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It felt like it was only yesterday that Dean had to fish out Cas’s trench coat from that reservoir. The beige cotton was soaked but he tried folding it up anyway, it was all he had left after all. Dean had let it wet the seats of his beloved impala, dampening the vinyl of the backseat. He never let anything do that, not even a rain-soaked Sam.
He had stood at the sink back at Bobby’s for 2 hours scrubbing all of the blood stains out, making sure it was pristine, perfect, just like Cas had it. There was a small spot, right under the lapel that no matter what he used, wouldn’t wash out. Right over where the heart should be. The red-brown splotch glared at him relentlessly.
He had let the coat dry in the warm sunlight of the quiet afternoon. The wind blew through making it sway and shiver and dance. Dean made sure to fold it up neatly, with precision. He never really did laundry, always tossing it in with a few quarters and showing already crinkled flannel into duffel bags in a haste. But not this, he took his time, doing it and redoing it until it was perfect.
The folded coat seemed to burn a hole into the edge of the guest room bed. It looked so hollow and out of place, as if the unassuming garment was mocking him. Cas never took that thing off, Cas died in that coat, it was cursed, sullied, dirtied with a bad goodbye and promises never fulfilled.
Dean had been mad sure, pissed, furious, at Cas for betraying him, for being so fucking stupid, but still, seeing the man collapse in Bobby’s kitchen, welts on his beautiful face, blood all over his shirt, and so much terror in those cloudy blue eyes, what could he say?...
The way his ruined voice rasped out a final apology as he sat on the cold concrete coughing up his own blood stabbed silver knives into Dean's hardened heart. Cas was so strong. The angel who raised him from hell, the one who slammed him against walls, the one who set Micheal on fire and called him “assbutt”. But right then, with hollowed cheeks and sunken eyes, unable to even stand up on his own, Dean didn’t know what to say.
After everything Castiel did, Dean still crawled over to the brown haired angel’s body and begged him to be alive. To wake up and look at him with wide eyes and soft lips as he always did. Praying to a God he didn’t believe in that angels just didn’t need to breathe, only to get nothing but sickening silence in reward.
He had to watch Cas die three times in one day. Each time it took another chunk out of him, leaving raw, throbbing edges. An empty to remain.
The second time Cas had looked at him with those bright eyes, he was Dean’s Cas for just a moment longer. Those eyes that were impossibly blue, looking at him and no one else, as it should be. He didn’t say anything to Bobby or a lick about Sam. He said he would make it up to Dean . He had stopped, looked at him, tearing below the surface and carving the oath deep in his bones next to the anti-angel ward. A funny paradox. Because it was always Dean in the end.
He told Bobby to run, but he didn’t want to lose his Cas the moment he got him back, he didn’t want to see the anguish etched on those perfect features again or watch his back hunched over in pure agony again. But just as before, Dean couldn’t save him. And for the second time he had to watch blood ooze from the angel’s body, staining, dripping, pooling.
Dean would sit on the bed, staring blankly at the wooden dresser, unable to build the courage to open the second drawer and take out the coat. But then Bobby would call him or Sammy would cry out, and he would tear his gaze away and race downstairs to pick up everyone else's pieces. Always the fixer, the leader, the helper.
Tonight he had counted the number of steps it took from the footboard to the fabled drawer three times over. His hands trembled as he grasped the wooden knobs. The coat was as he left it, crisp folds. He gingerly peeled back the lapel and sure enough the ugly red-brown spot starred back. With shaking hands he picked it up and placed it on the quilt of a bedspread. Sitting down with a heavy sigh beside it.
Dean fiddled with his hands in his lap, starring holes in the wall. He pulled the coat towards him after almost 15 minutes and let it unfold as he held it up in front of him. The hem dragged along the dusty, worn floorboards. Tears filled Dean’s eyes for the first time in weeks, the facade falling, mask cracking, dam breaking. They danced on his delicate lashes before falling not so elegantly down his stubbled cheeks.
“C-cas, I-” he choked out before crumpling the coat desperately to his chest burying his tear stained face in it his whole body rocked back and forth, wracked by dry sobs and throat raw.
He tried as hard as he could to find the angel’s scent. Wisps of ivory soap and fresh sunday linen and a beach in winter could be found deep underneath that of the soap he used to get out the blood, iron, and the wood of its drawer. He tried to fill his lungs with it, so it would never leave him. So for just that moment he could pretend the man was looking at him quizzically with those big doe eyes and tousled chocolate hair because he didn’t understand a reference. He could pretend Cas had just materialized a bit too close to him and his permanent 5 oclock shadow rubbed against Dean’s neck as his scent filled the air. Whenever he left it still lingered.
But in reality it was just Dean sitting on someone else's bed sobbing into the trenchcoat of a dead angel.
“You stupid son of a bitch,” he sniffled taking a look at the mess he’d made of the collar. He ran his thumb over the blood-stain again and again but there was no heartbeat underneath. The coat was cold and limp in his hands.
“Dying on me like that,” Dean had never hugged the guy holding him for just a moment too long in his arms, barely thanked him for everything he gave. He never fixed the tie that irked him with a wink and a smile like he had dreamed of time and time again, and now he never could.
Cas had come back before, Dean had too, Sam had, Bobby had, but now it felt like they were fresh out of miracles. A Winchester had loved someone just a bit too much for the universe to keep them around. That’s how it went.
Dean hiccuped, wiping his nose with the back of his hand. He clenched the material in his fist, tethering him to the memory of the naive, ocean-eyed angel.
The post-crying exhaustion hit him hard and he couldn’t muster the strength to refold the coat so he simply laid it on the bed beside him, wishing its owner would fill its place.
“Dean, Sam got pizza, get down here,” Bobby yelled from the kitchen breaking Dean from his trance.
“Yeah, coming,” Dean managed to croak out. With a grunt he pulled himself up shutting his eyes tight to block out the jacket haunting his peripheral vision and dragged himself to the door for dinner.
For weeks after Dean would hold that trenchcoat close while he slept hoping in this one tiny way, Cas, his Cas, would never truly leave him.