’s breath lose its stagger -- as he feels his limbs stop trembling - Castiel feels he has once again done his duty.

 

And now he must - as he did all those times before - say goodbye.

 

It would soon be dawn, and tonight would be no more.

 

And so he braces himself for yet another excruciating farewell - that was his load to bear.

He presses his lips gently upon Dean’s cheek, hoping it will do some good in healing his heart, once again broken.

 

Castiel moves to leave, when suddenly, Dean turns.

 

And unlike any other only tonight, he speaks.

 

The same words as his greeting - the message no longer an observation, but rather, a declaration.

 

“You’re home.”


And for once, Castiel accepts it as truth.

Notes:

Feelings. I have lots of them.

That last line - I want you to read it two ways. Like that Cas is home in the bunker, but also, that Cas is home to Dean.