What's the Reference?

For once, among all the demonic activity, angelic interference, and plans to stop impending disasters, you and the Winchester brothers finally have a "normal" job. Just a few stray vampires rampant in the city that the three of you wasted no time in leaving Bobby's house to give chase to in a city only a few hours away.

Unfortunately, it wasn't just a "normal" job like the three of you thought. Well, it was at first. Until the angels caught wind of hunter activity and found you all. The very same angels that want to force Dean into consenting to be Michael's vessel, bring about the apocalypse, and allow Sam to become Lucifer's bitch all for the sake of God's will or whatever.

You don't really have a prime role to play in the whole end of the world, since that honor seems to be reserved strictly for Winchesters. Maybe that's why the angels didn't care what happened to a seemingly random dude, hunter or not. The angels don't have many qualms about what truly happens to humans, just if it follows along with God's plan, what they deem to be fate and destiny.

The angels didn't arrive in their vessel forms like usual. Instead, their true forms lay waiting, showing up gradually as you, Dean, and Sam walked back to the Impala, blood drying on your clothes and knives. You heard their divine voices first, or what you know to be their voices, but sound like endless high-pitched screeching.

They somehow managed to reign in for Dean and Sam, perhaps because of their importance, but not for you.

All three of you simultaneously collapse to your knees, gravel biting sharply through the fabric of your jeans, digging in harshly. Your hands immediately go to cover your ears out of instinct even though they barely block out any of the ear piercing noise. You see Dean and Sam do the same. There's the distant sound of screaming that doesn't match the angelic chorus of knives against chalkboards. You can't tell if it's coming from you or one of the brothers.

The few surrounding lights turn off in a violent crash of sparks as their bulbs explode, glass clattering to the ground. You flinch on the ground, hands pressing tighter to your ears to no avail, ad you're casted in darkness.

But the dark doesn't last long as light quickly begins forming, not from the broken bulbs, but from seemingly everywhere, illuminating the gravel you're curled on, Dean and Sam in similar positions, the Impala waiting patiently only a few yards away, and the trees and buildings where you fought vamps only ten minutes ago.

You realize a little too late what's happening. Too distracted by the noise clawing at your brain, rupturing your eardrums, you fail to realize it's the light angels cast off when they're in their true forms.

Your eyes begin to burn, as if you stuck your lighter aflame straight into your sockets. A hoarse cry leaves your throat and you can tell now that's it's been you screaming this whole time. As the light brightens more, you manage to clamp your eyes shut, pressing them closed with all your might as you shove your hands even firmer against your ears.

Everything hurts. The scratch on your arm where a vampire managed to claw you, the bruises on your knees from falling to the ground, your ears and head that are alight with agony from the neverending cacophony of angelic torture, and your eyes that still feel like they're burning. You curl further into yourself, your shouts drowning in the sheer volume of the angels. Light grows last your eyelids and you wonder how long this will last, how long you've been on the ground, and whether this is where you'll die. The angels have never appeared like this, and you wonder if Dean and Sam are okay.

Then, the light extinguishes, the noise that assaulted you ends, and you're left with a loud static in your brain. Your body hurts and feels numb all at the same time, like your mind can't figure out what happened to it. You feel the gravel pressing against you and realize your body slumped over completely, laying in a ball right on the ground instead of on your knees.

Distantly, you hear the clanging of metal on metal, the sound of flesh being hot and impaled, and familiar shouts, but you can't make out their words. Everything is quiet but for the static in your brain. Oh you just wish that would go away, change the channel, fix the connection.

"Y/n?" A rough, familiar voice says, but you think you're imagining it at first. It's too quiet to be real, it's volume doesn't combat the noise drowning out your thoughts.

"Y/n?!" Another yells, louder this time. You feel your body being shaken, gravel dragging against your skin and your headache flare. Involuntarily, a soft pained groan leaves your throat.

"Gentle," the first voice says. You feel your body being lifted slightly off the ground and laid against something both firm and soft. Much more comfortable than the ground. "The angels had much more of an effect on him than you two," the voice explains. Rough, calloused palms take your hands away from your ears, and you hear a sharp inhale as liquid trickles from your ears. You feel the stickiness of it on your hands. And now that you think about it, you feel it trickling from your nose, too. How long....

"What? Why?" A new voice says, responding to the other, but the voice is not new, you know it, you know them all. They're just too quiet and everything else is too loud.

Careful hands brush the gravel and dust off your body. "Likely because of your importance as true vessels. Y/n does not carry such high regard."

