#hiii this was cery sweet i loved this3
don’t wanna fall asleep without you
word count: 1,381 (continued under the read more), also posted on ao3A day and a half after Cas has been rescued from the Empty, he realizes he needs sleep. But that… well, it’s easier said than done.
Even though his body is exhausted, a fatigue that makes Cas feel dizzy with its potency, every time he tries to fall asleep, his brain is flooded with the Empty; wrapping around him and pulling him down down down into darkness, into pain, into cold loneliness and complete despair.
He tries to fight through it. Tries to dig his fingers into the warm bed sheets of his bed and feel the soft pillow cushioning his head. But the comforts are short lived. It isn’t enough to fight the creeping inky blackness as it swallows Cas whole again and again.
So instead, he forces himself to wander around the Bunker until the exhaustion is unbearable; until he collapses and falls asleep leaning against the jukebox in Dean’s cave or curled up in the hallway outside of Dean’s room or in the garage with his head against the drivers door of the Impala.
He wasn’t aware of it at the time. How he finds spaces that are etched by Dean’s presence or his energy. How, even in his fatigued conscience, he gravitates towards Dean’s essence.
And he shouldn’t. He knows he shouldn’t. If his brain wasn’t so fuzzy, he would scream at himself to stop falling for this agonizing torment.
Dean doesn’t love him back. Otherwise Dean would’ve said something when he rescued him… wouldn’t he? But he didn’t; he just kept touching Cas’ shoulder and repeating that Cas was home home home. And Cas can live with that. He can. He told Dean his truth, and everything else is out of his control.
That’s the hardest part though. Accepting that he isn’t an Angel like he used to be. He can’t control fate and choices and destiny like he used to. Or maybe he never could. Maybe it was all Chuck. Not that it matters anymore. Not that his tired brain can process it anyway; his sleep-addled brain is unreliable and makes decisions he wouldn’t make if he were more awake.
Especially because it’s late, and now it’s a week after his escape from the Empty, and he’s leaning against Dean’s chair in the Dean cave, and now he’s seeing Dean crouching down in front of him and, oh, what a beautiful mirage he is, and oh, Cas’ heart clenches in his chest because Dean is beautiful and God, Cas wants him and he loves him and it’s too much too much too much.
The words sound unreal in Cas’ ear. “C’mon Angel. Let me take care of you.”
And that can’t be real. Because he’s not an Angel anymore. Or maybe he is and maybe he isn’t. Some powers remain and some have been sucked away by the tendrils of the Empty.
But the hands on his skin feel warm and tender as his body is floating up up up and then there’s a guided walk to his room and a hand slowly helping him into bed as sheets are tucked softly and carefully under his chin.
“I’ve got you,” lingers in the air, and Cas can’t tell if the words are spinning in his head, fabricated by his own desires, or if they were ever even spoken aloud at all.
A soft brush of lips to his forehead, a hand resting against his shoulder, and a weight lingers on the other side of the bed. “Sleep, Cas. You’re safe. I’m not letting anything happen to you ever again.”
Cas finally allows sleep to lap at his subconscious until he’s lulled into peace.
When his eyes flutter open again, the room is quiet. There’s no presence by his side. He’s in his own bed with the sheets tucked around him. He can’t remember how he got here; if he fell asleep in his bed all along, or if, in his weary state, he managed to stumble his way back to his own room before passing out. But there’s no Dean perched at the end of his bed. Just a mirage invented by his exhausted brain. It aches so deeply in Cas’ chest that he doesn’t know how to cope. It feels like it’s cracking his ribs apart and tearing his heart from his chest.
Cas vows never to sleep again.
