Disclaimer: This is a transformative work of fiction. All hail the great Kripke – master and owner of our universe…
A/N: Spoilers for 4.21. I'm rushing to post this before I leave to watch the finale with my bestest amazon… so please forgive any mistakes – it may not be up to even my standards… *hides*
Dean couldn't take it anymore. The babbling, the screaming, the cursing, the pounding, the pleading. His brother not being his brother. It was as bad as when Sam had been possessed. Only this time Dean knew why his brother wasn't himself and felt even more powerless to do anything about it.
So Dean ran. Dean ran as far as his invisible tether would let him. He grabbed his coat and escaped into the scrap yard. It was cold, but Dean barely noticed over the chill that had already settled into his bones.
Bobby's words echoed in his head, beating the inside of his skull over and over again. Maybe we love him too much.
How is that even fucking possible.
How could he not love someone – his brother – the right way… the right amount…
You failed. Failed again. You're a failure. Failed. Epically. The one who mattered. Again. Fail.
The words swam around and around until Dean was dizzy with them.
It had worked once. Sort of. Cas hadn't come right out and helped him. But he'd made sure Dean understood what to do. How to save Sam from Lillith. And who was Ruby compared to Lillith? It ought to be easy to save Sam from her. Just that Dean wasn't, apparently, up to the job.
Then again, maybe it was Sam that Dean needed to save Sam from. And fighting Sam? Defeating Sam? That was something he had no stomach for.
Cas had told him to piss off, but Dean doubted he really meant it. Cas had never really wanted to hurt Sam. I mean they weren't each other's biggest fans or anything, but Cas had helped him save Sam before. Of course, that had supposedly resulted in a major bitch-slap for his unblinking friend.
Friend. Dean was so unprepared to deal with even the word. Family, he got. Brother. But friend? There had never been time or room for a friend. Except Sam.
Dean dragged the cold air deeply into his lungs.
"Cas?" he tried, tentatively looking up.
He still didn't really have any proof that one thing was up and one was down, but having dug himself out of his grave, he just automatically thought down for Hell with even more conviction. And well… there were the wings… no reason for wings if you weren't planning on flying somewhere… so, up it was. And he'd got Cas looking in that direction more than once.
"I … um… yeah… could… you know. Use your help here. I'm… uh… praying again."
Dean rolled his eyes. He was pretty sure he sucked at the praying thing and wasn't getting any better at it.
"C'mon man. It's freakin' cold out here. Sam's in a really bad way. You know damn…oops… you know this is me prayin'," Dean couldn't help the irritation that was starting to find its way into his voice.
Dean started pacing.
"Cas? Please?"
Dean stopped. Stared at the ground and bit his lower lip, reconsidering.
"Ok. Maybe my direct line's been cut off. Maybe I'm not supposed to address a specific angel? It has to be directed higher up… and then the order filters down? I can dig that. I know how that kind of system works."
Dean took another deep breath. Suddenly, he had stage fright. Who exactly did he think he was talking to? Who did he think he was? Dean harboured no illusions.
"Please. Could you just send Cas? Cas knows what's going on. I know he does."
Dean paused again, considering. Yeah Cas had to know what was going on. Thinking back, Dean became more and more convinced that Cas had been trying to open Dean's eyes for a while and Dean had just been too stupid to see. Had wilfully stayed deaf, dumb, and blind to what his brother was doing.
Yes. Cas had known. But he hadn't just come out and told Dean. He knew that Dean would believe nothing short of his own eyes. And yet, Cas also hadn't done anything to stop or harm or smite Sam.
What if…what if They sent another Uriel? But They hadn't. They had let Cas go.
So far Cas had seemed to tolerate Sam. But as an extension of Dean – not for Sam's own sake.
"So… look. I don't know who You are, but You have to know my brother. He's like had a direct link to You forever. He's in trouble. He needs help. That's what You're there for, right? I need him. You want me to help with Your whole Apocalypse problem? Well… quid pro quo… I want a little help with my little problem first."
Dean paused in his pacing and his monologue. Looking down he scuffed the earth as he dragged his hand down his face and then up to scrub through his hair. He sighed.
"So maybe You don't remember my brother. I don't think he's been real good at keeping in touch with anyone lately….. Cas? You around yet? I'd appreciate being saved from looking like an ass, talking to a bunch of dead cars…."
Dean watched his breath curl in front of his face. Watched the mist dissipate from white to clear to nothing. Waiting.
