#anyway who else feels angsty in this chilis tonight?

[f1-stuff]

Austrian GP ‘22 // Post-sprint press con

Not a lot of smiles today...

[bibliophileiz]

Supernatural 14x14 coda

A/N: I don’t have a title for this or anything. It’s my first Supernatural coda and it’s so angsty you guys. Not really romantic, but there’s definitely Sam/Rowena and Dean/Cas vibes. Sam feels guilt, Dean compares Cas to not one, but two hot brunette ladies from pop culture, and Cas dislikes Gone With The Wind. Hurt/Comfort.

When the dust settled – when the shadow of wings against the war room wall faded and the gold light in Jack’s eyes dimmed to their normal brown – then there was nothing to show there had been any victory at all.

Michael was gone and all that was left were the aches in Sam’s body and the twin smells of metallic blood and charred flesh.

All those people he’d tried to save.

The silence was broken when Rowena let out a sob. Jack turned, stepped toward her, and helped her to her feet. She trembled as she clung for a moment to his arm.

There was a shuffling sound behind Sam, and he turned to see Dean lean his back against the wall, burying his face in his shaking hands. Cas made a sharp move, as if to go to Dean’s side, then seemed to change his mind. His eyes darted between Dean and Jack, as though torn.

Sam glanced back at Jack, who was surveying the carnage, the bodies of the hunters he fought beside time and again. His faced seemed to lose some of its etherealness, made him look more like the uncertain boy Sam once found sitting on a milk crate outside a motel, afraid and upset at being called the devil.

“I – I can fix it,” Jack said, his voice wavering a little. “I can bring them back -- ”

“No.” Cas’ voice was sharp. “You won’t use any more of your power.”

Cas’ ire seemed to be wasted energy. Jack looked lost. Sam remembered the only person Jack had ever been able to resurrect was Cas, and that was out of reflex. He probably couldn’t do it intentionally.

Silence settled on them again.

Sam felt like puking. He felt like throwing chairs at the wall and screaming until his throat tore. He felt like going to sleep and never waking up.

“We’ll have to wrap the bodies,” Dean said finally, and though his hands were still covering his face, his voice was steadier.

Mechanically, they all moved forward and began tending to the bodies. Dean found some rags, sheets and cleaning supplies from a closet down the hall. Cas and Jack began arranging limbs, moving the bodies out of their horrible contorted positions. They wrapped the bodies in silence, other than Rowena’s soft Gaelic murmuring as she recited spells, or maybe prayers, over all the people she took care of.

Sam took care of Maggie himself. She deserved nothing less.

There were 14 more hunters from the Apocalypse World out on cases he assigned for them. He didn’t think he would ever be able to look any of them in the eye again.

When the bodies were wrapped – and after Cas had to physically take the Lysol bottle out of Dean’s hand to keep him from scrubbing at the bloodstains on the floor until his fingers bled – they all stood around in silence again.

“Well have a hunter’s funeral for all of them tomorrow,” Sam heard himself say.

Everyone but Dean looked at him, and Sam couldn’t bear the odd mixture of pity and hurt in their eyes. Why couldn’t you lead them somewhere other than to death? they seemed to say.

One by one, they shuffled off to bed.

In the privacy of his bedroom, Sam pulled out his phone. It occurred to him the best person to call to get the word out about the massacre was Jody – he couldn’t stand the thought of telling his mom what had happened, and anyway, knowing Dean, he’d call her first and she’d be too busy comforting him to answer a call from Sam. That was fine, that was right – Dean may have known the Apocalypse hunters, may have laughed with them and fought beside them and compared chili recipes with them, but he wasn’t their leader the way Sam was. He wasn’t the one who trained them and assigned them cases. He wasn’t the one responsible for their safety. And he sure as hell wasn’t the one who’d ignored how volatile the Michael situation was becoming.

Sam thought of the ma’lak box and wanted to puke again.

Instead, he called Jody, told her what happened in a clipped, monotone voice he barely recognized as his own, and asked her to call the other hunters.

“Sam,” she said, and there was that pity again, “I’m so -- ”

“Jody,” he said. He took a couple of deep breaths. “I’m f--” He wasn’t fine. It was an insult to the people who were dead to pretend otherwise. “I just – I just want to go to bed. Will you be here tomorrow?”

“Of course,” said Jody. “And I’ll take care of calling everyone else.”

“Thank you,” Sam whispered and then ended the call because he couldn’t handle another second of that conversation.

