Five Years Later

Chapter Eighteen: The Heartbreak

Cas threw himself down on the cement, sliding forward on the slicked surface as rain pelted him from all directions. He could still taste Dean's kiss on his lips, tingling warmly amid the bitter shock that had overcome his mind and body. He was screaming, but had long since lost his voice, so now he was left to choke on the frigid air that accompanied the rain.

He crawled forward on his hands and knees, unable to find the strength to stand, convulsing from the dry sobs that racked his weak body. The edge of the roof drew closer and Cas began to scramble for it, praying that by some miracle, Dean was still alive. Perhaps he had caught onto the stairwell as he fell, or survived the fall and had already escaped the walkers below.

Cas reached the edge and looked over, seeing nothing but a sea of walkers drenched in blood and rain. He cried out, placing a hand over his heart only to brush against the tie that Dean had just put there less than five minutes ago. He wanted to die. He wanted to throw himself over the edge of that building and plummet to his doom so that he could lose the emptiness that threatened to consume his entire being. Negan, of all people, held him back with the chains that were still locked around Cas' wrists.

"Come on, Novak." Negan muttered. Behind him stood Jess, holding the barbed wire bat in her shaking hands so that Negan was free to restrain Cas. "Let's get you home."

***

Everything passed by in a dizzying blur. The chains were undone from Cas' wrists, falling to the ground with a sickening thud. Jess was made sick by how much she was crying, her red dress clinging to her frail body as it became soaked by the driving rain. Cas was listless, overcome with shock, and all he was given for his troubles was a blanket around his shoulders to guard him from the cold and a stack of letters which were weathered by age.

"He wrote you these. Delivered them by hand. The bastard was smart enough to find our base right after we took you in. We told him to never come by again, but every year at around the same time, he would stop in with a new letter for you. He always asked if you had written him one in return. We never read them, or gave them to you for that matter, because you didn't have what it took to be one of my soldiers unless you stopped loving Dean Winchester." Negan sounded almost saddened as he passed Cas the letters, which were, to his credit, still sealed.

Cas received them wordlessly and managed, after several minutes of staring doubtfully at the envelopes, to ask Negan if he could stay for a few days and wait out the storm. Negan begrudgingly agreed in the one kind instance he had bequeathed to anyone since the apocalypse had begun, and referred Cas to the prison block. The roof and fourth floor had been deemed structurally unstable, and Negan had temporarily relocated the Saviors to the cells below.

***

It was dark in the cells, just as it had been since he had been locked in there with Dean. Cas placed the letters on the floor and arranged them by year. He distinguished this by dating the envelopes themselves, which varied by condition from less yellowed to extremely so. The letters were addressed from 'Winchester' to 'Novak,' in a painstakingly professional script that appeared to be typed, which was impossible given their circumstances. Cas couldn't bring himself to smile, even as he imagined Dean, in all of his glorious health, struggling to write those two words so neatly on the paper.

The light flickered above him, buzzing quietly as it did so, but Cas couldn't bring himself to be bothered by it. He was trying desperately to remember every intricate detail of Dean so that he would never forget, or if he did, he could at the very least recall the most important parts of the man he loved. Dean's eyes were green but not just green. They were the color of the leaves of trees when they first were born from the branches in the springtime, the light of the sun dancing off their soft surfaces. His hair was a sweet golden brown, the kind that comes from lying about on long summer days, basking in the glow from the sunshine. His freckles peppered his face like stars strewn artfully across the expanse of a galaxy, studding cheeks that were rosy from health.

He refused to remember Dean as he was in his final weeks: sick, bruised, and weak. He chose to know only image of the man that night when they had first danced in the glow from the kitchen light, swaying back and forth to their song, or when Dean had sang to it on the Impala's radio and Cas pretended to be asleep so he would keep singing.

When the night has come ... and the land is dark ...

Everything was full of shadows when Dean wasn't there to fight then away with his warmth. Cas closed his eyes. Dean had smelled like leather, pie, and whiskey. Cas remembered loving it.

And the moon is the only light we'll see ...

The light overhead flickered once again, shadows flitting across Cas' closed eyes as it did so. Dean had tasted like a sweet bourbon or a shitty beer from Gas N' Sip—there was no in-between. He simply emulated what he had last drank—there was always something. Cas never cared for the taste of alcohol, but when it came to Dean, it was more than okay. Now, after he was gone, it remained a bittersweet memory.

No I won't be afraid, no I won't be afraid ...

Dean had a smile that could make anyone happy. It lit up a room when by some rare miracle, Dean shared it with someone. He had smiled less and less as the days had grow colder and he had become more ill. Cas tried to picture Dean smiling in his mind, but it wasn't the same. No rush of joy was felt in his chest—he was still as numb as before.

Just as long as you stand, stand by me.

Cas was afraid of forgetting. He didn't mean to, and perhaps if he had thought about it for more than a split second, he would have changed his mind, but he did the unthinkable. He reached for the first envelope, which he had promised he would not open in order to maintain whatever sanity he was still holding onto. The paper was creased and weathered from age, and when he tore the seal, it ripped easily beneath his gentle tug. There, in Negan's cell and in the flickering light from the bulb above, Cas began to read the letter that Dean had tried to deliver to him five years ago.