It should have been just an ordinary hunt.
It should have been easy. Just another demon. Dean had been certain it would be easy. The three of them - Sam, Dean, and also Cas these days, now that Metatron had stripped him of his grace - had only been working a simple case. A few deaths in a small town; nothing unusual. Except that the deaths were a bit grisly. And pretty sad - they'd all involved people who'd seemed to snap suddenly and go practically serial-killer on their families. Pretty soon Cas had diagnosed it as some kind of demon (what kind, he wasn't sure), and they'd finally managed to track it down to the old Cleveland dockyards along the long Lake Erie shoreline of Ohio. It didn't take all that much work to get the demon cornered, and by nightfall it had been clear the demon had run to earth somewhere in a clump of five long old warehouses by the foggy Lake Erie shore.
Dean had been planning on Cas and him going in to gank the demon, while Sam stayed outside patrolling the other warehouses and watching for any other arrivals. Cas had helped Dean on the end-stage combat stuff with several hunts recently - fairly ably, actually. Even despite the total lack of angelic powers. Dean knew Cas's transition to humanity must have been rough, but he'd actually turned out to be a pretty scrappy fighter. He was actually turning into sort of a decent human. A little weird to live with, of course — recently Dean had been giving Castiel everlovin' hell over his inexplicable fondness for sappy John Denver songs — but as a fighter he'd actually turned out to be pretty great to have at your back. He was quick, he had good reflexes, and he didn't scare easy. And though he had little sense of how to handle a gun, it had quickly become clear that Cas with any kind of blade in his hand was a force to be reckoned with.
So, Dean and Cas would head in, and Sam would just keep watch outside. Sam, of course, was not too happy with this plan, but he was only just barely back on his feet after his long illness from the trials and Dean just plain ordered him to stay outside, and the half-heartedness of Sam's complaints only convinced Dean even more that he was correct.
But Cas seemed uneasy.
They'd just arrived at the group of warehouses where Dean was pretty sure the demon was holed up. Dean and Sam were standing at the Impala's trunk, still arguign about whether not Sam was ready for combat. But meanwhile Cas had drifted slightly away from the car, staring out into the fog.
Cas broke into their argument with, "I'm certain that something's wrong." Which he'd said at least three times already.
Dean sighed.
"Cas, you've got to explain what you mean. What's wrong exactly?" asked Sam.
"I don't know," said Cas. " He turned in a little circle, looking into the wispy fog. Several of the huge warehouses were visible, standing by an old rusted railway line, the furthest ones fading into the fog.
Dean waited a few more moments to see if Cas was going to say anything more, but Cas couldn't seem to explain the ill-defined sense of dread that seemed to be haunting him. Well, he's probably just a little nervous again from missing all his usual powers, right? thought Dean. This is actually the first demon he's gone up against as a just-plain-human. Probably it's just getting to him.
"C'mon, Cas," said Dean, clapping him on the shoulder. "You can handle it. Quick in-and-out. Demons aren't so bad. Just stay with me and you'll be fine." Cas gave him a grim look. Dean grinned at him, for moral support, checked his pistol and shotgun one more time, and started walking over to the main warehouse. A moment later Cas caught up, walking by Dean's side. Dean peeked over his shoulder to see Sam started to walk the long gravel strip along the other warehouses, looking for anything else unusual. Everything was in place. It was all gonna be fine.
They checked a long, empty hallway, wound their way up a little stairway and through a little door and then found themselves in a vast open space. Huge windows overhead, most of them broken, let in just enough of the foggy glow of the streetlights to get a sense of the space: a huge, cavernous work area, great big wooden pillars holding up the roof, dilapidated piles of equipment and a few abandoned wooden pallets heaped against the walls.
The light didn't quite reach the dark corners and Dean had just started to say "OK, Cas, here's how you check a room," when it jumped them.
It'd been hiding behind the door and Dean didn't even get a clear view of it at first, just a jumbled impression of a huge horrid dark spidery thing, piling right into him. It was right on Dean and clamped all over his torso, pinning his arms to the side nad flinging him to the floor, before he could even bring his demon-blade up. But Cas flew into action and actually jumped right on the thing. There was a bewildering and fairly terrifying scuffle, all three of them rolling around for a moment, before Cas managed to slice one of its black, twisted limbs right off. It howled and let go of Dean, and Dean finally got the demon-blade up and plunged it straight into the thing's chest.
Dean scuttled back on his hands and knees, gasping, while Cas immediately stepping in front of him to guard him. They both watched the spider-thing as it writhed for a moment, glowing with a strange purple light, and collapsed, dead.
Dean said, "Hey, that didn't go so bad, huh?" He grabbed his shotgun and pistol - he'd dropped them when he'd gotten jumped, and scratched an itch on his arm. "So Cas, you feel any better now?"
