The first time Castiel knows is when he stands before a cracked mirror in the cabin and fingers are pressing against his cheek, turning it inside out to inspect the gum inside. His eyes turn hard when he spots the small blisters running below his lip. He quickly moves his hand away.
This wasn't the first indication. There was a patch of skin just under his elbow that had almost been scratched sore, and he'd barely been able to stop coughing for the past couple of weeks. For now, he was fortunate. These infections would fade, as the medical supplies were available to treat it; but he knows they are fast fading and who knows when they could get the next batch in if ever?
Becky, had been her name. She had been the first. It was eerily sudden, and many people suspected that it was a new branch of the Croatoan virus. Castiel was technically the closest thing they had to a professional doctor on site, and he'd been sent in to investigate.
He'd stepped out of the room to the 'Fearless Leader', who was considering him with hard eyes. The ex-angel had shaken his head.
"No."
"Then what is it?"
Castiel shrugged, brushing past him to wash his hands clean.
"From my guess, I'd say HIV. We're not exactly skipping around in condoms and hygienic supplies here. It could have come from anywhere."
He felt Dean tense behind him.
"Could anyone else have caught it?"
"Likely."
"Shit."
Castiel turned to look up at Dean, who's doing the tell-tale sign of 'I can't deal with this crap' motion of running his fingers through his own hair, shoulders slumping back. But he knows he'll continue; Dean doesn't have a choice in the matter anymore, either by everyone's expectations in the camp or his own.
"Right. Send a call out. All needles of any kind need to be gone. ASAP. You hear me?"
"Yes, Oh Fearless Leader," he half drawled, and watched silently as Dean turned away and headed back into the main camp, presumably to heed his own call. As much as Dean was taking precautions now everyone should full well know that it would be too late for some. No wonder Dean had suddenly spat his mood at him.
Castiel sighed, and dried his hands on his jeans.
Castiel stares at himself.
He decides on a suitable choice of vocabulary for the occasion.
Balls.
The first time Dean knows anything about it is when Cas refuses to have sex with him.
Dean smirks, pressing the other gently up against the wall as he enters the Cabin. He practically purrs as he dances kisses all over Cas' jawline, nuzzling a long forgotten hickey against his neck. Hips press together as he pins the other and his lips twitch as he feels the hot breath of Cas' against his cheek, head rolling back in a happy moan.
The hunter's fingers trail under his jacket (or is it Dean's?) and starts to slip it off. He isn't expecting his reaction when hands trail down to waistband and he suddenly feels every ounce of Cas jerk and tense underneath him - Dean stumbles as he's shoved back, hard.
Cas stares at him, expression stringent. He doesn't move.
"No."
"What?"
"I said no. I'm not doing this, Dean."
Castiel starts to hastily shrug his jacket back on his shoulders, and Dean knows then and there that something is wrong.
He steps forward and takes a hold of his arm. "Whoa, hold up. You damn sounded like you wanted it a minute ago. What made you change the forecast so suddenly?"
"I don't haveto want it every time you do, Dean—"
"Dammit, Cas, you know that's not what I meant—"
"— I'm going to go relieve Chuck of his post, you could do with some rest — "
"Cas."
Dean tightens his grip, and they both come to a stop. Dean glares. It doesn't hold, and he sighs, exasperated.
"Talk to me."
Castiel doesn't respond, but it's his insistent refusal to return his gaze that really catches him. He's starting to get anxious.
"Cas—"
"I— I can't. Risk it. You. Okay?" He looks up briefly at that, as though snatching just one frame of those gorgeous olives, before not daring himself to take any more.
Dean doesn't understand, not at first. He tugs on Cas a little, shaking his head. What is it exactly Dean's at risk of? In possibly the whole world Cas is surely the one remedy Dean has to anything—
Oh. Oh.
His eyes widen. His hold loosens.
"Cas, no. I—"
Castiel doesn't respond, and turns away, exiting out of the cabin before Dean can form his words.
Dean watches him go, and numbness bites at his heart.
The first time that Castiel allows to be helped is during a hunt. A few of them have headed into the city in order to raid around for supplies.
It must have been weeks, even months, since Castiel had said anything about it. He refused to bring the matter up, even in those moments during meetings where Cas would sit there and slowly blink at Dean, that slight mis-second of understanding, something so miniscule yet so flipping obvious to the hunter. To say it unnerved him was an understatement.
Dean would have insisted that Castiel remain in base (and he had done, as much as possible under his own orders), if it wasn't for the fact that everyone else was on the rota and they'd lost three people in the past month. He didn't have a choice.
