1Minor note: This is told through the eyes of an original character, who I'm actually writing a story around in the Supernatural 'verse; this just popped into my head, and I didn't know if I'd actually be able to use it in my story, so I decided to just publish it as-is, since it works as a one-shot (at least I think so, if you don't agree drop me a note). And no, this is not ever going to be a precursor to a Dean/OC story. In all honesty it is a Castiel/OC story, with NO romantic involvement of Dean.
Dean had woken up from another nightmare. Dean had woken up and looked so broken she could have sworn that oceans drained simply so she would have enough tears to cry; as if somehow that would make it better.
And she wouldn't sit there idly anymore. She didn't want to hear the torment of universes ripping each other apart.
The harpy cry of stars colliding and the silent burn of the earth shifting around them. She couldn't stand to hear the bitter rushing of the creeks as they turned into oceans; pouring down the sides of mountains who bowed before this man, and the waterfalls that mocked emotion as if they were the tears of the ground herself.
She could see that he suppressed the shivers that only the cold of Hell can bring, and she ached within her soul at the knowledge that the mountains cried as they bowed down for him, because all of earth seemed to realize that he had become its Atlas, and he was too strong to let it fall.
And yet too weak to survive it. So all of existence had become aware that their savior was dead.
His hands, rough with the knowledge of death and saving and smoke and blood and strength and pain and acceptance and the insatiable need to protect and the rough-hewn and sore knowledge that they would still yet fail- yes, those hands- were buried deep within his hair; supporting his head as only sinner hands could, and trembling as only a God-filled hand can.
She was hesitant to interrupt, despite the wild and unquenchingly painful need to do so. He looked like a man broken, but a man that knew he needed to not be broken. A man who was depended upon.
And the room was too large for her to cross; how was she to close this distance, that gnawed and gaped with its inky blackness that felt like oil on her skin and poison in her lungs. There was too much distance between him and her, and suddenly she felt like the sinner, sitting in the shadows quietly and greedily eating up the site of something so great as him.
He felt like salvation in that moment, swathed in the yellow-cream sheets that seemed as if reflecting his very presence, like a lone lightning bug trying to stave off the blackness of the entire night. Her substitute sun in everything that had become of her life; and she knew then that was why she was the sinner. Thrusting more weight onto Atlas was cruel indeed, and she was too weak to stop it from happening.
But she could ease this burden, this one sand grain. And no darkness was going to stop her, for suddenly she knew she would follow this man into her death, if only to be there night after night for him in his most dire despairs.
She finally had a reason to be traveling with these brothers who were together the moon and the stars and the collision of all known matter- the creators and dividers of universes- should they decide, on a whim, to begin life with a well-placed lightning bolt, or end galaxies with a single miss-placed atom.
The ink swirled around her, and she could feel it at the edges of her clothes, trying to pull her back into itself; could feel it swirling around her as if she herself was made of smoke and death. She walked towards him, and let his light envelop her until she could see the pink-red of her blood through her skin.
She sat there next to him until he looked up, and she could see within his eyes the war of Heaven and Hell, knowing that these were memories and not wild fears created in moments of silence.
"No, Dean. I need you here," tears fell from her eyes, and she could feel the weight of Judgement falling upon her, and Hell lapping at her feet, clawing at her insides and laughing at the audacity of her selfishness. The quiet was too long, and she feared she had failed him, had said the wrong thing, had pushed him too far.
"I see their faces," he whispered, and she knew then that he needed to have just one person that relied on him; just one he could focus on, and Sam had been pulling away; there was no one to tell, no one who leaned on him as if a support beam to his pillar.
"You always will," she felt a wretch saying it, feeling the knife twist in her gut and knowing it twisted in his as well. His eyes closed, and his breath came out in a gentle hitch; they had both known that wasn't what he wanted her to say. She knew it would bring acceptance, and he knew it would bring more doubt. She could feel him begin to pull away from their conversation, to try and put himself together for her sake, and she was deathly afraid that in doing so she would see him dead.
Her arms wrapped around his neck so suddenly that he didn't have time to jerk away, and she pulled his head down to her shoulder, burying her face in his hair. "No, Dean," her voice cracked, and she felt the villain again for making him live through this outside of his dreams, "I need you here."
She couldn't see his face, and so she didn't know if he understood her words, but she felt another ragged breath in and the hot air of a soft sob tickle her neck.