Nothingness rolls inside of him. It's vast and it calls. It was always there, but it has never been this big before. Or this loud. Inside his own mind, he feels like a stray dog. One that's on a desert and desperately needs water. The taste of Amara's mouth lingers inside of his throat like sand.
He wants to spit it out. He wants to tear his own mouth off because it had betrayed him.
And he thinks: it would not be the first time. There were times when it betrayed him through silence - all the I love yous he never uttered and now he questions whether he feels them at all (he keeps searching but the nothingness is vast). It betrayed him with all the wrong words - with denials, with buddies, with pals; with all the I don'ts where he did. He wonders idly if he'll ever straighten things out or if he forever will remain afraid. His forever is not that long. He's on his way to the end of the desert.
He feels less and less scared with every passing day. He feels less and less at all.
One day, the last day, he'll find the courage to stand up and tell Cas: I loved you.
Past tense is almost here, it hovers above his heart and devours, a langolier.
He still loves him with the echo of his soul, each day less and less because the nothingness is vast and it swallows. His mouth continues to betray: fear rattles around his teeth, when he tries to say anything, he gulps it down, it sinks into the sand. He doesn't deserve to say what he needs.
He passes Cas's room each night. He never knocks on the door. Because his hand also betrays him through stillness.
Sometimes it pats Cas on the shoulder on its own accord, and even then Dean shudders, afraid it might be not enough and too much at the same time. Cas never says a thing. Cas never reacts. Why would he - a touch like this means nothing. How dare it mean anything, Dean reminds himself very often, if with the same betraying hand he beat him up beyond his own comprehension and this ugly thing attached to him meant every single blow.
It hurt. It was swollen with shame.
No, they're not even.
The bruises heal and scar, form back into a face again after Cas's punches. But the memory of Cas looking at him that day, so ready to die, so resigned and betrayed, it will remain a wound to haunt him when he sleeps. Will remain the sand in his throat. They are not even.
Because if he raises his hand fast enough these days, Cas will flinch. In Hell, Alastair would have been proud of this development. On Earth, Dean is not. He hates mirrors more than he used to, now. He hates his hands, all of his ten fingers. He doesn't know how to weaponize that hatred anymore.
The nothingness is vast and it calls. It offers peace. There are times when he wants to take it. When he says something too loud (as in, when he shouts) and in Cas's eyes fear blooms and lingers long enough for Dean to see it. Because this - he doesn't know how to live with. And fuck, he doesn't know how not to shout sometimes, it's just a thing that his mouth does - it betrays him. He's just a stray dog: stray dogs bark when they need.
And he needs. But too many blows have fallen to ask - for a future, for forgiveness. It doesn't matter. All there is left waiting for him is the nothing. Deep in his bones, he knows.
Each night he passes Cas's room. Each night less afraid to knock and say goodbye.
The only peace he deserves, he'll take. So when she'll ask him to stand up and walk - he will. Despite the putrid taste of her mouth and of her salvation. There's shit for which he just can't atone (like breaking a friend). There's an ache nothing will cure. And there's a point after which you're just fucking done.
Dean walks to it through the sand, his ultima thule at Cas's door.