Supernatural, Doctor Who, Elementary, Teen Wolf, Hannibal, and The Walking Dead. Spanning from a love of TV & film to literature, art, music, and the like.

Purgatory has a diabolical way of draining the life out of you, and as time begins to wane, Castiel becomes weak and weary and faded. Such is the cost of fighting, struggling, constantly healing to survive and keep alive the person that means most to you. And before they separate, Castiel agrees and tells Benny to go on without him, to take Dean before he can protest, to leave him in their wake and flee immediately if he plans to escape the wrath of an angered and betrayed and mournful Dean Winchester. He does not mean to lie to the righteous man again, to fool Dean into inadvertently leaving Cas behind- but some things cannot be helped and, like he once told, when men want something very, very badly, they must lie. 

Before that day does come, Castiel whispers secret, precious things to Dean when they know Benny cannot hear them. And in that tired and sleepy voice, Castiel makes promises of protection and redemption and pays no heed to the worried, almost angered rebuttals Dean gives in return- he does not stop promising even when Dean explains that he owes him nothing, that Dean could never ask him for more than what he’s given. He does not stop to explain why his tone gives off the eery and sorrowful foreshadowing of a farewell. He only smiles and breathes in, taking in the scent of him, and goes on working, angelically weaving the open gashes back together like he did years ago, in the toiling silence of the dark. He accepts the embraces when they come, he leans into the kisses when they overwhelm and overpower and completely wash over his frame.  Dean wishes he could swallow the melancholy down with each kiss, but the bittersweetness is there, even in the taste of him. 

He makes promises, and the last one comes in it’s due time.

“I love you,” he tells him, “as I have always loved you and as I always will.”

Dean tries not to look up from the wounds he cleans on his partner’s skin. He knows that the sincereity in his voice, and the way he knows they must reflect in those bright and ancient eyes, will be his undoing. “How much do you love me?” he asks. Do you love me enough not to do this? he wonders, do you love me enough to convince me I don’t have to leave you behind? Dean knows, of course, what tonight means. Castiel does a lazy job at hiding his intent- the suspicions had been humming in the pit of his heart for a long while now, like the truths we often do not want to see coming often do. He knows these are their last moments- the hidden honesty clings to Cas’ closed lips like honey.

“Number the stars, and you will know how vastly you are loved by me,” Castiel promises between the giving and accepting of kisses, whole-heartily, “I love you enough to know each and every one of them by name.” 

Dean does not try to understand in words. He pulls him in and winces into the roughness of the kiss. He does not mind the needy hands and the throaty hums and the vicious trembling. And he tries to believe that the dampness on the skin that presses against his own does not taste like tears against his mouth. He looks past the shuddering and the quaking and quiet, resented sobs that escape that small body, despite the valor of the soul that so wishes the crying would stop. Castiel wants to be brave. There is no place for sorrow for the self-sacrificing hero. He cries because he is scared, because he will miss Dean, because he has never been as noble and courageous and pure-hearted as Cas hoped himself to be. 

Castiel made promises in the darkness and many of them Dean did not try to understand. But they were conveyed in kisses and fingertips and the utterances of sighs. And Castiel was too tired, to used up by then, but Dean promised back. Not in words- things are rarely done with words for this man- but in footsteps and held hands and the way Dean immediately looks for Castiel’s fleeting gaze when Purgatory rips open for Benny and him.

He had to go. He had a brother to look for and a world to protect. But he is not a man of vacant promises and once Benny is gone and the ground he stands on has steadied just long enough for him to try to stand on his own two feet- very, very quickly and needily, he did not need balance or strength, that would come after- when he is trying to stand, he finds his way to Cas.

And the first night they spend together, they lay on an open field of grass, hand in hand, while Castiel recites names and fingers intertwine. Dean numbers the stars, but he falls to sleep in soft and loving arms before he can get very far. They will keep lying down, each chance they get from now on until always. One day, Dean promises, he will have numbered the stars, and Castiel will have to renew those vows.