Cas gave him a distinctly uneasy look, his mouth pressed into a tight line. "Not really," he said. "Actually the sensation is getting much worse. "
"You getting any clearer idea what it is that's bugging you?" said Dean, scratching his arm again.
Cas looked around. "Something very bad coming." He looked up at the high ceiling, at the great wooden pillars all around them, and the shattered skylights high overhead, and turned in a little circle to look at all the walls. "Dean, I'm really getting quite worried. I think something bad is going to happen."
Cas began to pace around the perimeter of the room, his blade in his hand, inspecting all the corners and looking carefully behind the heaps of wooden pallets.
Dean's arm was really itching quite a lot. He looked down and saw he had four long bloody scrapes across his elbow.
Cas was still checking through the far corners of the rooms, saying, "Dean, I'm starting to suspect this may be some sort of premonition."
Dean sighed to himself. There Cas went again... Cas and his squirrely theories. Which no doubt were wrong, since Cas was always completely wrong about everything.
Cas started just going on and on about premonitions and how angels sometimes got a sense of something bad approaching, some tedious nerdy explanation about their sense of time stretching slightly into the future, and Dean found he was getting more and more irritated just at the sound of Cas's voice. He finally snapped, "Would you just shut the hell up?"
Cas turned and looked at him. Dean was standing by the door, clutching his arm; Cas was at the far corner of the room, facing Dean now, frowning.
That idiot frown Cas practically always had — it was just so fucking irritating. Dean said, "I don't know why I even brought you along. You always get everything wrong. You've betrayed us so many damn times already, I don't know why I even thought I could trust you for even a second."
"Dean..." said Cas, standing very still, scanning Dean from head to foot. Dean scratched his arm again, and Cas narrowed his eyes and said, "What's wrong with your arm?"
"What the fuck do you care?" Dean snapped. "I scratch my arm and suddenly you're all worried about it? When, what about all those times I really seriously needed your help, more than just a damn scratched arm, and you couldn't even be bothered to answer me?"
Cas blinked at him, and something changed in his posture; Dean could almost see him slide into that hyper-aware soldier thing that he did. Cas started to stroll ever-so-casually around the side of the room, toward the door (which was behind Dean), but Dean moved to block him, saying, "Do you even remember how many times I tried to pray to you and you never even answered? You never even bothered to tell me if you even heard? You remember that entire solid year when I thought Sam was being tortured out of his mind in Hell and you just fucking disappeared? You never answered me even one damn time? And then when you did finally show up it was only 'cause we'd found stuff you needed? And then you lied like hell to us that whole year. YOU. FUCKING. LIED TO ME. Oh wait, there was another year like that too, wasn't there? The very next year! When you just went all amnesic and insane and then you went off following goddam bees around when I REALLY COULD HAVE USED YOUR HELP. Oh wait - then there was the next year too! In Purgatory! WHEN YOU ABANDONED ME. And then the next year too. And now I've got some little scrape on my arm and suddenly you're paying attention?"
Cas was standing very still now, staring at Dean. He shifted his grip slightly on his angel-blade.
"Dean, were been bitten?" asked Cas quietly.
Cas had that fucking idiotic squint again.
"Would you stop tilting your head like a goddam dog, Cas, you look like a complete fucking moron when you do that," snapped Dean. He wasn't done reviewing all Cas's crimes, though, and he said, "How many times have you betrayed us now? Oh wait. Let me list them." Dean started to tick off a list on his fingers. "Let's see now. One, lying to us about Crowley and Raphael and what you were doing for an entire friggin year."
"Dean, listen to me," Cas said, tense and urgent, starting to sidle around the edge of the room, "You've been bitten. You're feeling hatred, aren't you? Directed at me? But it's not real, Dean—"
"It's as real as it gets, Cas, and the reason I'm feeling hatred and rage is because you deserve to be hated, Cas" said Dean, talking right over Cas. Dean was unloading his shotgun as he spoke. Dumping the salt cartridges and swapping them out for ones with real buckshot. "TWO," went on Dean, "You decided to try become GOD? Seriously? For real? How many sins does that even count as? And then you murdered I don't know how many people."
"Dean," broke in Castiel, "Please listen to me. You've been bitten - you've been infected. I know now what sort of demon that was - the venom is distorting your thoughts. It's turning you into the worst version of yourself, into the demon you would have become in Hell. Dean, it's turning you back into a torturer of Hell. I can see it in your eyes, Dean, please—"
"Don't fucking change the subject, Cas," said Dean. He had the shotgun trained right at Cas now, who was backing away across the room. Cas tried to turn, and Dean fired to his side. "Don't you fucking move or I'll shoot your legs off right now. Are you trying to deny you have sinned?
"No," said Castiel, ashen now, standing very still, his voice very soft. "I don't deny any of it, and I have paid. And clearly I continue to pay. But this isn't you, Dean. You've got to try to remember who you really are—" Cas forgot himself and took one step forward, and Dean fired the pistol again, over his head this time, and Cas froze once again.