He changed out of his plaid and jeans – he’d been wearing them since before Jack killed the gorgon a million hours ago – and into a Henley and sweatpants. Then he left his bedroom for the infirmary. He tried to avoid self-medicating if at all possible, but no way would he sleep tonight without sleeping pills.

He was surprised to find Rowena already there, cleaning blood off her neck over the sink in the corner. She paused when she saw him.

“Are you hurt?” she asked.

“No,” he said. He spotted a bandage on her arm. “You are, though.”

She tugged at her sleeve to cover the bandage. “One of the hunters fought back. He slashed me with a silver knife before I -- ” She choked out a low sob and threw the rag she was using to clean herself in the trash. She turned on the faucet and began scrubbing her hands under the water.

“No.” Sam found his voice. After everything Rowena had done to try and be good the last two years, she didn’t deserve this guilt. “You didn’t do anything.”

She placed her hands on either side of the sink and bent over it, her tiny frame shaking as she inhaled and exhaled harsh, jarring sobs.

In a way it was almost worse than seeing Maggie die. He’d seen Rowena incapacitate Lucifer, break chains God and the archangels themselves had locked, challenge Death unflinchingly. To see her now, broken and weeping helplessly, made him want to leave, get in the Impala and drive away from all of this and never look back.

Instead he walked behind her and placed a hand on her back.

She got enough control over herself to speak. “He told me he would kill you all – you, the boy -- ”

“I know,” said Sam. “It’s not your fault.”

For just a moment, when Dean had said Sam, get the cuffs, it had come to him as clearly as a childhood nightmare that this was how their story would end, that this was how he would kill her – by locking her in the box instead of his brother. He hated himself for being willing to make that sacrifice. He hated himself even more for being glad he didn’t have to.

He thought of Maggie again and closed his eyes. “It’s not your fault,” he said again. “It’s mine.”

She didn’t answer, but she reached behind her and grabbed his hand.

They stayed there for a long time.

  Dean’s head hurt.

It wasn’t the relentless pounding that had threatened to break his skull in two when Michael was fighting to get out of his head. Instead, it was just a tired soreness, like it had a thorough beating earlier but had since been left alone.

Which he guessed was what happened. 

His eyes and throat hurt too. That was from trying not to cry.

He leaned against the door to his bedroom, his fingers itching for a bottle of Scotch – some of the good stuff that Crowley had hidden around the bunker, if that rat bastard Ketch hadn’t found it all first.

He should have gotten in that box, Sam and Cas be damned. He was so, so relieved he didn’t have to now.

God, he needed a drink.

He was glad he didn’t have to get in the box, and it wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair to Maggie or Sam or Rowena or any of them. This was on him. He let Michael in, he couldn’t keep him and he couldn’t make himself get in the goddamned box, he was just so scared, he’d tried so hard to keep Michael locked away but he wasn’t strong enough, wasn’t brave enough, wasn’t the man he was supposed to be -- he couldn’t resist Michael any more than he could resist Alastair in Hell or the Mark of Cain or stopping Sammy finish the trials or – or ….

He didn’t realize he was hyperventilating until he was on the ground gasping for breath. Then Cas was there, grabbing Dean’s hand, putting it to his own chest and saying something Dean couldn’t hear over the rushing in his ears, and oh God, he couldn’t breathe, his head hurt ….

A warm, liquid-like feeling filled his chest, like sinking into a hot bath, and it took Dean a moment to realize it was grace. Cas was trying to heal him.

It didn’t immediately end his panic but it did slow his racing heart and clear the noise from his ears enough so that he could hear Cas telling him to count his breaths. Dean closed his eyes and focused on the cadence of Cas’ voice. He hadn’t even realized when Cas came in the room.

It was over in a few minutes, and Dean was left a humiliated and shaking mess, wiping a couple of tears from his face with sweaty palms. Cas’ hand rested on his shoulder.

“I let him out,” Dean said finally. He put a hand to his aching chest. His head hurt so bad.

Cas paused a moment.“We should have listened to you when you said the door was giving,” he said.

“Would you have put me in the damn box?”

“Maybe,” Cas said. Dean closed his eyes and clenched his jaw in an effort to hold back any more tears. He was just so tired and he didn’t know how it would ever be over.

