Okay, so I don't really know what this is, but it came out of my computer keyboard while I was desperately procrastinating from Physics revision. It might be truly shocking, and I apologise if it is so, but hey, I was feeling depressing, so why not? Might need to add by the way, character death is, like, the whole theme of this, so don't like don't read. Also, destiel. Okay, I'll shut up now.

Dean didn't know.

That's what Castiel has to hang onto.

Dean did not know.

None of them did.

He can't believe he overlooked it. It's proof, really, that he was becoming truly human, human enough to avoid the problems no one wants to discuss. Because an angel would have noticed straight away, and an angel would have healed.

A human would have looked the other way and cried, if they ever found out at all, because they are stupid, all of them stupid, and Castiel sometimes wants to beat himself into the ground for what he has done. Or what he did not do in time.

Leaving for what he did not know was the last time, and not looking back long enough to see that Dean needed him. Hearing Sam's prayers, but not paying attention enough to return and save his beautiful, stupid Righteous Man. Returning to find a body salted and burned and a soul long gone, and the sharp, watery pain in the eyes of the brother he should have helped.

An audience with the angels was worthless. They owed Dean Winchester nothing, they told him, and his soul had been delivered to where they saw fit. And, they added, it was not Castiel's place to demand entrance to heaven, hell, or purgatory. He had given up angelic rights a long time ago.

Castiel raged.

The storms that wreaked the area lasted for three days and nights, and after they were over, he was run dry. With nothing but stupid, pathetic humanity left, and the ache of a love unfulfilled.

So now, every day, he goes to the Impala (Sam never uses it anymore, the memories too painful to bear), and sits on it, and says sorry.

Sorry to the world, for leaving it without the best hunter it ever had.

Sorry to Sam and Bobby, for not seeing it sooner.

Sorry to Dean, for leaving.

Sorry to Dean, for not seeing the sickness twisting its way through him.

Sorry to Dean, for not coming back until it was far too late.

And sorry to Dean, for leaving the whispered 'I love you' until the one person who needed to hear it was beyond his reach.

Dean didn't know.

That's what Castiel has to hang onto.

Dean did not know.

So, crap? Okayish? Whatever you thought, please let me know! And thanks for reading :)

Iliketotastetherainbow x