Dean said, slowly, "One more step, Cas. One more step and I kill you where you stand. Do not move. I'm not done. I'm not even halfway through." Dean pulled his phone out of his pocket and tapped out a quick message to Sam. "Okay, that takes care of Sam," he said a moment later, returning the phone to his pocket. "No cavalry this time, Cas. Let's see, where was I, Castiel? Angel of the Lord? Soldier of God? Where was I now? I was at sin number three, was I not? THREE! You turned the Leviathans loose! And just how many people did THEY kill? Like, oh, for example, Bobby?"
It was all coming clear in Dean's mind now. It was all so crystal clear. How much Cas had sinned, how much he'd done wrong, how many awful mistakes he'd made, and, most of all, how much Cas needed to suffer. Cas needed to be punished.
Dean began advancing on Cas slowly.
"Dean, please—" whispered Cas. "All of that—Raphael and my, my, my failure as a god, and the Leviathans—I truly was trying to save the world—Raphael truly was going to destroy it, he truly would have. I didn't know the Purgatory souls would take me over like that—I truly didn't know how it would change me—there was no other way, Raphael truly would have destroyed the entire planet, and, please, Dean, you know I have tried to repent—you must know that—"
"FOUR!" interrupted Dean. "If I can go personal for just one moment here, just to point out that you don't even take care of your very, very, very few friends, because, four, you FUCKING ABANDONED ME in Purgatory! Then, FIVE, oh, do you happen to remember that one time you turned into a HOMICIDAL ROBOT and tried to kill me?" Dean's phone vibrated and he glanced at it quickly. Sam was obediently heading to an address fifteen miles away that Dean had given him. "Sam's gone, by the way."
Cas just gazed at him.
"Then, SIX, you stole the tablet and you didn't come to me for help and you ignored all my advice and you screwed up AGAIN with Metatron, didn't you, and it is because of YOU, because of YOU, Castiel, angel of the Lord, soldier of God, that all those people have been killed by angels this year. All the hundreds of vessels they've exploded by now... all the hosts they've killed. And how many more deaths is that on your conscience?"
Dean began to walk toward Castiel, slowly, one step at a time, his pistol in one hand, the shotgun in the other. "That is six times you've sinned, Castiel, you so-called servant of Heaven; and damned serious sins every one of them, and every one of them caused so much death and suffering. And if only stupidity counted as a sin too, well, then, you'd be up in the thousands of sins, not just six, wouldn't you. Okay, Castiel, now let's weigh all that up against the one and only year that you really helped us, though I guess I could actually count all that as a sin too because you messed up God's plan. Let's just count all that Apocalypse stuff as sin number seven, shall we?
Cas suddenly had his angel-blade in his hand. But he still wasn't moving.
"What's the matter, Castiel?' said Dean. "You could stab me in the chest with that angel-blade with one throw, couldn't you? Why are you hesitating?"
Cas flipped the blade around in his hand, staring at Dean. "Dean," he said, "This isn't you."
"You're thinking about it, aren't you," said Dean, taking another step closer, and another. They were only about ten feet apart now. "You're thinking about throwing the blade. Burying it right in my heart. Go ahead. Go ahead. I'm wide open." He moved his hands apart, holding the pistol and shotgun well away from each other, giving Castiel an easy target. "Just one quick throw and I'll be dead too. And that'll be just one more death on your conscience, won't it. Just one more little death. What's one among thousands? What's stopping you?"
A pause. Dean stood there, his arms spread, smiling. Cas was still fidgeting with his blade.
"Dean, I know you're in there," said Cas at last. "I know you can hear me."
"Oh, that's cute," Dean said, laughing, for Cas was parroting the phrases that Dean had used once, to snap Castiel out of his homicidal-robot trance. "Just one problem with that strategy, Cas, this is actually is me. You can't snap me out of a trance because I'm not in a trance, Cas."
Cas opened his mouth to say something else, but Dean found that he wasn't interested at all in whatever stupid prattly theories Cas was spouting out. It was time to get down to business.
Cas had sinned, and he needed to be tortured, and Dean was just the one to do it.
He didn't want to kill Cas immediately (that wouldn't be enough punishment) so instead he shot Cas in the leg.
Dean never was sure later how long it had all lasted. Cas had actually managed to fight for a while at first, even despite his shattered leg. They'd ended up scuffling on the ground for a surprisingly long time, given that Dean was heavier and taller and had a longer reach, which should have given him a substantial advantage. But Cas had millennia of experience, and turned out to have a surprisingly high pain threshold, and also turned out to be just full of unfair squirrelly little tricks. Actually Cas would probably have won, even despite his leg, except for the fatal flaw that he was still too goddam wimpy or weak-willed or whatever to kill Dean when he had the chance. No less than four times Cas had a solid chance to take Dean out with his blade, and every time he froze up like (Dean thought) the fucking idiotic wimp that he was. He hesitated even to just wound Dean, which was completely ridiculous. And the whole time Cas was keeping up that godawful ridiculous chatter about Dean being "infected", whining endlessly about it, gasping out sappy little phrases like "Wake up, Dean! You've got to snap out of this - I know you can hear me - don't do this! It'll wear off in a few hours, you just have to wait a few hours, please, please!"
