It's late, and they're beat.
The bunker is dim: necessary lights only.
Dean puts on Tom Waits and forgets about it, and as Sam finishes a sandwich and Cas translates, he wanders away into the beer closet and doesn't come back.
There's an end in sight. There always is, these days, but this one's weird and doesn't sit right with anyone.
Dean, in a box at the bottom of the ocean, with an archangel.
It even sounds stupid.
Not to mention, the tightest space Dean's ever been able to stand is Baby's back seat, and then only with the windows cracked. That Dean would be able to stomach an hour in the box — even on dry land, in the safety of the bunker — is dubious. Now, under the ocean? Supplied with a steady stream of his own worst memories by an angel who, if he can't destroy the world, will settle for torturing Dean, instead?
With all the gods and witches and possibilities in the world, this is the plan?
Cas marks the page where he stops and slides his translation aside.
This isn't how it ends. Not with Dean walking around like a wrong-ended magnet, repelling all of them, refusing to be approached, or to talk, or to deal, while Cas is this close to the end of seeing him forever.
He finds Dean's door unlocked.
Cas feels an uneasy roll of worry when he turns the knob and realizes it's just going to open.
Either Dean knew he was coming, or Dean knew someone would be coming, or he's panicking: an unlocked door, this time of night, this many beers in...in Dean's unspoken language, it's almost translatable as a scream, something loud enough to echo.
All the lights are off in Dean's room, except for the TV. It's a small old set, probably boosted from a shitty motel too cheap to replace it, which means that somewhere in middle America there's an empty spot on a pressboard bureau. An empty spot in the wall socket. A bill that'll never be paid, on a credit card that doesn't exist.
It must remind Dean of home.
Cas doesn't recognize what he's watching. There's a woman, but she's not naked. A man, not trying to have sex with her, though he does have guns, and seems to be made halfway of metal.
Wait.
"That man is a politician," Cas accuses.
Dean shifts on the bed where he's splayed out, watching the former governor of California shoot people.
"That's the Terminator," Dean says.
"The Terminator," Cas repeats. It's not that human words confuse him anymore, it's that he doesn't get how any human could get from Point A to Point B: elected official, from…terminating. Terminating a lot.
"Cas."
It's a three-letter word but Dean slurs it. Fatigue, not alcohol. Alcohol doesn't touch Dean like it used to (though that doesn't stop him from drinking). There's enough going on, that… Well. It'd take a stronger drug.
"Dean, we need to talk," Cas says.
"Yeah," Dean sighs. "I know." On his breath, resignation rolls over cold. Like talking about the box is worse than the box itself will ever be. He stirs again on the bed, shoving himself up against the headboard. "C'mon, then. Let's get this over with."
Hurt shines out of Cas' eyes at that.
Dean seems surprised, and relents. He doesn't say anything in apology, but he gives Cas a deliberately softer look of exasperation and hopes he'll settle for it.
The hurt dampens, but remains. Cas pads into Dean's tiny, bare fortress and stands in the middle of it, unsure of how to be, and Dean folds up, bracing against what hasn't yet been said: head ducked and arms crossed over his lap.
"Lay it on me, Cas," he says.
Cas is ready to. But then there's this moment of long, deep darkness, when everything is the flicker of television and the sounds of a car chase, and Dean's face is gray in the light and his eyes shine up more than they should, and Cas catches the faint press of Dean's chin trying to keep his mouth from flexing, and Cas remembers with sudden clarity what's been too easy to forget (because Dean's made it easy on purpose, and because the threat of loss has cornered Cas inside himself, selfish and jealous):
Dean doesn't want to go.
And if Dean were any lesser of person — even by a hair — he couldn't make himself, even if he did want to.
But Dean is Dean, and Dean's resolve is unique among men: it makes a stripe across his soul, visible from anywhere.
And Cas, who came filled with things to say, suddenly doesn't want to.
"Stop looking at me like that."
Cas blinks.
He refocuses, away.
In what way was he looking at Dean?
Was it the same way Dean's been looking at him?
Sad? Tired? Given up?
Dean sighs, suddenly, a sigh that takes his shoulders down with it, his chin falling to his chest, a dark hiccup in the shadows that could be the open and shut of a mouth. Cas leans forward on his toes, and catches Dean's words despite their being almost-not-there.
"Look." He shakes his head at the ground. "I'll say it, if you need that."
Cas's shiver is an instant reflex that his coat hides well.
The 'it' is no mystery, not to either of them, but this is the first time Dean's ever acknowledged that it exists at all, real and not just a strange habit Cas has fallen into all on his own. An anxious flurry follows, a thrash against glass that Cas' lungs makes, and suddenly Cas realizes (and understands, and accepts, all in the same moment) that this is the real reason he's come here, tonight. The box is just a timer counting down, applying urgency, and all Cas' other questions, all his other arguments, are just a way to shine light on this thing that's been chained in the shade for so long.
