Carry On

Two teenagers sitting on a bench, away from the playground of children beyond them. One is waving his hands wildly, pantomiming fighting. 

“ - and then Spider-Man just swoops in and flings this manhole cover and smashes through, like, half the rockets and right into the Rhino’s head, and it throws him into a wall and right through the building, and - ”

“Whoa, wait,” the other says, “I already know all this stuff.”

“You - what, you did?” A suspicious look crosses the teen’s face. “Why’d you ask me about Spider-Man, then?” 

“Cause I wanted to hear about him!”

“You just said you knew everything already!”

“Well, yeah, but I mean...” the taller teen runs a hand through his hair, skewing it to the side, “I guess I should have said it better. I want to hear about the guy behind the mask.”

“Dude, I don’t know a lot about Peter Parker, I don’t know if I can help you th-”

A friendly cuff on the shoulder cuts him off. “Not Peter Parker. C’mon, man.” The teenager pushes his glasses up his nose, and sits forwards eagerly. “Tell me about you.”

“What, really?”

“Really. That’s who makes Spider-Man what he is.”

Action and Consequence. Judgement and Punishment. They learn, and they grow. They watch, and they mourn. They wonder what Castiel's choice was. They ask, and are given no answers. They search, and find nothing. They listen, and there is silence, a screaming quiet where once Castiel's Grace sang strong and true. They see the Righteous Man emerge from the black, a darkness of his own against his heart. They touch Earth once more, and follow him, he who is alone. They sense nothing of Castiel. 

Dean Winchester says he let go. 

"Revolution," the angel whispers, and Dean is afraid. Afraid for his brother, for himself, but most of all for this angel of the Lord. There is Heaven's wrath and Hell's fire and Dean knows that both will scorch the wings of the angel when he walks this path. He offers his strength and hopes it is enough.

"Resurrection," his friend murmurs, eyes lit up in awe. Dean swallows hard and nods, but he knows that his angel should not be alive. The thing that brought him back is not supposed to exist, and it scares him, so Dean holds the shaking angel close and promises to never let him go.

"Redemption," Castiel says, and it is the last thing Dean hears before he stumbles to his hands and knees on Earth.

            And then there are the other times, when you would give up yourself if only you were normal, average, the Jane Doe that walks the streets and never blinks twice, and the word different becomes a poison, and you are strange and odd and unsettling, and the voices that cry against you brand your skin in dark strokes, covering your own eyes until you are blind and deaf and senseless to what made you, you, and all you want is normal.

You cannot have normal.

Once War tried to follow after Death, and the mountains rent themselves from where they stood and flung themselves deep into the Pit, and so never again was there an attempt of this.

Death also follows after Pestilence, and Famine, and this makes War grow hot with jealousy, until he whips a battle into a frenzy so that Death must come quickly. Sometimes Death chastises him, but War does not care, for he hears Death speak and is calmed by his voice.

Death does not ever stop speaking. He finds where the Veil between worlds is thinnest, where it is crumbling away, and whispers into the Earth of what will come. Some hear him, and some refuse to listen, but all know that what he says is true. War always hears him. War always listens.

But, more than all, he fears. He fears that when he looks back, he will not see Death. He fears that he will be alone, lost among the bloodshed and screaming men, and that the slaughter will rage on forever. Death brings Peace, and Peace is all that War has as reprieve.

War is tired, and weary, and ready to rest. He is old and scarred and bloody. He has seen more atrocities than he can remember. He longs for Peace. He longs for Death.

But Death will only follow him if he is War, and so he chooses to carry on.

And maybe she hadn't been alone - he had no way of knowing whether or not someone took her hand and whirled her troubles away. Steve swallowed uncomfortably, and set the cards on the table.

He didn't know, would never know what had really happened after he had vanished. There were reports and files and pretty explanations, but he would never know what it was truly like, to think someone was dead. That a friend was gone.

Well, he thought, as his eyes slid to the bed next to him, maybe he did know a little. Had felt it for a few weeks, at least.

He knows Scott doesn't pick up on it, because Stiles hides it well. He's good at that, hiding. He hid from the bullies at school and from his mother's death and from his own grief. He hid his hurt from his father and his fears from his friends and his cowardice from himself.

