Cursed or not (Destiel)

The burden of guilt

"I'll find some way to redeem myself to you."
Castiel to Dean

Dean used to come here when he needed to think. It was peaceful. Here he felt free. Free of everything. A strange calm seized him every time he came here. The jetty creaked under his feet and the lake swayed with the steady rhythm of the waves. A slight breeze made the reeds sough softly on the bank.

The familiar rustle of a trench coat. "Cas?"

"I'm here." Castiel was standing right next to him, his coat was blowing in the wind like a cloak. The angel appeared and immediately he felt safe again. That was absurd...

"But you're not really here, are you?"

"No", he heard him say. This here was just a dream. The angel was merely visiting. Maybe that was all that remained. Would Castiel ever return? Neither of them knew.

They were no longer the same as they had been before. Even his voice wasn't the same anymore. A voice Dean had heard so many times was now a completely different one. It was a grip on his heart, a storm in his arteries, a hot shiver that shot through his body, and an elusive tug in his groins. Everything had changed. What had been was no longer. Their ember, their heat, their fire had left nothing but a pile of ashes. They were no longer friends, no family. What would they be now? Would they ever be anything again?

For a while they gazed upon the water without saying a word and lost themselves in the imagination that they would never have to wake up, that this would never end. A moment frozen in the middle of time. In the far distance a bird sang of the last hours of the day. The trees on the other side lost themselves in the light mist, just as they lost one another.

"Dean, what I ..."

"No, don't do that", the hunter cut him off.

Castiel was silent, filled with consternation. Perhaps it was still too early. Or already too late. Would they never speak of it again and pretend nothing had happened? As if everything was the same as always? A tempting and at the same time alienating thought. But comprehensible. Maybe the thoughts of it, the memories of what had happened, were too painful. And it was Dean's right to maintain this illusion of the dream. It was his dream after all. For in their dreams, humans created worlds that belonged to them alone. Sometimes Castiel wished he could too. To dream.

"I don't want your apology", Dean faltered, "because there is nothing it could be good for."

It must have been moments like this that changed you forever. Castiel closed his eyes and fell. Fell with the hope he had been holding onto. Dean was right, an apology wouldn't change anything, wouldn't make amends. There was nothing left he could do, nothing more he could say. It was too late. He had destroyed everything. Mentally Castiel tried to say goodbye to him, but it didn't work. He wished Dean would yell at him or hit him, do anything to make it easier to leave.

However, the hunter added more quietly: "I am the one who should bear the guilt." But he did not bear it. No longer. They both knew what the angel had done.

Castiel swallowed. "That is not true."
Hesitantly, cautiously, as if the blond man could run away from him if he made a careless movement, the angel gently placed a hand on his shoulder. To his surprise, Dean didn't beat it away. They just stood there. Fragile. Vulnerable. Sensitive. It was far too much and, at the same time, far too little. They kept silent. Neither of them dared to disrupt this breakable moment. It wasn't an empty silence. The space between them was crammed with longing and memory, dismay and heavy breathing.