"Fuck," the second voice says. Dean. Which makes the third voice Sam, and the first voice...

Fingers gently pry your eyelids open, and you're surprised when your met with darkness still. There's a dim figure of someone above you, whoever's holding you, but you can't make out any details.

"Y/n," Castiel says.

"Cas?" You whisper, your voice hoarse.

"Yes, it's me. How are you feeling?"

A painful chuckle leaves your lips. "Like shit."

"That would make sense. You did just hear and partly see angels uninhibited. Tell me, can you see?"

"See?" Your voice cuts out. "N-no. A little but not really "

Castiel hums and you hear Dean and Sam erupt in panic and anger. The same fingers that opened your eyes rest on your forehead and you suddenly feel a rush of energy flow through your body. You gasp, your body seizing for a brief moment before your vision clears, returning to fill clarity and the static in your head clears completely, like someone muted the television. You even feel the cut from your earlier fight and the gravel heal, too.

You look up and are met with Castiel's ocean blue eyes staring into yours. Behind him, Dean and Sam stare at you with wide, surprised and relieved eyes.

"Hey guys," you say, your voice no longer hoarse.

"Hey man," Dean sighs. "You had us worried there for a second."

"Longer than a second," Castiel adds. "You were screaming for about two minutes before I arrived then five more as I killed the angels responsible." Castiel looks over you before reaching up and wiping blood away from both of your ears. You look at it in surprised before wiping your nose, staring at your hand I'm shock as you see it stained in blood all over. Your blood. "I'm glad my healing worked," Castiel continues. "Sometimes angelic harm is harder to reverse."

"Thanks, Cas," you say, looking back at him. "Appreciate it a lot. I owe you."

You turn your focus to Sam and Dean. "Are you two okay?"

They both nod. "Yeah," Sam says, "like Castiel said, the angels hit you harder. When they finally took vessels, they tried to target you, but we recovered enough to help Cas fight them off."

Castiel nods. "Yes, without Sam and Dean, I would have been outnumbered seven to one."

"Damn," you mumble. You shift, trying to stretch your sore muscles then realize you're still in Castiel's lap. You murmur apologies as you stand up unsteadily, Sam and Dean snickering at your awkwardness. You send them a glare as Castiel stand beside you, making sure you don't fall over, oblivious to the Winchester's teasing and your slight fluster.

"Are you alright?" Castiel asks.

"Yep!" You says quickly, ignoring Sam and Dean. "Now let's get back on the road! I want to get out of here as soon as possible."

The others nod and you resume walking to the Impala. Your steps are a little unsteady, but Castiel is still by your side, keeping an eye on you. You wonder why he hasn't disappeared yet, flown off to who knows where, but you welcome his presence.

Your shift had technically ended about half an hour ago, but an infinite amount of paperwork and patients kept you in the emergency room. Walking around like a corpse, your day continued to stretch on, so when you finally had a moment of freedom, you didn't waste it. Your feet guided you before your mind could catch up about where exactly they were taking you, and by the time you realized, you were already standing on the hospital's roof.

It's calm up here. Sure, the city is wide awake despite the late time, with its shouting people and honking cars down below, but it's open and freeing. Taking a deep breath, not minding the faint smell of smoke from who knows where and pollution, you feel more at ease up here than down below cramped between injured patients with holes in their heads or something stabbed through their stomach.

It's not the first time you've found yourself standing at the edge. In both a literal and metaphorical sense. There's been times where you have a patient, and, looking down at them lying on the operating table or a hospital bed, you know there's nothing more you can do. That's one of the worst feelings in the world: knowing that despite years of training, experience, hard work, and pain of your own, you can't save everyone. Not to mention the heart break of the loved ones you have to tell afterwards. There's been times after shifts that you've come up to this very same roof, or the roof of your apartment building, and stood there, looking down at a world who doesn't know you're in it and only delivers you more pain and exhaustion in exchange for sleepless days and nights, no social life, and an insane amount of student debt.

You've given what feels like everything just to have a stable life, but you can even have that it seems. Not when you work in the emergency room. Not when others' lives depend on you. Not when you hold mortality in one hand and your last shred of sanity and happiness in the other.

You take a deep breath as you crawl through the railing and stand on the other side, no longer protected from the dizzying height. You didn't expect to die today, then again, it's not a thing that someone can just tell at any given time. It creeps up on you, like a bug in the dark. Depression and stress over the years will do that to people, including you.