The scuffle got messy and bloody, both of them rolling around in the corner. Dean finally managed to grab hold of Cas's mangled leg and twist it brutally. Cas screamed, and his hold on Dean finally wavered. Dean got a chokehold on him and choked Cas into consciousness, and it was a hell of a relief when Cas at last SHUT UP.
Dean could have killed him right then, and almost did in fact.
But of course, Cas still needed to be punished.
Back when Dean had been Alistair's brightest new protege, back in Hell, when Dean had been Alistair's assistant torturer and well on his way to becoming a demon, Alistair had instructed him in some of the finer nuances of torture. There were quite a lot of interesting little psychological deatils that one could add. For example: if the subject was religious, you could set up the torture scene in a way that mimicked something about the religion. This often added an layer of emotional suffering that gave the whole job just that little additional zing.
Dean considered Castiel to be more-or-less Christian (maybe not exactly, since Cas was older than that; but Cas had hinted a few times that he'd seen Jesus personally and that had to count, right?).
So Dean crucified him.
There wasn't exactly a cross and nails handy but Dean made do. He tore apart one of the old wooden pallets nearby till he found a sturdy good-sized planks, pulled some nails out of the pallets too, and hammered a good-sized plank onto one of the sturdy vertical pillars. Then he managed to get he Cas (who kept coming half awake until Dean choked him out again) strung up by a waist rope upright against the vertical pillar. It was difficult, and Cas kept coming half awake and Dean kept having to choke him out again, but Dean kept at it and finally got him up there, hauling hard on the waist ropes till Cas's feet were dangling a foot or two off the floor.
He tied Cas's feet in place, and tied Cas's arms to the horizontal piece. Cas was still mostly suspended from the rope around his waist, but his arms and legs were in the right position now.
Then Dean waited for the angel to wake.
He could no longer remember the angel's name — had it started with a C, perhaps? No matter; it was clear in Dean's mind that this angel, whoever he was, had sinned terribly and must punished. So he waited till the angel's eyes cleared, till he managed to raise his head. He waited for the angel to start pleading (which the angel obediently did), and waited a few minutes longer for that sweet moment when real fear crept into the angel's eyes. Then Dean picked up the angel's own angel-blade and positioned it over one of his wrists.
There was a special sweet delight in the moment when the angel realized Dean was really going to go through with it, when he began to plead "Dean, please just kill me, please." Dean ignored him and hammered the blade in with the butt of the shotgun, right between the long bones of the forearm and into one of the wall studs. Then Dean's own angel-blade went through the other wrist.
Dean was glad he'd sent Sam away; otherwise Sam would certainly have heard the screams. Even from the far end of the warehouse row.
Finally Dean cut loose the waist rope, so that all the angel's body weight was hanging from the blades. Dean had been carefully to angle the blades so that the weight mostly hung against the flat of the blade, so that the blades wouldn't rip right through his flesh immediately.
Dean was a little sorry that the angel only screamed for about another ten minutes, but he'd been prepared for that small disappointment. Alistair had explained many times (with many demonstrations) how it was always a little difficult for crucifiction victims to breathe properly. This meant the screaming inevitably faded away pretty soon. Also, Dean noticed, the angel was starting to lose his voice. That's why Dean had a Phase 2 ready: As the screaming trailed off into a long series of faint hoarse gasping sobs, Dean moved on to flaying strips of skin slowly off the angel's chest. Dean's plan was to keep this up as long as he could, trying to minimize the blood loss as much as possible, so that the angel would suffer as long as possible. Because the angel needed to be punished. Because that was what the angel deserved.
Because this was Dean's job.
Because this was what Dean was.
A torturer of Hell.
This had been Dean's job for years, and years, and years, and years, here in Hell, at Alistair's side. It was all that he was; all that he knew; and the only thing he remembered.
Dean set about his job carefully. Professionally. He estimated he might get as much as forty-eight hours before the angel finally died, if blood loss could be minimized.
A few hours went by.
Something odd began happening to the angel now; instead of screaming he was starting to mumble little loops of dialogue, during which where he just repeated the same thing over and over in a hoarse whisper, like a broken record. For a long time he was stuck on "I know you're in there, I know you can hear me, I know you're in there, I know you can hear me." This was interspersed sometimes with "I need you" and even with "I love you". All these phrases just made Dean laugh, for he had no idea what the angel was talking about. It was all just kind of funny.
