Vascuity
Characters: Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester, Castiel, and Reader, unnamed "him"
Warnings: death, sadness, angst, a good cry, the void of what missing a person does to oneself, basically SFW
Word Count: I have no idea because I'm on mobile
A/N: Personal, first time writing in a lifetime; all mistakes are mine alone.
Death came too easily to you and those that surrounded the pyre; the biting odor of burned flesh, the scattering ashes kissing your wet cheeks, the distance of each body a mere arm's length, but miles too far from your reach.
Dean knows death too well, Sam too. Cas, well, millennia have come and gone and he's seen more death than the three of of you combined. Yet, each time you lose a fellow hunter, friend, or today, a loved one, the only blood relation you had left, it was like the first time all over again. Ripping that bandaid, whether fast or slow, always stung.
Arms heavy from chopping the logs for the fire, your sweat mixes with tears; the only hydration your chapped lips absorb. The heft of his body, the sheer contrast of the lily white linen that shrouds his bruised and bloodied features, feels foreign to your calloused, aged fingers. When was the last time you held something so soft, so innocuous?
Maybe when Sam had tossed you a spare flannel? Perhaps when Cas' pristine trenchcoat merely brushed against your fingertips as he seamlessly floated past? Then again, maybe it was the time Dean's thumb wiped away a lone tear? Each gentle in their own way.
Yet, in this moment, the air is bleak and cold, your fingertips, shriveled from the dampness in the air, clutching onto the gasoline canister, trembling and sloshing liquid fire atop his fallen body.
The memories of softer moments elude you.
You're empty and full to excess all at the same time, you're stoic yet bereft, you stand tall yet you're falling to pieces on the inside.
The void is neverending. It's suffocation and gasping for breath. It's the stitching up of raw skin and the tearing of the same stitches simultaneously. You feel consumed by grief and anger yet you find yourself laughing like a madwoman in the face of another death.
The pain a constant reminder that it had come close for you, but too close for him.
The first swipe of the lighter, it hiccups, and you rub your thumb across it again, this time the vacuum of the void creates a sound like nothing you ever heard before, the lighter, albeit small, feels like a stone ton inbetween your fingers.
Those miles apart, yet within an arm's length, gather closer, their warmth, their mere presence, suffocating yet comforting. Dean stands off to your left, Sam, rests a gentle giant of a hand across the width of your back, while Castiel's trenchcoat once again ghosts across your fingertips.
With their silent power and your masked bravery, the lighter is tossed into the foggy air landing atop his chest.
The void consumes you and evades you. The heat and licks of the flames warm you, yet scorch another memory into the battered skin of your soul.
Yet it's easy just the same and maybe, just maybe, that's what scares you the most.