"Ok. I get it. You want me to work for it. Fine."
Dean resumed his pacing, trying to focus, all his thoughts inevitably curling back to his brother. His brother who was in so much pain. All Dean wanted was what he'd always wanted to be able to protect his brother.
"Ok… look. You guys just don't know Sam the way I do. I mean you've said yourselves that you really weren't paying a whole shitload of attention to down here up until a little while ago. So… you know… if you knew Sam the way I do, you'd want to help him. Our side could really use his help. I mean Bobby wasn't wrong about that, just the part where we let Sam become something he isn't because he doesn't need to be that to be able to help stop all this."
Dean took another deep breath, the cold air searing to the bottom of his lungs now. He stopped and rested both his hands on the trunk of an old Buick. But as his frustration grew, he was no longer feeling the cold. They'd been trying so hard. Dean knew he had a lot to make up for. More than he could make up for. But they'd given everything to try to stop the apocalypse. Maybe what Sam had done was wrong, but Dean knew that his brother had been pushed into this.
"Sonuvabitch!" Dean growled. "You can't just ignore me!"
Dean punched the trunk of the car, reared back and shouted at the night sky. "Answer me! What am I supposed to do!"
"Damn you," he railed, not even sure himself who he meant.
"Don't just ignore me. Don't just walk away. Why now?" Dean's voice dropped again.
"Fine. Maybe you just don't know Sam the way you should. Maybe you just need to know more about him…" so Dean just started talking, starting when Sam was a baby and kept talking until Sam was a man, locked in a room by his brother and a man who could have been his father. Dean talked and railed until his voice was almost gone.
And then there was Cas.
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Pain thrummed through Dean as the door clicked shut, and he wasn't sure if it was his body, heart or soul that hurt the worst. He tried to roll over, to get to his knees and push to his feet to rush after his brother like he always did. Like he had when his father had issued the same ultimatum.
Dean struggled to draw air into his tortured lungs. The fall had knocked the wind out of him and he was pretty sure he had at least one or two busted ribs. But he was having trouble drawing air as far as his lungs. It was hard to get the air past his lips; his throat had barely healed from Alastair choking him. He hadn't wanted Sam to worry so he hadn't said anything about it, and Sam had seemed quite content to forget the whole thing once the bruising had faded from Dean's throat and face. Just another sign of weakness to Sam.
Dean barely felt the glass that was slicing into him in various spots as he rolled to his side, but the added pressure on his ribs caused the pain to flair and his lungs to temporarily close up shop.
The world spun and bright lights flashed as Dean's vision tunnelled towards black. With a groan, Dean's body forced itself to roll back to its original position where it could at least draw some air.
Dean's last thought before losing consciousness was that Sam would come back any second.
SNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSN
Cas looked curiously about the room, his gaze finally stopping on his charge. He couldn't see how this had been necessary but his orders had been clear. He was not to go to Dean Winchester while his brother was still with him.
Cas remembered Sam rushing to save is brother from Alastair, saving Cas himself in the process. Even as he had been surprised at the power Sam commanded and grateful to be saved, Cas had wept for the price Sam was unwittingly paying. Sam had rushed to his brother's side. He'd gotten him to the hospital and confronted Cas for a miracle to save his brother.
Cas couldn't help but see the parallels and the glaring divergences in this situation. Dean was bloody and wheezing on the floor again. But Sam? Sam was long gone. Cas knew he would not be back for his brother this time.
Cas knelt by Dean's unconscious form, his head cocked to the side as he assessed Dean's condition. His breathing was laboured. His throat damaged again. Broken ribs. Various cuts. Deep bruises. Mild concussion. A bad cut to his lower back.
"Dean," Cas breathed.
Dark eyelashes fluttered on a too pale face, freckles standing out starkly. Dean's breathing increased, but he resisted returning to consciousness. This wasn't the voice he was waiting for.
"Dean," Cas insisted more loudly.
This time Dean groaned and his fists clenched. Cas noticed the raw and bleeding knuckles.
"Dean. You must wake up. It's not safe here," Cas's deep voice carried the conviction of command with it.
Again, Dean groaned and his breathing hitched. He never could resist anything with the hint of command behind it. As he finally answered the summons and pushed himself toward consciousness, he was acutely aware of the pain again. Lashes fluttered and slowly opened to reveal glassy, disoriented green.
"Cas?" Dean managed to croak.
"Yes, Dean. You must get up. You must leave here. It's not safe." Cas's voice was insistent.