He hid most of it, that is, until last night. Stiles can see the worry in Scott's eyes, and remembers how he almost broke that night, confessing on the bench to Scott.

He'd meant every word, every piece. He can't do the things Scott does - because Scott is brave. Brave and foolish and a hero, and a thousand times better than Stiles will ever be, because all Stiles can do is make a mess and watch others suffer for it.

But Scott doesn't know this. All Scott knows is that Jackson is a wolf now, and Allison is safe, and the hunters have stopped hunting him. That there's something far worse coming, and Erica and Boyd have gone rogue, and that his mom is in on the secret now.

Stiles can see the stress in his eyes, and the tension in his shoulders. He can see that telling Scott that his friend almost died would only add more weight on shoulders, and stir up the guilt brewing inside.

So when he says it, he wraps it up in false offense. Just silly Stiles, wanting to be noticed and secure in his position all at once. A Stiles that Scott is used to, is familiar with, that brushes up comfortably next to him and lets him breathe, because he knows that all is still right in his world, and Stiles is watching his back.

Stiles understands this, and even if some of it is hiding, he does it anyways. It's what Scott needs, and Stiles cares for his own. 

So when he hears the guns ring out around them, bouncing off the rocks and drilling into the ground at their feet, he knows he's only got once chance left to die with two out of three completed. He musters up his courage, launches himself in Lydia's general direction, and locks lips with the first things he finds.

Which turns out to be Derek Hale, already wolfed out and staring down at him huge red eyes.

Stiles whimpers. Mostly in fear, but also because, hey, surprise to end all surprises, kissing Derek isn't all that bad, even with the fangs and the fur.

Brutally smart, in fact - his biggest source of pride. He could take apart an equation and put it back together before most students had taken out their pencils. Nothing escaped him, nothing.

He thinks that this is why it hurts so much when he watches the ambulance driving away, a punch to the gut for every second it trundles off. 

Why hadn't he seen it coming? How could he have missed the signs, the reasons that Jackson had -

He closes his eyes and counts to ten.

It doesn't help the hollowness in his chest.

He'd loved Jackson, loved him like a brother. They'd grown up together, played together, studied together. They'd known everything about each other.

Or, at least, he'd thought they did.

Now Jackson was zipped up in a body bag, and Danny was standing alone on the field, staring at the blood on the grass.

Jackson had stabbed himself. Stabbed himself, with his own hand. Danny had seen the blood on his fingers, and the holes in his stomach.

Not much gets past him.

Danny swallows past the lump in is throat, and sits down hard. The dew soaks into his uniform, and for one wild moment, he thinks it's Jackson's blood.

But it's not, and he knows.

Why hadn't he known Jackson would do it?

Do not come out.

Why hadn't he pressed harder? Asked more questions?

If you see me coming towards you, run the other way.

Why hadn't he seen it sooner? Seen the weariness and frustration and fear?

As fast as you can.

Why hadn't Jackson trusted him enough to come for help?

I'm dangerous.

And now he was dead.

It's thick and fresh and still gushing from Boyd's wounds and Erica chokes on it. It's flooding her throat and nose and she can taste it, feel slipping across her tongue and filling the spaces between her teeth.

It tastes like copper and fear and pain and she hates it, she loathes it, and suddenly she's back in the classroom, the sharp tang in her mouth the only warning before she's seizing on the floor, wailing silently, and everyone is leering at her, laughing and mocking and pointing -

- except now it's just Allison who's pointing, pointing a bow with vengeance in her eyes, and it's just Boyd in front if her, bleeding out across the grass as he falls, a snarl caught in his chest by an arrow, pinned down by countless more, reeking of a desperate need to protect her, the stupid girl who thought running away would solve her problems, who dragged him with her and begged him to leave her when she stumbled and hit the ground with an arrow to the leg, who was the reason his blood was spilling into the dirt and pooling beneath her head and she can't move, can't save the man who saved her first.

Is it righteous retribution, that Matt drowns? That his head is forced under the surface, and all he can breath is water, and it chokes his lungs and floods his throat and swallows every scream, every pleading breath?

Is it kismet, that he would be here again, staring up at the sky from under a sheet of water, like so many years ago? That there would be hands around his throat again, rough, calloused hands, old and still stronger than him?