Then for a while it was just broken little gasps of "Please just kill me, please just kill me, please just kill me."
Once the angel seemed to have a little burst of clarity and he gasped, "You must remember - later - this isn't your fault - it isn't - I forgive you - I forgive you -" Dean hated it when the victims here in Hell began to talk like that. As if they had any right to forgive. As if it weren't all their own fault for sinning in the first place. So the instant the angel began that line of talk, Dean belted him hard across the face with the butt of the shotgun. The angel nearly choked, spat out a mouthful of blood, and couldn't seem to talk for a while after that.
Near the end, the angel began mumbling "You're my friend, you're my family, you're my friend, you're my family." He seemed to be close to delirious now and seemed to be losing his edge. Dean looked around, puzzled; had the angel been losing extra blood somewhere? He glanced at the wrists and swore. There was blood dripping from the hafts of both angel-blades. The blades had been slowly cutting through the bones and muscle of the arms, and the angel had been losing more blood than Dean had realized. Dammit. Dammit! Dean had messed up. The angel was not going to suffer enough.
The angel's pronunciation started to decay. He'd still been in the bizarre cycle of muttering "you're my friend, you're my family,", but his words were slurring and syllables disappearing till he was just muttering "friend... fam'ly... frien'... fam'y..." Dean realized, with some regret, that it would be ending soon.
Right around then, Dean started to get a little light-headed.
Tiny lights were dancing overhead, bits of silver glitter floating around in mid-air. He got distracted, watching the dancing bits of silver light, and he forgot what he was doing, staring up into the air.
The room was completely silent.
Dean began to feel very sleepy. He decided to lie down on the floor for a quick nap.
Something dripped onto Dean's hand.
He shook it off in annoyance. He was sitting in a chair, on a pier, by a lake, and he assumed that he'd just gotten splashed with the lakewater somehow. Maybe a fish had jumped or something.
"It's not your fault," said Castiel. Dean jumped; he hadn't realized Cas was standing right next to him.
Dean squinted up at Cas. Cas was almost standing over him, just a few inches away. He wa silhouetted against the sky and Dean couldn't really see him very clearly, but had the impression that something was a little odd. Cas's face was all in shadow; he looked a little strange. He seemed to be looking out at the lake.
"What's not my fault?" asked Dean, puzzled.
Cas didn't answer; he just continued gazing out at the lake. Dean followed his gaze, wondering what he was looking at, and then realized that the water was red.
The lake was full of blood. It was a lake of blood.
"It's not your fault," said Castiel's voice again. Dean looked up at him, but Cas wasn't there anymore. Dean was alone, sitting by a lake full of blood.
Something dripped onto Dean's hand.
It woke Dean up. His head was throbbing terrifically. Damn... what a hell of a hangover, he thought, trying to rememberwhere had he been last night. He blinked, and tried to swallow. His eyes were scratchy, his throat sore. He felt simply horrible. He closed his eyes again and just lay there, hoping the headache would ease a bit.
It took him a few minutes to realize he wasn't in his bed. Where was he? Had he fallen asleep in front of the tv again? Was he in a motel?
No... he was lying on a hard surface. A floor. A cement floor. He blinked, opening his eyes again, and this time he managed to focus on his surroundings. A big, empty room in some kind of warehouse. Oh great. Another warehouse, thought Dean, I must have been on some kind of hunt.
Something dripped onto Dean's hand.
This time Dean thought to look at his hand, and realized there was blood all over it. He sat up, worried, thinking, What happened to my hand?, and then saw he was sitting in a pool of blood. A huge pool of blood. He looked at his hands again, and was startled to see he was coated with blood, both his hands and both forearms red to the elbows.
Have I been shot? Was I stabbed? But he felt no pain.
Something dripped onto Dean's arm this time, and Dean finally realized that blood was dripping onto him from above.
Someone else's blood.
Dean looked up, and gasped.
Dean had been lying right next to one of the huge wooden pillars, and there was a body tied to it. Just above him. No—not tied—no, the guy had been—holy hell, the poor guy had been crucified, Dean realized. He scuttled backwards like a crab as he took in the awful sight. The guy's arms had been pinned to a horizontal beam by—good god, were those angel-blades through his wrists?—and he was hanging there like a grotesque reenactment of Christ himself on the cross. The poor bastard, whoever it was, had been nearly flayed, too; the front of his torso seemed just a mass of bloody red meat, with strips of skin hanging off dripping with blood. His pants were drenched with blood; blood was dripping from his feet. His head was hanging down, his face a mask of bruises and blood, his mouth hanging slackly open.
While Dean watched, blank with shock, a heavy drop of blood fell from the guy's open mouth. His mouth was slowly dripping blood, and it was this blood that had been falling on Dean's hand.