"Sam?" Dean's voice was barely a gravelly whisper.
"I'm sorry, Dean. He has gone."
"No. Help me up. I have to go after him." Dean reached out to Cas, grimacing as pain flared in a dozen place.
"No, Dean. You're hurt. It's too late and soon you must be ready to honour your vow."
Dean stared at the angel. He'd come without being called. But he'd probably been sent. Still. Someone cared to make sure he was safe. And Sam? Sam was gone. Last time, with Stanford, he'd insisted he wasn't leaving Dean – just the life. Dean had just been collateral damage. But this time? This time Sam had made it clear that he was leaving Dean. Dean closed his eyes, fighting to draw the next breath even as he felt his chest constrict even more.
"Dean, please. It's not safe here. I can't stay. If they find out that I've come…" Cas looked up and around nervously.
That got Dean's attention. He opened his eyes and stared at the angel, incredulous.
"What?"
"You are in danger. You and your brother were very loud. And others are watching too." Cas continued to look nervously about the room, seeming to look through the walls at the same time.
"You weren't sent?" Dean reached up and fisted his hand in Cas's coat to draw his attention.
Cas looked down at the fallen hunter. "No. I was not commanded to come."
Dean was speechless.
"You must leave," Cas insisted again.
"God. You're such a nag," Dean groaned as he tightened his hold on Cas's coat to pull himself into a seated position. The pain almost made him pass out again, and he would have fallen back if Cas hadn't circled an arm around his shoulders to keep him up.
Once the room had stopped spinning and his vision had stopped tunnelling in and out, Dean drew his legs underneath himself.
"Your gonna hafta help me up," he informed the angel.
Cas rose to his feet and leaning down mostly dragged Dean to his feet. Dean fisted both hands in the lapels of Cas's coat, dropping his head and gasping in breaths as deeply as he dared to fight off the nausea and vertigo.
Finally, he was able to raise his head. It was getting a bit easier to breath, but he knew from too much past experience that he was going to have to get some ice on his throat or it was going to swell to the point that breathing would get very difficult. He could also feel the blood pooling in the waistband of his jeans from the cut he could feel on his lower back.
Pushing himself totally upright, Dean released one lapel and patted Cas's chest. Then he released the other to sway a bit unsteadily under his own power. Dean managed to quirk one side of his mouth up. He then turned and staggered back up the two stairs and into the bathroom. He tried to avoid looking at his haunted and bruised face in the smashed mirror and the bathroom mirror, but he caught enough of a glimpse to see the beginnings of bruises. Hand shaped bruises. The hands of his brother.
Dean grabbed a towel and managed a makeshift pressure bandage over the cut on his lower back. Nothing else seemed like it warranted immediate attention. Coming back out, Dean saw the knife still on the bed and grabbed it, carefully replacing it in the pocket inside his jacket. The broken mirror's splintered surface reflected a thousand shards of Dean back to him.
Taking one final look around his brother's honeymoon suite, Dean felt a wave of despair wash over him. How could he do this without his brother? Why would he even care?
"Dean?" Cas's soft, deep voice brought him back to reality. Dean couldn't help but smile a little at that. An angel bringing him back to reality.
"Please, Dean. You really must go."
"Yeah. There's nothing for me here. What about you?"
"Me?" Cas looked truly confused.
"Yeah. You. If you aren't here following orders, you're probably disobeying again. I'm not worth the ass-reaming you're gonna take…"
"Do not worry about me," Cas dismissed.
"Apparently, somebody's got to. You don't seem to have much of a self-preservation instinct."
"I'll be fine, Dean. Please just go," Cas insisted.
"Fine. Anybody ever told you, you're bossy?" Dean made his way unsteadily to the door.
"Will you be able to get back to Bobby's?" Cas asked as the hunter passed him.
"Yeah." Dean paused with his hand on the doorknob. He dropped his head as sadness washed over him, threatening to swamp him completely. "Yeah."
"Be careful, Dean."
There was the sound of wings and Dean was alone.
"You too, Cas," Dean breathed and turned the doorknob.
A/N: I am biting my nails down to my ankles in anticipation of tonight's finale. This tag has been brewing all week and I really wanted to post before the finale… It was a really interesting one to write because even more so than usual I found that I was just dictating what Dean and Cas were saying… So for those of you who may find this harsh toward Sam, I can assure you that I was feeling a lot more bitter to him than Dean seems to be here… funny… *or possibly I am now completely unhinged by the voices in my head*