Dean can't go away before it gets a first breath, or a last, if that's the way it has to go.
It would be wrong, wrong in a built-in way, like blasphemy, something you can't explain why but it upsets the order of the world itself.
Cas steps forward while Dean keeps talking.
"I'd just as soon not," Dean admits. "I don't feel like giving whoever's listening-" he rolls a finger toward the heavens "—the ammunition." His lips press together, maybe between his teeth. "But I owe you, for a lot. Before I go." Dean's gaze picks up again, startling Cas at four paces. All the little lines around his eyes, fine as feathers, come out with his defensive squint. "Or, we could just…leave it where it is."
There's no way Cas takes him up on that, and Dean knows it. He creases a small smile into his face and sits back again, straighter, but exhausted. Cas finally reaches the little chair at the side of Dean's bed and balances, rather than sits, on its very edge.
"I don't want to leave it," he says, roughed-up even by his own standards. "I don't want you to do this."
"I know," Dean says quietly, almost comfortingly. "I know." He reaches out to tug the corner of Cas' coat (the one he never takes off, even indoors, and they've all just stopped questioning it) and lets his thumb hook in, under the sleeve.
There's nothing to argue and both of them know it. Only a miracle could change the future, now. And miracles exist, which, just knowing that is more hope than people usually get to cling to, but it's still so brutally insufficient.
Everything about this is insufficient.
Dean's attention has slipped to the lock of his hand and Cas' sleeve, and Cas says his name to bring him back.
"I'll still be out there, right?" Dean offers, as comfort. "I mean, I won't be gone, gone."
"That's worse," Cas says. "That's much worse."
"Worse than what? What else is there, at this point? You want to take me up to heaven instead? Put me in my own memories forever?" Dean shakes his head. "Just another box, Cas. At least this one keeps the world from ending."
Cas doesn't address the grossly unequal comparison. "There are other ways to keep the world from ending. We will find one."
"When you do," Dean says, smiling faintly, "you can come haul me up."
Cas' whole chest jolts, heart to ribs to spine. Hearing it put so concretely is a misery. Dean will be under the water. Dean will be at the bottom of the ocean. In a box. Completely alone. Cas suddenly slips out of breath and tries to gasp it back, and his whole head gets flustered about it until Dean's hand comes down on his shoulder.
"In and out, buddy," he says, leaning in. "Easy. In and out."
Cas listens. Cas obeys. Dean's face hovers next to him, Dean's voice passes instructions through his ears, and slowly breathing gets easier, and eventually existing feels normal again.
"You okay?" Dean asks. He leans in a little more cautiously, inspecting.
Cas just nods. He's not alright. Only in a relative sense could he even come close. His shoulder is warm and weak under Dean's grip, and his eyes feel bad and strange, and the TV is hurting his ears. Dean seems to infer this last part, and he digs the remote out of a fold in the bedding and stops the movie.
The sudden silence buzzes.
"I can't let you do this," Cas whispers. He whispers it in shame, because Dean can do this, but Cas doesn't know if he has the strength to allow the world to live on while Dean suffers. He can't see a future that exists this way, where Dean is screaming and screaming and Cas can hear every cry but do nothing. "You may have to kill me," he says, very seriously.
Dean assumes histrionics and scoffs. "Cas-"
"You don't understand. I'm- I'm not sure of my ability to allow this to happen," Cas clarifies, and now Dean stops. The hand on Cas' shoulder tightens.
"Cas," Dean says. His hand tightens again, and his face goes upset with it until he makes it relax. "This is why I don't want to go down this road. It's not gonna make anything any easier, you know that."
Cas doesn't doubt him. But this isn't about 'easier.' There's no way to make a Mal'ak box easier. There's no way to send Dean off to not die, ever. It's the opposite of Cas' job. Cas brings Dean home.
"And it's not just because of the box," Dean clarifies. "Even without the box. Even if we just stayed here, business as usual. It's this life, Cas; there's just things you can't have. Everywhere we go, we make an army of enemies who are just waiting for any way in. Any weakness, Cas, any little crack in the wall." He looks away for a minute. "Any time we have something, it goes bad. Mom and dad. Jessica. Lisa and Ben. Even Sam and me, I mean, how many times…" He drifts off. "That's the lay of the land, here, all right? If it means something to you, it's gone."
"Sam-"
"What about Sam?" Dean is a knife that tilts up in light, glinting.
Cas voice runs away.