"Holy shit!" Dean gasped, managing to scramble to his feet at last. Where the hell was he? What was going on? Who was this guy? He scanned around the warehouse quickly, just to be sure that whatever psychopath had done this wasn't right nearby, but the vast warehouse seemed to be empty.
Dean turned back to the terrible crucifiction scene and reached up to the victim's face to try to figure out if by any chance the poor guy, whoever he was, might somehow still be alive. He saw that the fellow was still breathing, though very faintly.
Then Dean took a second look at the bruised, swollen face and this time he noticed the dark hair, and the familiar line of the jaw.
Dean's stomach clenched; his heart seemed to stop; his breath froze in his chest; for it was Cas. Dean hadn't even recognized him at first.
It was Castiel, hanging there crucified, flayed alive.
The next moment was the very worst moment of Dean's entire life (and there had been a lot of bad moments in Dean's life). For in the next moment, all the memories of the past couple hours suddenly came flooding back.
Suddenly it was all back in his head, every single moment, in vivid, scalding, horrific clarity. The bite on his arm. The anger—the rage—the maddening thirst for revenge—the absolute conviction that Cas needed to be punished—pulling the trigger on the shotgun—pounding the blades in—forgetting where he was, forgetting who he was—the screams—the begging—Dean laughing...
"No no no no no no no no no no no" was all Dean could say. His knees buckled and he slowly crumpled to the floor, gasping, ashen, clinging to Cas's foot as it all sank in. He was sitting in Cas's blood, he had tortured Castiel, he had crucified him, Cas had been begging him for mercy.
The horror was so intense and so unbearable that a violent surge of nausea ripped right through him and Dean immediately vomited up everything in his stomach. He was still retching uncontrollably a minute later, spitting out a thin watery bile, even while he was trying to untie poor Cas's feet. But Dean's hands were shaking so badly that he couldn't get the knot undone. He finally had to undo the knot with his teeth, in between the retching. Then he staggered to his feet to try to tackle the blades in Cas's wrists, but he couldn't figure out how to get the blades out, and then he couldn't figure out how to support Cas while he got the blades out, and it was all such a blinding, unthinkable nightmare that Dean began to weep. He cradled Cas's broken, bloody face in both hands for a long moment, still just saying "no no no no no no" over and over. He couldn't seem to do anything in any logical order, trying to hold Cas up and then trying to take one blade out and trying to hold him up again and pulling ineffectually at one blade and then the other and then trying to hold him up again, choking with sobs, gasping "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."
Dean finally managed to put together exactly one coherent thought, which was: Call Sam. He fumbled his phone out of his pocket and called Sam, and babbled something so incomprehensible that Sam couldn't figure out what he was saying. Sam had to say "DEAN. DEAN! I can't understand you! Calm down. Calm down. Take a breath. Where are you?" Dean finally managed to say "Warehouse, it's Cas, come quick come quick I need you." Dean dropped the phone and finally managed to wrench one blade out, then the other, and at last he had Cas down from the hideous cross.
He dragged Cas a few feet away from the puddle of blood and lowered him, as gently as he could, to the ground, saying, "Cas, Cas, Cas, can you hear me? Oh god Cas I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, please wake up, please, Cas can you hear me?"
He had Cas cradled in his lap now, Cas's shoulders across Dean's lap, his head lying in the crook of Dean's arm.
"Cas? Cas? Cas?" Dean kept saying.
By some miracle Cas's eyes slowly slid open.
His eyes were glazed and unfocused at first. He seemed to be gazing straight through Dean.
"Cas? Can you hear me? Cas?"
Slowly Cas's eyes moved to Dean's face.
"Cas!" said Dean, sagging with relief. "Cas, hang on, you just hang on, you're going to be okay, you hear me? You'll be okay, you'll be okay. Oh god Cas, I'm so sorry! I'm so sorry, Cas, oh god, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, you gotta hang on okay?"
Cas blinked once, a slow blink. His jaw was still slackly open, his breath faint, but Dean saw his eyes focus on Dean's face.
"Hang on, Cas, hang on," Dean kept repeating. "Sam's on his way, we'll get you to a hospital, you'll be okay—"
Cas tried to lift one hand.
"Don't try to move, Cas—just take it easy—you're gonna be okay now—" said Dean, but Cas seemed determined to lift his hand, struggling so hard at it that Dean finally helped him, supporting his elbow. Cas's hand drifted to touch Dean's shoulder; and then came up to Dean's face.
Cas touched the side of Dean's face, letting his hand rest on the side of Dean's jaw. As he had so many times before. Every time he had healed Dean.
Cas whispered something. Dean had to lean close, putting his ear to Cas's mouth.
He heard Cas mutter, very faintly:
"...my...friend... "
Dean felt Cas's fingers slide down the edge of his jaw. Cas was looking right at him, looking right into Dean's eyes.
Then Cas's arm went limp and his hand fell away. Dean glanced down at Cas's hand and only then realized that the wrist wounds had been seeping quite a lot of blood now that the blades were out. Dean felt Cas sag slightly, and looked back up at Cas's face and—
NO.
