Dean was on a call when his life went to hell.
He'd been cleared by the department shrink ages ago, officially back to normal. The darkness tugged at his mind less and less, and he had Castiel to thank for that. Cas had been an angel, stability where Dean needed it most. He'd talked him down from panic attacks, held him when the nightmares woke him cold and sweat-drenched at three a.m.
But while Dean had been improving, Cas had been slipping away. No matter how many times Dean told him it wasn't his fault his brother had gone full-psycho, Castiel still blamed himself. He spent hours each night thinking it over, wallowing in his own horror, until Dean woke from nightmares, dreams he only had because of Cas. He'd been the one to put Dean in danger. If not for Castiel, Dean would never have been on Luce's radar. But because of his involvement with Cas, Dean had spent a month stuck in a bunker in western Texas being tortured by his fiancé's eldest brother.
Dean knew something was wrong, but each time he asked, Cas would brush him off with a smile or joke. But when the call came in on the radio, Dean didn't even flinch, just calmly informed the dispatcher that they were on it.
His partner, Benny, offered to go in while Dean waited outside, but Dean declined.
"Just let me talk to him," Dean said. "And keep the bus on standby."
Benny nodded, giving him a tight-lipped grimace as Dean left the squad car.
Dean opened the gate to their yard -a white picket fence that he claimed was ridiculous but secretly loved- and walked up to the front door, his hand on his gun.
When he stepped inside the house and opened the door to the bedroom, he didn't see Cas, or the gun, or even the room. Instead he saw how Cas had looked when they first met. He'd practically glowed in the sunlight, splashing his legs in the pool as he perched on the edge. Dean had swam right over and started talking to him. That evening they'd had their first date.
He snapped back to reality at the sound of a hammer being pulled back. Cas had Dean's Glock, the gun he'd gotten so he'd feel better about leaving Cas at home when he was on the late shift, pressed to his temple, the hammer pulled back and ready to fire.
"Cas. Please, put the gun down," Dean pleaded. Cas only smiled at him hollowly.
"I'm afraid I can't do that, Dean," Cas answered calmly, his voice free of everything.
"Can- can we talk then?" Dean asked, biding his time. After a few minutes, Benny would come in to see if something had gone wrong, and Dean could use the distraction of his arrival to disarm Cas.
Cas seemed to ponder Dean's request, then agreed.
"Okay. Cas... Why? Why are you doing this?" Dean needed answers. Cas wasn't the sort to kill himself, much less the kind of man who would call Sam with instructions to give a message to Dean afterward. He wasn't that cruel.
"Because I saw what I did to you, Dean. I almost destroyed you," Castiel said, a bit of strain leaking into his voice.
"You had nothing to do with it!" Dean insisted, knowing deep down it was no use.
"I had everything to do with it. If it weren't for me, Luce wouldn't have come after you. It would have been me, and you wouldn't have been hurt."
"Cas, I'm fine," Dean replied fiercely.
Castiel shook his head. "You might be able to fool the department, and Benny, and even Sam, but you don't fool me, Dean Winchester. I see the way you flinch when you see your scars in the mirror, and I hear how you scram every night and beg for it to stop. And I can't live with you hurting that badly because of me," Cas said slowly, deliberately. His finger twitched towards the trigger, and Dean had never wanted to stand in a bullet's path so badly in his life.
The door behind them crashed open, and Benny burst in. With a quick move, Dean darted forward and wrangled the gun from Cas's grip, which had gone surprisingly slack.
For a second he panicked, thinking maybe he'd somehow missed the gunshot and Cas was already dying. But no, he was alive and breathing. His face had gone blank, and his body boneless. He didn't even put up token resistance when Dean scooped him up and carried him to the Impala.
When Cas was buckled into the passenger seat, Dean instructed Benny to go back to the station, report what had happened without sugar coating any of it, and to tell the chief Dean would need a few days off. Benny drove off, having sent the bus off once he realized no one was injured.
Dean sighed, looking over the bench seat at the husk of his fiancé.
"Don't worry, angel," Dean murmured, putting the car in gear and pulling onto the freeway, headed for the nearest hospital. "I'm gonna get you some help."