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221b-bitch-st · 1 day ago

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{ FAWN | 725 words | ao3 | @merthurmicrofic }

The full moon hangs high overhead by the time they reach the river, pale light breaking into tiny triangles through the tangle of tree branches. And it’s quiet, so very quiet, save for the steady slosh of the horses’ legs moving through the water. The smell of rain still thick in the air, clothes damp and itching where they cling.

They haven’t said a word ever since they left.

They keep going like this for a while, but under a twisted old oak the prince halts without a warning, and here is where Merlin thinks, this is it. Here is where he thinks, he changed his mind and we’re heading back.

But the blue silhouette of Arthur’s body lifts onto the saddle and then slips down, quietly, feet meeting ground below like second nature. Merlin stills as the man slides the reins over the horse’s neck and down its nose, as he pats the inklike mane and says, “This will do. We’ll make camp here.”

The few clothes and the loaves and apples stuffed inside the bag weigh down on Merlin’s neck, sweaty fingers open and close around the frayed shoulder strap. “Here?” he says. "Don’t you think we’re still too close, sire?”

“Merlin.” The name feeling both an order and a plea on his lips.

Merlin swallows and swallows again, then turns to look back. But there’s nothing to see there, nothing left of Camelot – only a faint shade of weaker blue where there’s still horizon.

“Are you planning to sleep up there?” Arthur’s voice carries with it the sound of metal and leather as he slowly begins to undress.

“We’re still too close,” Merlin insists. “What happens if they find out we are gone?”

“They won’t. They won’t notice we’re gone until sunrise. Never mind. Get off that thing now.”

Merlin hears the embers crackle before he opens his eyes. In the faint glow of the camp fire he makes out Arthur’s features, cross-legged by the flames, brows drawn in concentration and hands working purposefully somewhere between his knees.

He doesn’t even look at Merlin as he smirks and says, “Welcome back.”

But he’s tired, bone-deep, that much Merlin can tell.

He lets out a yawn – adjusts his body to sit steadier on the lumpy bedroll, presses a hand over his face to brush the sleep away. It’ll be dawn soon, he realises, but for now there’s only Arthur. “Haven’t you rested at all, sire?”

“Merlin, you ought to stop calling me that.” Arthur scoffs and shrugs and shakes his head, hair still clammy and messy on the forehead. “There’ll be time to rest soon, anyway. And you looked like you needed some sleep. Can’t have you dying on me like some sickly child.”

A speck of light reflects off the blade now tilted downwards, white and hot, a brand-new thought taking shape behind blue eyes. “Oh,” he says. “We are going to need some new names.”

Merlin frowns and says nothing, lets that silence hang between them for some time, as he often does.

“What are you doing, anyway?” he asks after a while, once he’s had enough of counting twigs and leaves and bothering bugs, and trying not to worry about the sun rising, slowly but ever so surely.

Arthur turns the knife between his fingers a few times like it’s a riddle he has to solve, then lifts his other hand. “Here,” he says. “It’s yours.”

Merlin looks at the small wooden figurine balanced on Arthur’s palm, smooth and fire-lit. He smiles tauntingly, “And what should that be, sire?”

“What do you think?”

“Don’t know, ” he shrugs. “Looks like… some sort of… twisted beast, perhaps?"

Arthur scoffs and pulls his hand back, but Merlin catches it before it’s too far and gone forever. He squeezes and feels muscles and tendons yielding under his touch, and then Arthur’s voice again, softer this time. “It’s a fawn, you idiot.”

Merlin hums, fingers closing tightly but carefully around the small statuette, as Arthur watches him, unmoving.

“You know what the fawn means, Merlin?” he asks.

“Do you?” he echoes absently, digits tracing the jagged edges where the wood was carved in uneven strokes.

“It means—” he looks at Merlin, voice barely a whisper. “In dreams, I mean– if you believe in that sort of thing. It’s a promise.” He pauses. “A new beginning.”

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221b-bitch-st · 1 day ago

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Destiel

The ride back to the Bunker was suffocatingly silent.

No music. No sarcastic remarks. No biting jabs or dry jokes to lighten the air.

Just silence.

Thick, heavy, and sharp around the edges — the kind of silence that settles into bones and lingers long after the doors close.

Dean didn’t say a word the entire way back.

Neither did Sam.

Neither did Castiel.

They were all too drained — physically battered, emotionally scraped raw — every one of them carrying invisible weight on top of the bruises and blood.

But Dean carried the most.

He always did.

By the time they made it inside, none of them even paused to shower or change. They just dropped their gear and, without a word, found themselves in the War Room — that familiar, cold, echoing space of maps, weapons, and old pain.

Dean sat down at the long table and opened the to-go container Sam had tossed in front of him. Something greasy. Something bland. He didn’t care. His hands moved on autopilot, fork digging in, bite after bite shoved into his mouth like he was trying to fill a void that had nothing to do with hunger.

