"Oh, we were in Jane's cabin last night, and apparently we and uh, Risa have a connection," the strange echo of the man Castiel had come to know so well offers helpfully. Cas chuckles under his breath. It's been years since he's seen this kind of behaviour from Dean, his sense of humour warped and then obliterated as the months had ticked by and the death toll had risen.
And when Cas states "I like past you," what he really means is "I miss past you."
His hands are pressed to Cas' shoulder blades, fanning out like the arcs of his wings. He has no grace anymore; he has Dean. This is what he's chosen. Dean's face is hidden in his neck as Cas' hands run down the front of his chest, up his back.
"Dean..." he murmurs, running his fingers through Dean's hair, trying to pull him back to look at him. "Dean-" he's cut off by Dean placing a long kiss to the bolt of his jaw, drawing blood to the surface, then moving to take advantage of the moan that drops his mouth open. Not breaking the kiss, he pushes Castiel further into the room, over to the bed, finally moving away to pull his shirt over his head, letting it join Cas' on the floor as Cas scoots back on the mattress. Once he's moved back over, kneeling on the edge of the bed, Cas reaches for him, cupping the back of his neck, fingers carding through the short hair there, pulling him back in for another breath-stealing clash of teeth and tongues, free hand round the back of Dean's leg, pulling him forward 'til he's half lying between Cas' thighs.
Cas isn't kidding himself. He knows what having the Colt means. They have it, at last, and Dean has been too long on this earth, too long with this weight on his shoulders, and too long without his brother. Dean wants this over, and he'll get that no matter what.
And Cas knows that that means he'll get caught in the crossfire.
He can see the guilt in Dean's eyes, guilt that's been there for years, tearing him apart. Guilt over Sam, over Bobby, over everyone they've lost in five years, hell, in thirty years. Guilt over the lives he's about to sacrifice to end this godforsaken war, because boy, is it God forsaken.
He doesn't blame Dean. Can't. They've both spent too long without their sanity.
He wishes he could tell Dean that.
Dean tugs at the top of his slacks, and Cas lifts his hips to allow Dean pull them off and chuck them to the floor, reaching for the button of Dean's jeans in turn. The room is quiet, filled only with the quietly gasps and grunts that Den seems to be striving so hard to supress, but Cas doesn't care about.
When at last Dean sinks into Cas, face pressed into his neck, shoulders quaking and breath hot and damp on his neck, everything stills, but Cas can feel their stuttering heartbeats between them. They aren't in time, beating as one like some façade of love and oneness as written about in novels by those who knew less of life and love and war than they. They pound against their ribcages out of sync, separate, individual, human, real.
Dean begins to move, seemingly torn between slow and bruising, his pace stuttering slightly. His hands are clamped onto Castiel's hips, pulling him into him, and Cas' back arches as his nails drag down Dean's shoulder blades.
He runs his fingers up and buries them in his short hair, again tugging him back to get a look at him. Dean resisted, hips snapping back faster, panting into Castiel's shoulder in broken gasps.
"Dean," Cas muttered sternly, turning his mouth down to Dean's ear.
Dean slows, allowing Cas to pull him back slightly, jaw clenched and eyes turned away. Cas leans up, placing a kiss to the underside of his jaw, moving to his mouth, letting hot tongues clash and pace pick up until he has to break away, a keening sound rising in his throat as his head pressed further into the pillow, back clean off the mattress. Dean's eyes are closed, head tilted back, teeth gritted and sweat shining on his flushed face. Cas places a shaking hand on one cheek and Dean's brow furrows as he leans almost unwillingly into the touch.
He knows he's about to break, Dean too, and he pulls his mind back together far enough to growl, "Look at me, Dean."
Dean's eyes snap open on command, focussing on Cas' face, pupils blown wide but not enough to blacken out the brokenness there. "It's almost over Dean; we've won."
Dean's head drops down and he cries out, hands bruising on Castiel's hips, and Cas can only for a second think of how anguished the sound is before waves of black are pulling him under too, mouth forming Dean's name, but no sound emerging.
Their gasps and heartbeats slow, and Dean rolls to the side, swinging his bare feet onto the cold floor and standing.
"We leave at midnight."