"Here's the truth," Dean growls. It's so bitter Cas can taste it. "If I could snap my fingers and never see him again, but I would know, every day, that he's out there living a life where he gets to be happy — I mean stupid happy — I would've done it thirty years ago. I'd do it now. I'd do it yesterday. But he's here, and he knows how I feel about him, and do you really think that makes it easier to lose him? He's died more than I'm willing to remember. I promise you- I swear to you, Cas, it's not easier."
Resistance straps Cas' jaw tight to his skull. He wants to fight back, but doesn't know how: Dean's telling the truth, his truth, and Cas doesn't have another. Something burns in his face, painfully.
"Cas- don't-" Dean says haltingly. Cas hears him move but can't see how or where, because his eyes are broken, but Dean's hands on his shoulders move up to his face, and thumbs touch under his eyes, wet and slipping. It's a jarring touch — surprising from Dean, whom Cas has seen be deft, and quick, and even delicate, but never this. "Hey," Dean says, almost under his breath. He murmurs lies in a tone that's also surprising. Cas wonders if anyone else has heard it, in the history of Dean. "It's gonna be okay. Look at me, Cas, it'll be fine."
"Please don't go," Cas says, in a voice he can barely command. This awful human body feeling is just wrapped, entwined, in every piece of his body, tightening and tightening, and his words come out high and strangled. "Please, please don't go. I'll do whatever it takes," he bargains. "I'll find something-"
But, "No," is all Dean repeats, until Cas stops making empty promises. He finally gets Cas' eyes clear and lets his thumbs rest on his cheekbones, back of Cas' head braced between his wrists. "Listen to me," he says, trying to anchor Cas' focus, moving into his jumpy gaze. "No matter what happens, I need you to be okay, alright? I need you to be here for Sam."
"No," he creaks.
Cas will not say yes to this.
It's cruel for Dean even to ask.
"C'mon, Cas. That's the way it has to be." Dean's head tilts so far to the side it leads Cas with it. They both pause, tipped like little birds. Cas can't look away. He puts his hands up around Dean's wrists to keep him there, fingers loosely wrapped, palms warm and feeling, so slightly, the pulse running up Dean's arms.
"No," he whispers again, and Dean accepts it this time. No argument. He floats his thumbs over Cas' skin a few times, from the smooth to the stubble.
"Okay," he says.
Cas doesn't like 'okay'. It feels like he's being dismissed. Shut out. Like Dean's giving up on him. And the look on Dean's face doesn't help any. He's focused down and away, like he can see the skin under his hands, the swallow in Cas' throat.
"Dean-"
"I love you," Dean says.
Cas chokes on whatever he was about to say. He does his best to stifle it, given their proximity, and succeeds partway. He coughs the last of it out of the wrong pipe and while he does, Dean stays silent, doesn't say anything more — just lets what he said sit between them, small and quiet and stunning. Cas reaches to envelop it with every sense he has: to cover it and keep it from dissipating. For a second he can see it, gold and holy — is it his grace that perceives this, or is it all in his head?
I love you makes a cavern inside him, and Dean lights it. But then Dean goes in the box and everything goes dark, and the cavern remains but fear floods in, pitch black and rising until it's filled, suffocated in the space of a moment.
Dean watches Cas' face as it happens: like he understands.
Like it's happened to him, too.
The fear seeps up Cas' throat while he's clawing to protect this thing that's drowning, and Dean doesn't have to say he told Cas so. If it were impossible to let Dean go before, it's absolutely unquestionable now.
"I get it," Dean says. "Believe me, I get it." He firms his grip and gives Cas' head a little shake, so small. It's an instruction: don't do this. Spare yourself. But it brings Cas' face closer, too, within what, for Dean, is usually best described as headbutting distance, but here is very different. It seems like a map that Dean's laying out, a clear what-happens-next if Cas doesn't let this drop, and what a very strange way this is to try to dissuade him. Dean's breathing is changed, his eyes are dark, he keeps pulling Cas' face just a little bit closer and he's warning Cas not to take his foot off the brakes.
Dean's gaze dips to Cas' mouth. It doesn't stay; it bolts away; it's barely there long enough to be seen. But Cas suddenly realizes he's been fooled, just like with the box, misdirected with every tool in Dean's belt for a very long time.
Dean doesn't want to go.
And Dean wants this.
Cas goes wide-eyed at Dean, the happiest and worst he's ever been.
There's a word Cas has been jealous of since humanity took it, warped it, and made it carry water that angels couldn't drink. He's used it in its duller form, toward his father, toward his brothers, even toward humanity, though only in a whole, nebulous way. He's spoken of love, he's spoken from love. He's aching to speak in love, even at the cost of having it ripped away.
He puts his hands desperately on the sides of Dean's head, mirroring the grasp Dean has on him, and Dean's skin wakes under his touch, blushing in the dark.
Cas opens his mouth, and owns it.