He didn’t look up.

Not once.

But he felt them.

Sam and Castiel — sitting across from him, silent, watching.

He could feel their eyes on him like they were pinning him in place.

He knew what was coming.

Any second now.

The talk.

The inevitable intervention. The concerned brother voice. The aching angel tone. The mini therapy session disguised as a conversation.

Dean didn’t want to hear it.

Not tonight.

Not when his body ached, and his ribs felt like splintered glass, and there was still dried blood under his fingernails. Not when the screaming from that hunt was still echoing in his skull, and the faces of the people they couldn’t save still lingered behind his eyes like ghosts.

So he focused on the food.

Fork. Bite. Chew. Swallow.

Don’t look up.

Don’t engage.

Don’t give them an opening.

He knew exactly what they were thinking anyway — what they’d say if they started.

“Dean, you keep throwing yourself into danger like you’re trying to die.”

“You didn’t have to take that hit.”

“Why are you always the one walking straight into hell without looking back?”

“Do you even care what happens to you anymore?”

And the answer would be no. Or sometimes. Or it’s easier this way. But he didn’t want to say that out loud, because if he did, it would become real.

So he kept eating.

Kept his gaze down.

Pretended he didn’t notice the way Sam kept shifting in his chair, clearly trying to find the words.

Pretended he didn’t feel Castiel’s unwavering stare — so intense, so full of emotion — boring a hole through his soul.

Because if he looked up — if he really met their eyes — Dean knew he’d have to face it.

All of it.

The pain. The truth. The fear. The aching disappointment.

And he just wasn’t ready.

Not yet.

So he stayed quiet.

Kept chewing.

And prayed, silently, that they’d let him have just one night without trying to save him from himself.

Dean knew what they were trying to do—what they always tried to do after a hunt like this. They wanted him to understand. That he didn’t have to keep throwing himself into danger, that he didn’t need to be the bait, the shield, the damn sacrificial lamb every time something went south. But all Dean could think about was the mission. The outcome. The lives saved. Because if he hadn’t done what he did—if he had hesitated, even for a second—things might’ve gone so much worse.

He pushed the now-empty plate away from himself with a tired sigh, the metallic clink echoing faintly in the war room. Slowly, he lifted his eyes, first meeting Castiel’s.

The angel was still, as he always was after hunts, watching Dean with that unwavering intensity—quiet, worried, deep. His gaze felt almost invasive, like he was reading Dean’s insides, scanning for what needed healing—body and soul.

But when Dean finally turned his eyes to Sam, expecting maybe the usual tight-lipped irritation or eye roll, his heart lurched in his chest.

Sam wasn’t just annoyed. He looked… disappointed. Frustrated. And that raw frustration was paired with something much heavier—like resentment. His younger brother’s brows were drawn, lips thin, arms crossed tightly over his chest.

Dean’s breath hitched.

For just a moment, that look on Sam’s face—sharp, cold, tired—wasn’t Sam’s at all.

It was John’s.

Dean’s body stiffened before his mind could even catch up. His fingers curled slightly against the table. It was a look he’d seen a hundred times before—after botched hunts, failed traps, or bruises on Sam that Dean couldn’t explain away.

It was the same stare their father used to give him when he came home not good enough. Too slow. Too weak. Too soft.

Dean blinked and suddenly he was fifteen again, limping into a motel room, scraped up, soaked in blood and rain, only to be greeted by that same stormy silence. Back then, he’d tell himself it was just concern. That his dad didn’t mean to look at him like that. That it wasn’t disappointment, it was fear. Worry.

But that had never been true.

Now Sam—his Sam—was looking at him like that, and something in Dean shattered quietly beneath the surface.

He dropped his eyes to the floor so fast it made his head spin.

Sam started talking, his voice sharper than it needed to be. “Dean, what the hell were you thinking out there? You have to stop doing this—”

Dean didn’t hear the rest. He was gone.

His shoulders locked, spine straightening. His jaw clenched hard enough to ache.

“I’m sorry,” Dean muttered quickly, quietly, like muscle memory. “I didn’t mean to— I thought it was the best move.”

His voice trembled as he sat still, eyes on the floor, like a soldier awaiting orders—or punishment.

Sam furrowed his brows. “Dean?”

Dean didn’t move.

Sam stepped closer. “Hey. Look at me.”

Dean flinched. His head jerked slightly—not toward Sam but away, like he was preparing himself for a blow that never came.

Castiel leaned forward, alarmed.

“Dean?” Sam asked again, this time more softly, but it was too late.

Dean stood up too fast, stumbling slightly, backing up as if he was cornered. His breathing hitched, ragged and uneven. “I— I’m sorry, okay? I just— I didn’t want us to fail the hunt.”