That unmistakable look. That haze coming over Cas's blue eyes; his eyes unfocusing, the lovely clear blue going grey and cloudy. The long last sigh of air, his whole torso shrinking slightly. The last rough rattle in the throat.
Everything going limp.
The slight stiffening of the face.
The stilling of all motion.
NO.
The scene that greeted Sam, when he finally burst back into the warehouse, would haunt Sam's nightmares for months. Blood all over the central pillar, blood all over the floor. And there was Dean, covered in blood, holding Cas, also covered in blood. Dean was sitting cross-legged on the floor with Cas's upper body in his lap, Dean's arms wrapped tight around Cas's shoulders, Cas's head turned so that his face was pressed tight to Dean's chest.
Sam had seen plenty of bloodbaths in his life, of course, and they rarely gave him nightmares anymore. The thing that turned this one in particular into a nightmare was actually just the expression on Dean's face.
Or rather, the lack of expression.
Dean was a mess. His face was streaked with blood and tears and snot, he was covered in blood, and he was clutching a bloody, broken Castiel to his chest with all his strength. And yet he was just sitting there looking almost serene. No expression at all on his face. He was just gazing blankly across the room. Quiet. Calm.
It took Sam one long, awful second to take the scene in, and then he dashed over and fell to his knees next to them, gasping "Dean! Oh—jesus—oh my god—what happened? Is he alive? Cas? Cas, can you hear me? Dean, is he—is he—"
Dean didn't answer.
Sam realized that Dean was humming something.
"Dean?" Sam said again. He started to take hold of Cas's hand, to check for a pulse, and then was horrified all over again to discover that both Cas's wrists were a mangled mess of bloody flesh. Sam couldn't even begin to try to find a pulse. Dean had both arms wrapped so tightly around Cas's head and shoulders that Sam couldn't get to Cas's neck to check for a pulse there either. Sam tried to pry Dean's hands away, but Dean wouldn't let go.
"Oh god Dean, what happened to him, holy fuck," Sam said desperately. "What happened, let me see, Dean, let me see! Cas? Can you hear me? Is he breathing? Dean, let go of him. Dean, you have to let go. Dean! Let go of him!"
It took some struggle before Sam could pry Cas away from Dean even a few inches, even just to check his pulse, even just to confirm that he was dead.
Sam let go of Cas and sank back to the ground.
The second Sam let go, Dean drew Cas close again, back into the tight bloody embrace. Dean had not stopped humming.
Sam sat there in the pool of blood, looking at them both.
Dean was muttering something now under his breath. Sam couldn't make it out at first but then caught a few scraps of words. Dean was muttering:
"..comin' home...to a place he'd never been before..."
Dean kept muttering, his voice warbling weirdly. Sam couldn't even figure out what was happening. Then finally he caught a couple more words:
"m'tn... high... col'rado..." said Dean, his voice descending strangely through what was almost a melody.
The melody was almost recognizable. Sam finally placed it; Dean was singing a John Denver song to Castiel. "Rocky Mountain High." One of Cas's favorites. One that Dean had given him particular hell about.
Well, sort of singing it. Sort of chanting it in a hoarse mumbling whisper.
Sam just sat there staring, as it began to sink in that his friend was dead, and that his brother had apparently lost his mind.
Sam finally leaned forward and took Dean's head in his hands, one hand on either side of Dean's face, thinking to himself don't break down, don't break down, you gotta take care of Dean, you gotta take care of Dean right now. Sam forced himself to take a breath and he said, as clearly as he could, "Dean, can you hear me?"
Dean was still humming, still muttering broken lyrics under his breath.
"Dean?" said Sam carefully. "The demon got him, didn't it? Dean, you have to let go of him. You have to let go. It's time to let him go."
To Sam's surprise Dean actually focused on him, stopped humming and spoke.
"I'm waiting for him to wake up," said Dean.
"Dean, can you let him go? Can you hand him to me?"
"No," said Dean, repeating, "I'm waiting for him to wake up." He hummed another broken line of melody, and added, under his breath, "He'll come back...he always comes back."
Sam spent the next several minutes trying to coax Dean to let go of Cas's body, but Dean simply would not relinquish his hold on Cas. He eventually stopped humming the ghastly song, but then just kept repeating "I'm waiting for him to wake up... He'll come back."
It became clear that Dean was convinced that Cas would be resurrected. Soon. In just a few more minutes.
Dean explained at one point, as if he thought Sam were being a little dense, "He always comes back, Sam. Always. It's just taking a little time. We just gotta wait."
It occurred to Sam, as he sat there in the pool of blood, that Dean actually had a point. Cas had been resurrected from death quite a few times. He'd had, what, four or five miraculous recoveries.