"Dana was looking for you," a voice suddenly says from behind you. You startle slightly, but your grip is secure on the railing. You hadn't even heard the footsteps approach on the concrete behind you. "Didn't really expect to find you up here. Maybe that's why I looked."

You turn around and see none other than your attending standing on the other side of the railing, looking at you with veiled concern. "Hey, Robby," you say casually.

Robby raises an eyebrow. "That's all you have to say?"

"What else am I supposed to say?" You shrug.

"Maybe why you're up here?" Robby asks, leaning on the railing beside you.

"To get a break," you answer. You honestly can't tell if that's the truth or not.

Robby hums and a second later, does the last thing you expected him to. He goes under the railing and joins you on the other side. The wrong side. The side closer to falling, to never making it back inside unless it's as a corpse.

You stare at him with wide, surprised eyes. He looks at you and huffs in amusement. "What?"

"I just didn't expect you to... to be here."

"Well, you aren't the first person to come up here when things get tough," Robby admits, leaning back against the railing. "Although, I didn't expect you to be the next one to enjoy the sights. You've always seemed like the kind of guy to have his shit together."

You exhale a breathy laugh. "Yeah, well, I guess trying to hide everything's working pretty well for me then."

Robby looks at you expectantly, but you have him off. "Nah, I'm not... I'm not going to randomly vent to my attending."

"I wouldn't say this is very random. A lots happened today. I could see that you're exhausted, maybe even more so than the rest of us. If you wanna talk, you can, otherwise, we have social workers available," Robby says, and despite his usual tone, you can tell he's genuinely trying to help you.

You shake your head. "I'm fine. It's nothing. Or maybe it's everything. Nothing really explainable, you know?"

You look out at the city in front of you. It stretches as far as you can see. An infinite numbers of lives, miseries, possibilities, and patients. The night is beautiful but in it await the horrors in the dark, whether it be muggers, accidents, simple mistakes, or a body falling from a rooftop.

You've handled your fair count of suicide attempts in your career, and while you'd hate for your coworkers to handle your own, that excuse isn't working so much anymore.

"I'm just so tired," you whisper, not even sure why you said it or if Robby heard you.

But you know he did, because the next thing he says makes you almost lose your grip on the railing.

"If you want to jump, I'll jump with you."

You whip your head around so quickly to look at your boss, the man who you sometimes see washing tears off his face in the bathroom, who you watch save patient after patient, taking all the hard cases, and not hesitating to tell the family so the others don't have to. You see the way Dana and Abbott watch him, careful, wary, like Robby is one step away from doing something he may regret.

"What?" Your voice is small and meek.

Robby stares straight ahead, as if he didn't just offer to commit suicide with you. "You're a good and capable doctor. This ER needs you. I understand how hard it is to get through the days, I really do," Robby pinches the bridge of his nose, wiping his face with a hand. "And sometimes I want to just let go, too, but this isn't always the answer. But if you really want to, if you know this is what you want to do, then I'll go with you."

You stare at Robby incredulously. "Why?"

"Maybe I need an excuse. Maybe I'm trying to make you rethink this and not jump. Maybe I'm overthinking that you will. Or maybe I just don't want either of us to be alone." Robby shrugs and looks at you. You can see the faint hint of tears in his eyes, like he was either crying earlier or he's trying to not cry now.

You look at your attending, a man who tries to always be fine, but obviously isn't. You knew the moment he showed up behind you just a few minutes ago that you wouldn't be jumping tonight. You aren't capable of putting such a sight, such guilt on another person. And his offer, you'd never take him up on it, and you realize that part of Robby's plan worked. He's trapped you, and maybe also himself by admitting such truths and tying your fates together.

You sigh, taking a deep breath of cold night air. "Best get inside," you say, "it's getting cold. Plus, Dana's probably wondering where we are."

Robby looks at you with a faint smile, a hint of pride in his eyes, and maybe just a tad of disappointment, like he was hoping you'd let him go. But you can't. The ER needs him, too, even more than it needs yourself, despite what Robby said.

The both of you go back to the other side of the railing, now protected from the looming promise of flying out into the city, free of ticket.

You walk back inside with Robby, the two of you silently agreeing not to talk about your conversation on the roof and the reason you both were really up there in the first place. As you reach the ER again, ready to finally clock out with the intent of returning tomorrow, you send Robby one last small smile, hoping he knows he's not alone, whether or not he's standing at the edge of the roof.