He was backing away from them now, his arms slightly raised—not in aggression but in defense. As if expecting something worse. As if waiting for the punishment he thought he deserved.

Castiel recognized it first.

Dean’s eyes weren’t here anymore.

They weren’t in the bunker, or the war room, or even the present. They were far away—in a motel room decades ago. A trembling teenager with blood on his shirt, standing in front of an angry man who never asked if he was okay.

Castiel rose, slowly and cautiously. “Dean,” he said gently, hands lifted in peace, “you’re safe. You’re here. No one’s angry at you.”

But Dean only shook his head, unable to speak, the past tangled so deeply in his present that he couldn’t tell which reality was real anymore.

Sam took another step, voice cracking, “Dean, I wasn’t trying to—”

“Don’t!” Dean nearly shouted. “Don’t get close!”

The silence that followed was heavy, suffocating.

Dean’s chest rose and fell too fast. His skin was pale. His hands shook.

And for the first time in a long, long while… both Sam and Castiel saw not the hunter, not the hero, not the indestructible older brother.

They saw the boy he used to be.

The one who never learned to flinch slow enough.

Castiel took a cautious step forward, trying to reach Dean, his voice low and calm, a gentle current meant to anchor him. But Dean kept backing away, stumbling over his own panic, his voice rising with frantic apologies.

“I didn’t mean to mess it up,” Dean said, breath catching. “I didn’t want us to fail—please—please, I was just trying to help—”

Castiel’s heart cracked with every word. The man he loved was unraveling in front of him, lost in a memory that had nothing to do with the present.

But Sam—still not understanding, still trying to fix things—took another step toward his brother. His voice was calm, sure, but Castiel saw how it made Dean flinch deeper.

“Dean, it’s okay, I’m not—”

Dean gasped sharply, his voice breaking as he begged, “Please don’t hit me—I won’t do it again—I promise—!”

His hands shot up instinctively in front of his face like a shield, like a teenager bracing for a blow that never came. It was too much.

He wasn’t a grown man in that moment.

He was a scared kid—one who had been screamed at, hurt, blamed for everything.

And Sam hadn’t realized it.

But Castiel had.

Without hesitation, Castiel reached out and grabbed Sam’s wrist with a grip like iron, yanking him back so hard Sam nearly lost his balance and stumbled over the chair behind him.

“What the hell—” Sam started, but Castiel silenced him with a single, sharp glare.

“Get. Out,” Castiel growled, his voice no longer calm or gentle—it was thunderous, low, and deadly. His wings weren’t visible, but the weight of them hung in the air like an impending storm.

Sam stared at him, stunned.

Castiel’s blue eyes burned like fire as he added, voice thick with fury and pain, “You don’t get to be here—not when you can’t see what’s happening in front of you.”

Dean whimpered softly, trembling in the corner, his hands still half-raised in defense. Castiel didn’t even look away from Sam as he pointed at the door.

“Leave. Now. Come back when you’re ready to understand.”

The command was so firm, so absolute, that even Sam couldn’t argue.

And as he slowly turned and walked out of the room, the heavy door shut behind him with a solid echo—leaving only Castiel and Dean in the quiet, haunted space.

Castiel turned back to Dean with a softness that could break stone.

He stepped forward, slowly, carefully, kneeling down in front of him.

“I’m here,” he whispered. “Not him. Never him. Just me.”

Dean still shook, but his hands fell ever so slightly from his face.

And Castiel waited—calm, present, patient—ready to hold every broken part of the man he loved.

It took several long, quiet minutes. Minutes filled with Castiel’s voice—gentle, low, grounding—repeating soft truths over and over again.

“There’s no one here, Dean,” he whispered. “Just you and me. No John. No Sam. No yelling. No hitting. Just… me.”

Dean sat there on the floor, hunched in on himself, eyes darting around the room with a haunted, restless energy. He still looked as though he expected to be punished at any moment—as though the weight of his childhood ghosts was too heavy to shake off.

But then—finally—his eyes caught Castiel’s. And something shifted.

Dean blinked slowly, as though he were just waking from a nightmare, and his lips parted in confusion. “Cas…?”

His voice was so soft, so uncertain, like he was afraid the name would disappear in the air.

But Castiel smiled instantly, a warmth in his expression so sincere and full of love it could’ve lit the room. “Yeah, Dean,” he whispered. “I’m right here. You did great. You’re okay now.”

Dean looked around again, more aware this time. The space felt different—less like a trap. Sam wasn’t there. There was no looming threat. Just Castiel. Just safety.

And when he looked back at Castiel, realization dawned behind his eyes—raw and heavy.

What had just happened.

What he had just felt.

Dean’s body tensed, as if bracing for shame to come flooding in. But Castiel was already moving toward him, carefully, calmly. He reached out and cupped Dean’s face, ignoring the slight flinch that ran through him at first touch.

