A/N: I wrote this a while ago and it occurred to me that I could post it. So I am.
"Salvum me fac tibi," Castiel finishes, and Dean's body goes completely slack.
Castiel freezes, afraid he has done something wrong, made it worse somehow (though worse than demon is a long shot), but only moments later, Dean heaves in a gasping breath, and Castiel lets his out.
"Dean?" he ventures, and Dean, still breathing hard, raises his head. The weight lifts off of Castiel's chest, and something does a little bounce in his stomach. Green eyes. Such green eyes.
"Cas," Dean says, and it comes out as a hearty, breathless laugh.
Castiel nearly falls over himself coming forward- which could have been pretty bad; he's carrying a knife- and saws through Dean's ropes. Unsteady, Dean topples forward. Castiel catches him- the first time in six months he hasn't winced at his touch.
"Thanks," says Dean, out of breath and still grinning. "For everything." He pushes himself backward, away from Castiel, though he remains gripping his shoulder for support. His eyebrows draw together, his smile fades a little; it's like he can't decide between sorry,thank you, or something… else.
In the end, though, he just fixes Castiel with this serious look, and goes, "What happened to your grace? You human?"
Castiel hesitates, then nods. Why would he…?
"Guess what?" Dean says. The grin is back, astonished and astonishingly wide. "Me too."
And that's when he knows something is terribly wrong.
Instead of thumping Cas on the back and flying forward to await the return his beloved car (and even more beloved brother), Dean is clutching Castiel's shoulder tighter, solemnity replacing his levity.
"Cas," he says, stumbling, reaching for his jacket pocket. "I think I-"
Castiel's first reaction is to startle away; he's been stuck with knives from that jacket pocket too many times to not be wary. But his second is to lunge forward.
Because Dean's not reaching for his jacket pocket. He's pushing aside the coat. Underneath, spreading across his gray AC/DC t-shirt, is blood.
The breathlessness is back, but not from exhilaration.
"I forgot," Dean wheezes, "'Cause, y'know, demons don't need to heal or-"
He's swaying; Cas grabs him around the waist before he can fall. "Why didn't you tell me? What happened?" God, if he'd known what fixing Dean's humanity would mean- but-
"Told you," he says, "Forgot." Dean grunts in pain, starts to sink, to fall. Castiel can't keep him upright by himself and has no choice but to go down with him. "I just- there was a fight- I popped up behind a guy- a couple days ago- and he was so surprised he shot before looking." He chuckles. "He was even more surprised when… I didn't… turn out… to be dead-"
"Be quiet," Castiel tells him. He pulls out his cell phone- and swears, loudly.
Dean looks slightly impressed. "No signal?" he rasps.
"Yeah." Cas takes a deep breath. "Get your jacket off. We've got to put pressure on it."
Dean starts to shake his head. "I don't think that's gonna-" He breaks off, winded. "Cas- I don't know if-"
Castiel shakes his head, sets his jaw, strips off his trenchcoat. "You're going to be fine. Sam will get here soon. It's not that bad."
All three of these statements are complete and utter lies.
Dean's words stumble clumsily over themselves as he tries to talk. "Is Sam… I mean, I haven't seen him in- is he-"
"He's fine," says Castiel, distracted. Worry about you, not him.
Dean lets his head fall back across Cas's leg, his chin tipped vertical. His breaths come harsh and just a little too fast. For a second, Castiel watches his adam's apple bob and cord, then returns to attempting to bandage his chest.
"Cas, tell Sam-"
"You're going to be fine." interrupts Castiel.
"Tell Sam-"
"Dean."
"Just- Cas- don't- you need to- I'm-" His voice gets caught, flattened, halfway into a cough, and Cas looks away. There's blood in Dean's palm.
One of Dean's hands is over the wound in the middle of his chest, covered by Cas's, pushing down. Dean isn't strong enough or lucid enough to do it himself. Well, you could be strong as an ox and lucid as hell, and you still wouldn't have the strength to stop the bleeding.