As the door shuts behind him, Cas' mind is thrown back to the first time this had happened between them, three years ago. Dean had come to him, half drunk, clenched jaw and eyes shining in the dirty light of the room, and slumped down at the table, fixing his stare on the floor. He'd told Cas how he'd exorcised a demon, a bad son-of-a-bitch, but before he'd sent its ass back to Hell, it'd told him that Sam had met Lucifer in Detroit, and he'd said yes.
He'd pulled his flask out of his jacket pocket and downed the remaining contents, letting it fall onto the table with a clatter, head dropping into his hands as "Oh God," was wrenched from his chest in a sob. Cas had stood there, not knowing what to say, what to do.
"Dean."
Dean looked up, wiping a hand over his face, the hardened mask returning.
"Yeah, sorry. Erm, I'll see you tomorrow, Cas." He got up to leave.
As he'd turned towards the door, Cas had caught him, hand coming to rest over the mark he'd placed on him back in the darkest depths of Hell. Dean stopped, a small shudder running over his shoulders.
"Dean," Cas repeated, softer. He turned, something in his eyes looking cracked, shattered. Dean emitted a groan, and suddenly his mouth was smashing against Castiel's, Cas' breath coming out in a gasp as he was backed into the wall.
It was rushed and messy and Dean left as soon as he'd caught his breath.
And just as tonight, he wouldn't meet Cas' eyes, but Cas could see the guilt in the set of his shoulders.
And just as tonight, all he wanted to do was stop him as his hand fell on the doorknob and say, "I forgive you, Dean," but both times, the words caught in his all-too-human throat, and Dean Winchester left his bed with the weight of the world on his shoulders.
With a groan he swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat up, reaching for the bottle of Absinth on the bedside table and taking a long pull. Outside he could hear the slams of car doors, the clicks of guns being loaded ringing out in the still night.
Castiel's body thrummed with a heady mix of alcohol, the day's concoction of assorted drugs, and the adrenaline pumping through his system. He threw his crumpled shirt back on, and couldn't help but think how the past five years had warped Dean, moulded him into the bravado he had carried around his whole life: the façade of sex, violence, singleminded determination. That was Dean now, made even more apparent by the presence of his former self, the one not pinned down and torn apart by the knowledge that because of his own mistakes, his little brother was Satan's bitch, and the world was ending.
Dean – the old Dean, that is to say – seems alarmed at Cas' revelations in the car on their way to end this shit-stream once and for all. Hurt, even. And guilty. Again with the never ending self-loathing and mistakes of Mr Dean Winchester, Righteous Man and fuck-up. Cas wonders if - hopes that, in fact - Dean finds another way when Zachariah landed him back in his own timezone. A way that isn't saying no and isn't saying yes, that lets them all live, and gives the two of them a shot at something that isn't mindless, secretive sex in the dead of night.
And when Cas states "Why not bang a few gongs before the lights go out? That's just how I roll," he doesn't have the heart to add "It's the way you roll, too."
Cas is everything but completely human now. Has been for years. He feels the knife that lodges itself just below his left shoulder, the bullet that clips his side. He feels the concrete floor as his knees collide with it, tastes the blood that rises up his throat. But he also hears the words through the chatter of gunfire, the screams of the Croates and those around him whom he could vaguely call his friends. I'm sorry.
Cas is everything but completely human now, barring his tether to Dean, and in that moment he feels something tear apart and fall away to nothingness, for the angels have left, and Dean's soul has nowhere to go but oblivion. Something bubbles up in Cas' chest, hitching past the blood and bile, and he throws his gun to the floor as a manic laugh bursts forth, eyes rolling upwards to the heavens, arms raised in welcoming surrender. The Croate before him, the one who had thrown the knife now firmly stuck in Cas' shoulder, halts, a growl rumbling through their chest, teeth bared.
Cas cocks his head on one side, a crazed smile plastered to his face as he stared down the dishevelled half-human. "Well, what're you waiting for, you son of a bitch? Finish me!"
The knife slashes through Cas' skin, tendons and major arteries with messy ease, and as he drops forward, clutching at his gushing throat, he is reminded again of how glamourous the movies he and the others had sat around watching during their waits for news of the Colt had made death seem. In films it was over quickly, and people cried, and words were spoken and ceremonies held. There is nothing glamourous about bleeding out on the floor alone, Cas thinks, knowing there will be no one to cry for him, to say nice things about him. No one will look for his body - the body which isn't even his, merely a borrowed shell. There is nothing dignified about being left to rot on the floor of an abandonned sanitarium in the middle of hell on earth. There is just the end.