sleepless

Notes: Been on a rewatch. Obvs I'm on s7 right now. Wrote this instead of working on my dcbb, but hey! At least I'm posting something!

(Heads up for mention of drinking.) (Also, I consider this destiel, since it's... well, you'll see, but also, it's sort of destiel-lite, too.)

For the purposes of this fic, Emmanuel (Cas) can sense emotions/pain from others. (I don't know exactly how far the "sense longing" thing established from 10x10 goes, but yeah, anyway...)

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He was cold. No, hot. What—

Cold. Cold sweats.

Emmanuel awoke quite suddenly, blinking awake and staring up at the dark ceiling of the bedroom. His heart pounded; his chest was tight. It hurt. He shivered as he slid out of bed, pulling his shirt away from his chest uncomfortably and shaking it out. Drenched in sweat.

On the other side of the bed, Daphne made a noise in her sleep and turned to the middle of the bed, her arms curled toward the empty side he'd left. She didn't wake up.

He changed quickly and left the bedroom, wandering out to sit in the living room for no real reason other than that he didn't think he'd be able to get back to sleep tonight. It was 4:09 in the morning.

Every now and then, on nights like these, a particular ache would radiate through Emmanuel, so strongly it surprised him every time that it wasn't a real, physical pain. It was a psychic pain, somebody else's misery echoing through him.

He could feel others' hurt. This was different. This was... magnified. Somehow. This hurt him, too. It was as if he saw other pain through a window.

But this? This was viewed in front of a mirror. It doubled the sting, doubled the burning.

He took several deep breaths and tightened his hands on the arms of the chair, bracing himself through it. Like the other times, it would eventually be softened to a duller, muted ache. The pain wouldn't go away, but it was as if whoever it belonged to was doing what they could to drown it. Stuff it down. Perhaps self-medicating, as he knew people often did. Food or drugs. Sleep or alcohol.

I'm sorry, Emmanuel thought, leaning his head back into the back of the headrest of the chair and shutting his eyes tightly. I wish I could find you. I wish I could help you.

-

Daphne lied in bed quietly, unsure what to do. It was 4:30 in the morning and she didn't know exactly why her husband had woken up in a cold sweat for the third time this week.

She knew something was going on. Something beyond the mysterious force that had led her to finding him, that had Emmanuel able to heal people and to feel their pain. Something was affecting him. There was something he was missing, deep inside on a level she would never be able to access.

Oh, he'd said there wasn't. She'd asked him if he had any memories from his previous life, and he didn't remember anything. But there had to be something there. Maybe he didn't consciously remember it, but something within him was incomplete. She knew he was unhappy, no matter how well he masked it.

Emmanuel disagreed with her. He said that if he was melancholic, he didn't mean to be—that sometimes the echoes of other people's feelings were hard to carry, that they weighed on him occasionally. And he tried to separate his own feelings from theirs, but it got difficult.

Daphne didn't think so. At least, not all the time. There was something else there. Something eating away at him on a level he didn't recognize on the surface, but was no less traumatic.

But she didn't know what it was, and it killed her. She didn't know how to help, because she didn't know what she needed to do to help him.

When they'd married, Daphne had promised to love and cherish him, and she had. He'd promised the same. But as she lied there, hands curling over the edge of the sheets, she wondered with growing uncertainty if his heart would ever truly be his own to give away.

-

Sam had finally managed to get to sleep hours ago, but Dean couldn't. He'd lied there, listening as his brother's breathing gradually evened out on the other side of the room, and yet here he was, still awake.

After a while, Dean had gotten up and taken a seat at the hotel's wobbly little table near the TV. He'd checked a few different sources for strange accidents, possible hauntings, regular ghost or monsters sightings, anything new about the Leviathans... But no, nothing.

It figured. Here he had a long stretch of hours to kill, and there was no work to bury himself in. Keep his mind occupied and out of danger.

He ended up with the last bit of whiskey left. There wasn't much—he'd have to remember to pick something up tomorrow. Anything.

The silence of the hour was loud, wearing on him, pushing his defenses down. Too much to think about. Too much to grieve.

Sam's disintegrating stability, the way he tried to keep Dean from seeing how many times he pressed at that hand scar when he was clutching at reality. Bobby, gone, their last link at a family severed.

And Cas...

Cas.

Dean stared blindly at the computer, taking another drink. The screen of the laptop was too bright, too annoying at this hour. Cas, betraying them, shattering Sam's mind before raining hell on heaven and earth. Cas, returning bloodied and desperate for redemption. Cas, eyes pleading with him moments before—before—

The vessel. Dripping black and bitter into the water. Cas, gone.

The fucking bottle was empty. Dean glared at it in the harsh light of the computer as if it were the whiskey's fault there was none left.

He shut the laptop and returned to his own bed, but the alcohol had only dulled him. He had a feeling he'd be lucky to get any sleep at all tonight.

There was too much on his mind, but it really didn't matter if he slept or stayed awake. Because it was 4:53 in the morning and his nightmares were real.