Dean's other hand is clutching Castiel's cuff. His fingers are tangled in the sleeve of Cas's thin shirt, and Castiel can feel the warmth of him through the fabric.
Dean wheezes, and Castiel tightens his grip around him. "I've got you," he tells him, dry and brittle and breakable like one of the leaves swept around them. "I've got you."
"Shut up," Dean mutters, quiet and strangled and careful. "I know."
There is blood everywhere. There are two bullet wounds, one above his left hip that isn't causing so much trouble, and one in the center of his chest just below where the halves of his ribcage connect. That is the one making both of them look as though someone has poured a bucket of undiluted red dye over them.
Or rather, two soda bottles of red dye. Dean's lost about two liters.
And Cas can't do anything about it.
Dean's mouth is open a little, but the air doesn't fill him up the way it's supposed to. The air is there, but his head is light and the rest of his body feels too heavy. "Please," Cas is whispering, his voice taut and thin, like a snagged thread being pulled until it snaps. "Hold on. Just a little bit longer."
Castiel adjusts his coat, but not around his own shoulders. He's wrapped it around Dean's midriff; the fabric is already soaked through, with red so dark it's indistinguishable from the ground and the horizon and the crescent moons of dirt under Dean's fingernails. Dark like Dean's eyelashes, long enough to tie in knots, and dark like the shadows in the little crinkles by his eyes, the crinkles that can mean happy or hurting or the sun's in my eyes. Everything is dark, now.
He forgets how many times this has happened. Not this, exactly. But… this. Dean, here, with him, almost gone. Almost gone because of him. There've been monsters (but those injuries were easy to heal) and there's been Naomi (but the copies, they weren't real, even if he could feel the bones crunching and the hot blood and the last, gasping breaths, every single time- not real. Not real.) And now- saved, just to be damned.
Or, if you prefer, rescued from damnation to be faced with death. Dean does not have enough time left to explain every action, but Castiel is certain that he would have chosen to become human again even if he knew what would happen to his new, vulnerable, human body mere minutes later.
Dean coughs a little, shivers a little, blinks, blinks, blinks. He's breathing too fast. Castiel winces. Of all the ways to go, of all the ways this man has been forced to live through- well, die through- blood loss must be one of the worst. Too slow, too painful, too violent. Castiel knows that he's only prolonged it; it makes no sense to try and stop the bleeding when the wound is this bad, when they're this far away from help. Sam is too far away to do anything; he won't get here for hours.
Dean does not have hours.
Angels were supposed to love humanity, not humans. They were not supposed to feel like the sun had come up when a human smiled. It was silly to attach emotional value to a sunrise; even sillier to a movement of muscles in a human's face.
Castiel is not an angel anymore.
He's lost almost three liters of blood. Most other humans would already be dead, but Dean is big. Dean is strong. Dean has to hurt for longer. Castiel pulls at a loose seam, purses his lips, picks a clump of Virginia dust from Dean's hair, and he hurts too, god, he hurts, because he was made to make things better but he can't fix this.
And god, Dean deserves this least of anyone, doesn't deserve to be put in a situation where dying is the reward for making it through.
Dean is so good.
Twenty-two minutes, and his grip is slackening. God, that man must have been a terrible shot. If he'd aimed a couple inches to the right, Dean would have had a chance at survival. A couple inches to the left, there's an artery, and Dean would have been spared twenty-one minutes of hurting. Both are preferable to this.
Dean has begun to cough, then dry heave, but Cas won't (can't) unlock his arms from around him. Dean was shaking a little in the beginning, from cold or pain or shock, but now he's still. Castiel can't feel the warmth through his shirt anymore.
Dean's breathing quiets to rough, barely audible exhalations. Castiel can feel them vibrating in his chest, damp and rattling. His head lolls, and Castiel shifts, quietly, so it's resting on his knee. It tilts him, and his eyes are partway open. They're dry, they're tired, but they are so, so green. Castiel hated the blackness, though not as much as he hated what the blackness meant.
"I'm sorry," Castiel tells him. "For everything."
Dean doesn't answer. He doesn't move.
The end.