His thumbs gently wiped away the tears that Dean hadn’t even realized were still falling.

“You’re okay,” Castiel whispered again. “You’re safe. You did so good, Dean.”

The soft praise was almost too much.

Dean’s breath hitched as he leaned forward, resting his forehead against Castiel’s shoulder, his chest rising and falling in uneven rhythms. He trembled with the effort of holding himself together—of processing how close he had just come to breaking again.

“It’s not fair,” Dean whispered brokenly. “It’s not fair that it still feels so real—after all this time…”

“I know,” Castiel murmured, wrapping his arms around him tightly. “I know it’s not fair. You didn’t deserve any of it.”

Dean nodded weakly against his neck, his voice cracking when he said Castiel’s name again, this time not in fear, but in need. “Cas…”

Castiel pulled back just enough to meet his eyes again—tender, quiet, solid.

“I’m here,” he repeated softly.

He pressed a kiss to Dean’s temple, then another to his cheek, and then his lips—slow, delicate, affirming. Each one was a promise.

Dean closed his eyes and let out a shaky breath as Castiel held him.

“Come on,” Castiel said after a moment, his voice still gentle but steadier now. “Let’s get you to our room. You need rest… and we need to take care of those wounds.”

Dean blinked, as though surprised anyone had remembered them, and then glanced down at the dried blood on his shirt like he was only now feeling the pain.

Castiel stood first, then reached his hand down. Dean stared at it for a heartbeat, then took it—his grip tight, like he was afraid to lose the connection.

And hand in hand, they walked together, one step at a time—toward quiet, toward healing, toward each other .

Before they even reached the room, Dean paused in the hallway. His fingers twitched restlessly at his sides, his expression caught somewhere between guilt and hesitation. Castiel noticed the sudden stop and turned to face him with quiet curiosity.

“I think…” Dean began, voice low, “I think I should check on Sam. Maybe talk to him. Apologize or something.”

Castiel’s brows drew together, not in anger, but in pure confusion. He tilted his head just slightly, that familiar gesture of his that always made Dean feel seen. “Why?” he asked softly. “Why would you apologize for something that wasn’t your fault?”

Dean looked away. “I… I scared him. I know I did.”

“But that’s not something you meant to do,” Castiel replied, his tone firm, yet kind. “You weren’t in control. You were hurting. That wasn’t an attack—it was a reaction. And Sam isn’t a child waiting for someone to make amends over something out of your hands.”

He stepped closer, placing a reassuring hand over Dean’s shoulder. “He’s your brother, Dean. He knows what you’ve been through. He saw it.”

Dean opened his mouth to argue, but Castiel gave his shoulder a light squeeze and gestured gently toward their door.

“Come inside. Just breathe.”

Still torn, Dean nodded and followed him in.

Once inside, Castiel moved with silent purpose. He opened the drawer near the bed, pulling out a pair of clean clothes—soft, worn, familiar—and placed them on the corner of the bed. Then, with a quiet wave of his hand and a soft golden glow, Castiel healed the lingering wounds on Dean’s body, the gashes closing seamlessly, the bruises fading like they had never been there.

“You should take a shower,” Castiel said, his voice dropping to a softer register. “I’ll wait here.”

Dean hesitated, eyes flicking to the door again, but one look at Castiel—seated on the edge of the bed, quiet, present, grounding—was all it took to let the weight of the moment win. He let out a tired breath, gave a small nod, and walked toward the bathroom.

The shower was long, the water running hot over his skin, steam clouding the mirror and his thoughts. He stood there for longer than he meant to, letting the warmth soften the last of the tremors in his body, hoping to rinse away more than just blood and sweat.

And when he finally emerged—hair damp, clean clothes hanging loose on his frame—he found Castiel exactly where he had left him. The angel had removed his trench coat and was now seated comfortably on the bed, dressed only in his white shirt and slacks, sleeves slightly rolled up. He looked up as Dean entered, and something about the simplicity of that sight—the comfort, the familiarity, the softness—unraveled the last of Dean’s hesitation.

He didn’t speak.

He didn’t need to.

Dean walked across the room quietly, barefoot steps against the floor, until he reached the bed and crawled into Castiel’s lap without a word, curling into him like a man finally allowing himself to rest. Castiel welcomed him instantly, his arms wrapping around Dean’s back as Dean buried his face into Castiel’s chest, pressing close until there was no space between them.

No explanations.

No apologies.

Just breathing.

Just warmth.

Just the one place in the world Dean Winchester could let go.

Castiel leaned his cheek against Dean’s hair and closed his eyes, holding him close as though he could absorb the ache out of Dean’s bones. And for the first time in what felt like far too long… Dean let himself be held.

And neither of them said a word—for words would never be enough.

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