SPN--In My Place

Floating. Sinking. Waiting.

These are the only things that remind Castiel that he's still alive. In some way. Somewhere. He's blind and deaf but he still feels. And there are memories and other sensations he can't explain. He can't stop them. Can't control them. They come and go of there own volition, only to leave him once again in that silent darkness. Floating. Sinking. Waiting.

The memories are only recent ones. Little forgotten details: Sam trying to teach Castiel how to play a card game. Dean being disappointed when he preferred cake over pie. That one time they took him to a bar and he jabbed Bobby right in the pelvis with a pool cue because he underestimated its length and Bobby couldn't stand straight for a couple days. Another time when they had to take a plane and Dean sat rigid in his seat as he hummed some sort of tune, and Sam had to explain to Cas that Dean's afraid of flying and humming Metallica songs calms him down.

How he felt right before the Leviathans took over. And that was the worst little forgotten detail. All of that fear and regret he felt in that one single moment. The fear of falling in so many different ways. Falling from grace. Falling from himself. Falling away from Dean. Falling away from his promise to redeem himself.

Falling. Sinking.

But then there are those sensations. A hand on his shoulder or on his waist. A sharp bump against his back. Feeling small and claustrophobic. Sometimes he thinks he hears something. Whispers. Bangs, like a car door closing. But it's all so distant and he can't tell if it's memories trying to surface or if there's some part of him, somewhere, still living on in his place.

He's floating up when a sensation reaches him again. A full embrace. Completely engulfed in an invisible pair of arms, pulling him closer by the shoulders as if they're scared or freezing and need his warmth. Like a blanket.

His trench coat.

The moment he realizes it, the sounds become more vivid. He can hear a fire crackling. A quiet TV playing some show with a laugh track. Crickets.

Someone pulls him—his trench coat—even closer. They're shivering. Grabbing desperately at the shoulders of the coat, cocooning themselves inside of it. And Cas thinks that maybe whoever it is really is just cold. But they whisper something. He almost can't make it out.

"I'm scared, Cas."

Dean.

He's not shivering. He's crying, trying to hold his sobs back, like a boy after a nightmare trying to keep himself hidden from the monsters in the dark. But Castiel knows its not the monsters he's hiding from. It's everyone else. Sam. Bobby. He doesn't want them to see him this way—broken and scared and helpless. Because they rely on his strength. So he hides it even though he needs someone to understand.

Castiel would be that person. He would. But he's not there. So in Castiel's place he uses the trench coat. Hopes that in some way it is him. And it is.

"What do I do?"

Dean knows he won't get an answer. But he doesn't know that Cas is right there, listening. Doesn't know that he wants to say "Come find me. Let me redeem myself. I'll wait. I'm right here."

But he can't say it. And he's trapped in that sensation, engulfed in Dean's embrace, listening to the far off sound of fire crackling and crickets chirping and the mocking laugh track.

He stops floating. Starts sinking.

Falling, falling, falling all over again.

But after a minute Dean starts humming. A Metallica song. Dean's shivering slowly stops. The tune is only an echo in Castiel's ears but he hears it all the same. He forgets that he's sinking and listens until Dean falls asleep. And even then he still hears the tune in his head. Still feels Dean's arms around him.

Dean is trying to fly for his family and Cas is sinking like a stone, but it's okay, because they're in the middle. They're calm.

Dean hums. And Cas waits.

Waiting. Sinking. Floating.