But somehow this time felt different, and after another minute of sitting there in the pool of blood, Sam realized why. There was no Apocalypse going on; for years no there had been no sign of any God stepping in regularly to push things along.
And Cas had been human this time.
He died human this time, thought Sam. Humans actually could get resurrected, of course, if circumstances were exactly perfectly right. They could get resurrected by an angel, or by a powerful enough demon. But there was no angel in sight; and neither Sam nor Dean had been able to get any crossroads demon to even talk to them for a few years now.
Sam reached out and touched Cas's hand gently, and realized Cas's body (or, his vessel, anyway) was growing cool.
After about five more minutes of trying to pry Cas's cooling body out of Dean's arms, Sam stood and walked over to the little door and walked outside for a moment, so that he could cry without Dean hearing. It was still foggy out, the streetlamps just fuzzy glowing yellow patches in the fog, the other warehouses dimly visible as large dark ghostly hulks. Sam stood there, alone, just outside the little door, his head down, trying to gulp back his sobs. He couldn't keep it all hidden and some sobs got out, shaking him, and he just stood there trying to grit his teeth, trying to breathe, trying to wipe his face dry. Muttering to himself, "I should have been here, I should have been here."
He got his breathing back under control, and ran both hands through his hair. Stared at the fog. Thought, what do I do? How do I make Dean let go of the body? How can I get Dean back home?
He made himself turn. Made himself walk back inside.
Sam walked over to Dean, knelt by his side and said, "Dean, why don't we take him back to the bunker. He'll be more comfortable if he wakes up there. Once he wakes up we can feed him some food immediately. Right? Let's take him back to the bunker, okay?"
Dean considered this, a faint frown appearing briefly on his blood-streaked face. "Okay, that sounds good," he said at last. He started to struggle to his feet but still would not let go of Cas.
"Why don't we carry him to the car together," suggested Sam shakily. "Let me help carry him. That way he'll be, uh, uh, uh, h-h-he'll be, m-m-m-more..." Sam just managed to bite back another near-sob, by holding his breath for several seconds. Once he could breathe again, he gasped out, "He'll be more comfortable."
Dean thought about that, and said, "No, I want to carry him. I'll carry him."
"Please let me help," said Sam.
"No, I'll carry him," said Dean, calm as ever, struggling now to get Cas's bloody limp body flopped over his back. Then he tried to stand. But Cas seemed to be a heavy burden, all his limbs loose and floppy and slippery with blood, and Dean simply could not get to his feet.
"Please Dean please let me help carry him, please," said Sam, his voice cracking. Something in his tone seemed to break through Dean's eerily calm veneer for a second. Dean looked at Sam. For a split second an expression of sheer horror came across Dean's face.
Dean closed his eyes and his face went blank again.
Dean opened his eyes again, his expression still blank.
"Okay," said Dean. He lowered Cas back down to the ground, and took Cas's shoulders. "You can get his feet," said Dean. "Be careful though. Don't hurt him."
"I won't hurt him," whispered Sam, taking Cas's feet. One of the feet seemed to stretch and turn very strangely when Sam took hold of it, and it took Sam a moment to figure out that the entire leg seemed to be flopping bonelessly. The leg had been shattered somehow. Sam dropped that foot as if it were on fire, and had to stare up at the ceiling for a second. Sam looked at Dean (Dean was still just gazing at Sam patiently) and thought Keep it together, keep it together.
Sam lifted Cas just by the unbroken leg, while Dean carried his shoulders.
"Don't hurt him," said Dean again.
They began to carry Cas toward the door. But Sam was in front, and the broken leg began to drag along on the ground. It started to fold back under Cas in a truly horrifying way, and Sam said, "Stop." They stopped. Dean said "Don't hurt him." Sam set down Cas's good leg, picked up the strangely floppy bad leg, crossed the bad leg over the good one, knelt, vomited, tried to stand, sank right back down to his knees again, vomited a second time, wiped his mouth, stood, picked up the good foot, and said "Okay."
They started moving again.
"Don't hurt him," said Dean.
Sam staggered on, walking backwards with Cas's one good foot clamped in both hands, leading the way. The entire warehouse was reeling around Sam now, and Sam had to call out "Stop" a few more times in order to lean over with his hands on his knees, just breathing for a moment, thinking Do not pass out, do not throw up again, don't you dare, you gotta take care of Dean, you gotta keep it together.
They finally got Cas out the door.
"Don't hurt him," said Dean.
"I won't," Sam said. "I'm not. He's not hurting, Dean."
"Don't hurt him."
"We're not hurting him, Dean."
"Don't hurt him."
This, too, became part of the nightmare that haunted Sam every night for many months after: carrying Cas's ruined body through the dark warehouse, out into the foggy night, through the grasses in the derelict parking lot to the Impala, trying to fold his broken body into the back seat, while a glassy-eyed Dean repeated "Don't hurt him," at least a hundred times.