He fights and twists and struggles, all while screaming for Jackson, for his fury, his hound, his friend, to save him. All he can see on the shoreline is a pair of yellow eyes, pacing at the edge of the water, but unable to go any further.

Is it fate, that his own fear finally kills him? That he prevents his own saving?

Perhaps he deserves this. Perhaps he has deserved it all along.

He steals one of the blankets of off Derek's 'room' - it looks more like a den than anything, to Stiles, but he'll die before he says it - and curls up in front of the ratty couch in the pseudo-living room. It's comfortable to his bruised frame, and he's already half-asleep when someone nudges his arm.

Dean is used to bleeding by now – he’s been torn up seven ways to Sunday, chewed on by hellhounds, and left for dead by more Big Bads than he cares to remember. He deals with death every moment that he breathes, bartering in blood and sweat and tears. He’s no stranger to any of it. So when Castiel’s scream of pain pierces the air, forces him into a stumbling run towards the angel, a part of him wonders why he’s suddenly so cold at the sight of the ragged trenchcoat, and why the glimpse of a blood-drenched side forces all the air from him.

 He drops to his knees by Cas’ side, scrabbling to pull back the layers of cloth soaked red, and he swallows hard when he sees how deep the wound goes. His eyes flit back to the angel, whose own eyes have been trained on him since he first screamed.

“Angel blade,” he mutters around the blood in his throat, and Dean’s shoulders hunch. He doesn’t know much about holy weapons, but he knows they kill, and kill quickly.  The fact that Castiel is still holding his gaze with the same intensity as ever is the only thing that lets hope bloom in his chest.

“C’mon, Cas, we have to go. Heal up, or something.” Dean hates the way his voice betrays him, breaking over the words until they’re tender and soft.

There’s a pulse in Castiel’s jaw as he tightens it, trying to shift his weight forwards and up. He barks with pain at the movement, falling back into his own blood. One hand hovers over the wound, like he doesn’t know what to do with it, is afraid to touch and cause more hurt.

“Cas!” Dean darts forwards, guiding him back down more gently, eyes flickering down as his jeans are stained red. Cas’ breathing rattles, hissing at every movement. “What’s – why –” Suddenly Dean is afraid to ask, afraid to know why Castiel is still bleeding out across the concrete and not closing up the wound like he should.

Castiel won’t meet his eyes, training them down stubbornly to where Dean is pressing against the torn flesh, trying to stop the flow of blood. “I can’t,” he says lowly. “My connection to the Host has been severed for some time now; I’m losing what little Grace I have left. I’m…” he trails off, a muscle working in his jaws as he chews over a word he can’t – won’t – say.

Dean does it for him. “Falling.” Clipped, short, to the point. Not betraying the soul-deep agony the word brings, the twisting in his gut. Fallen. Like Lucifer.

It’s a death sentence, Dean realizes, as he feels the blood ooze past his palm and continue it’s slow progress to the floor.

Gasping for air, he scrabbled forwards, pounding on his chest, trying to force his heart to pump and pulse and help him breathe -

He landed on the floor, too dizzy from the lack of oxygen to register the pain. Shuddering, he stared up at the ceiling and watched as black crept in around the edges, darkening his vision until everything was shadowed.

Stiles was going to die, and he couldn't even think straight enough to be scared.

After a handful of moments, the burning in his lungs vanished. After a half a minute, he caught the distinct smell of sulfur. After a full sixty seconds, he looked up and into a haze of rolling black smoke.

He had time for only one fleeting thought - Is this what death looked like for my mom? - and then the smoke descended on him and forced it's way down his throat.

One second, two seconds, three -

And Stiles burst upwards, choking and shaking and terrified beyond reason when something else took control of his limbs, pulling his body upright. Stiles tried to scream - and his mouth didn't so much as twitch.

Slowly his body approached the mirror over his dresser, wobbly at first, but gaining balance as it moved. His reflections was pale, sweaty, with dark rings under his eyes.

What the hell is going on? Stiles tried to say, but his mouth only quirked upwards in a sneer.

"Stupid mud-monkey," his voice muttered, raspy, and Stiles shuddered within his own mind at the venom in it.

Who are you? he tried again, and this time his face split into a grin.

"I am Asb'el," it said. "And you are dead."

In the mirror, Stiles watched as his eyes flitted to black. Darkness rushed in, and there was nothing more after that.

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