“Jack,” he said. “You’re mad that Jack had to fix it – had to burn off his – his soul.” He wiped his face again. “I never … Cas, I didn’t want that. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

Cas was quiet for a moment. When he spoke again, it was in that low growl that never failed to calm Dean down. “You should know,” he said, “that there is nothing – nothing – that happened tonight or that could ever happen that would make you belong in that box. And if I did have to put you in it, I would never drop it in the ocean.”

Dean let out a half-laugh, half-sob. He was pretty sure the last time he cried like this in front of Cas was after torturing Alastair during the Apocalypse. Cas leaned over him and pressed a kiss to his hair.

Dean froze, feeling his face warm. Cas had never kissed him before, even a platonic, comforting kiss like this one, however many times Dean had secretly wanted him to over the years. But Cas just murmured something quietly in Enochian and got to his feet. He pulled back the covers on Dean’s bed. “You need to sleep,” he said.

Dean huffed. “Yeah, ok, Mom.” He immediately wondered whether he should call Mary. But his head hurt and his hands were still a little shaky – God, but he was exhausted – and the walk to his bed may as well have been 1,000 miles, so he decided the phone call could wait until tomorrow morning.

He dragged himself to the bed where Cas helped him out of his jacket and plaid, leaving him only in a t-shirt. Dean briefly considered taking off his jeans but decided he’d sleep like the dead no matter how comfortable his pants were. He sat on the edge of his bed to remove his boots, waving Cas away when he bent to help. Cas straightened and ran his hands through Dean’s hair instead. It felt a million times better than Dean would ever deserve.

“Hey, what happened to the gorgon?” he asked as he started on the laces of the second boot. It was a little bit of a relief to think about a different case.

Cas’ fingers stilled. “Jack killed him.” He paused. “He kept the snake as well. I was so worried about your head injury I didn’t notice him taking it. He must have put it in his pocket.”

It was a mark of Dean’s exhaustion that he didn’t feel the need to object to the kid bringing an animal into the bunker. “Huh,” he said. “I guess he’s at that age when he’s sneaking pets in the house.” The second boot slipped from his numb fingers and landed on the floor with a soft thud.

“Come on,” Cas said and Dean sank into the memory foam. “Does your chest still hurt?”

“Yes.”

“Your head?”

“Yes.” If Cas pulled the Indiana Jones shit on him, Dean was going to die.

Instead, Cas eased some more beams of grace into his forehead and Dean felt the aches ease somewhat. He closed his eyes and let his exhaustion start to drag over him.

“You know,” he mumbled, half into the pillow, “the kid’ll be ok. Even without ….” He trailed off, too sleepy to finish the sentence. “He’s a good kid,” he slurred. “Takes after his dad.” A second later he realized what he’d said. “Meant you, not ….”

Cas was quiet and then his fingers were in Dean’s hair again. “We’ll worry about it tomorrow.”

“Mkay, Scarlett.”

“I dislike that movie. It glorifies the Confederacy, and -- ”

Dean was asleep before Cas could finish the sentence.

  Castiel sat by Dean’s bedside for a long time.

Dean’s forehead was creased and there were a couple of tear tracks on his face from his panic attack earlier, and Castiel wanted nothing more than to wrap his vessel around Dean’s body and hold him – to keep all the demons, external and internal, at bay.

There was only one thing Castiel had succeeded at more often than he’d failed, and that was protect Dean Winchester.

Not that he was particularly adept at that, but then he had saved Dean from Hell.

The same couldn’t be said for Jack Kline.

Jack had a good heart and the intellectual capability to tell right from wrong. But he was young and, to Castiel’s mind, overly confident about things that were far from certain. He obviously thought his soul was a small price to pay to kill Michael once and for all. He thought of himself as the chicken, not the snake. It’s worth the cost, he’d told Michael, right before he’d said, I’m the son of Lucifer.

Perhaps Dean was right.

But Dean hadn’t been there when Jack asked Castiel how Sam and Mary and Bobby planned to kill Michael if he didn’t leave Dean. He hadn’t seen the look on Jack’s face when Michael told him he was a job to them all, not a son.

Castiel knew Jack had loved him and the Winchesters. He wasn’t sure now, without a soul, Jack still did.

He wasn’t sure what to make of a man who’d trade his own soul for the power to kill his enemy.

Because when Jack took Michael’s grace – when he spread his wings through the room and resonated with divine energy – he hadn’t had the light Castiel remembered from Michael, back when he’d been another soldier in Heaven’s garrison, in awe of his glorious commander.

No, Jack had burned brighter than Michael – as bright as the morning star.