It becomes obvious how bad an idea this was when they are ambushed by Crotoan. Dean and Castiel are pressed with their backs to an upturned car. Dean's scouting around beneath the wheel to get a look at vantage points, and he grunts as he reloads his gun.
"I don't know how long we're gonna be sittin' here, Cas."
He blinks as he looks up. Castiel is slumped there, eyes closed. Panicked, Dean snaps his fingers in front of his face.
"Cas!"
The other grunts, gently batting his hand away. He doesn't open his eyes, but his lips crack open and he mumbles a reply back.
"Heard you."
Dean doesn't relent, and scrambles to kneel before the other. He grabs his shoulder.
"That doesn't mean there's fucking time for a nap!"
He's being unnecessarily harsh, but they're surrounded by Croatoan and they're trapped and he has no goddamned clue where the rest of his men are and Cas is dying in front of him, has been slipping away from between his fingers over the last few months and there's not been a goddamned thing Dean can do it. They don't have time.
"Cas, please."
He must have sounded a lot more frail than he realised because Cas' eyes shoot open at that, staring at the hunter before him. He considers him, and with one pained, exhausted grunt Castiel leans forward and grabs his gun, starting to move onto his feet.
"Cas, what the hell do you think — "
"We need to get rid of the sons of bitches, right?"
He staggers to his feet, in plain fucking view of the Croatoan, and starts to shoot.
Dean will admit, he does a pretty good job at mowing a bunch of them down, but it's only a matter of time before they start advancing on the two, before Cas' ammunition runs out, and before he doubles over, hacking his lungs out.
Dean throws himself to his feet, and essentially slings the other over his shoulders. They don't have a choice.
"Hold on, Cas," he murmurs, "I'll get us out."
Dean has no clue how they manage it, and maybe there is still some forsaken God hanging around keeping an eye on them because hours later there's still blood pumping through both of their veins while hiding in an abandoned bookstore, when the rest of the group manage to break in and they all retreat to safety.
Castiel had passed out hours ago, trembling from fever.
He'd been using a Large Edition of the King James Bible as a pillow.
The last time Cas speaks, Dean has to carry him to bed.
The damn bastard shouldn't be on his feet anyway, but Dean doesn't even know what he's hoping for anymore. There was never any cure to begin with and did anyone really expect to be able to find any treatment in this crapsack joint of a world?
Cas feels much too light, much too bare. It's like Dean's holding up bones, a very stark contrast when fingers would stroke against muscle and nights would roll into day and all Dean would know were supple arms and blessed blues gazing at him, drowning him whole —
"Don't know what you were thinking, Cas," Dean says, unusually gentle and light in tone for the Fearless Leader, and he moves to untangle and tuck the other into bed. "You've never had to worry about your looks before."
He's about to move away, when he suddenly feels the jerk of clothing on his shirt. He stops, looking down at the other with slightly wide eyes.
Castiel hardly seems there, but there's such strength, such desperation in the grip that Dean complies, sighing as he quickly kicks off his shoes and slips into bed beside the other. Any other night Dean would have just insisted that Cas needed his rest, and Dean had to return to his duties; shamefully avoiding the sickening atmosphere that seemed to just increase day after day. But for some reason, Dean can sense it. He can't quite put his finger on it but he just… knows.
Tonight.
Dean slips into bed, and shifts the pillows so he can pull Cas up to fold in his arms and bury him away, so both neither really have remember anything but the warmth that both of them use to hold each other down.
Dean exhales, shakily, and presses a kiss to the top of his head. He can feel the sweat off the other's back, the fine trembling underneath one of Dean's old shirts. He strokes against his spine, half regretting it when he remembers he can feel every vertebrae.
"I know I've been a shit… whatever it is, Cas. And I'm sorry." He whispers, blurting out whatever crap decides to tumble from his mouth at this point. "Words aren't ever gonna be enough, but… you've done more for me than anyone should. It isn't fair, this. None of this is fucking fair and I dragged you into it and if all the sorrys in the world could make it up to you I'd say them all, but —"
He jumps into an awkward silence, heavily conscious of the shallow breathing of the other. He tightens his embrace, eyes squeezing shut.
"But I'm not gonna leave you, Cas. Not now, not ever. It's gonna be okay, ya hear me? It'll all be okay."
And Dean knows it's not, at least not for him and for the rest of the world, and maybe Cas does too but he doesn't reply to it so Dean accepts it as whatever that means.
They remain there for some time, Cas breathing and Dean cradling him, humming soft rock under his breath and maybe a 'Hey Jude' or four. It isn't until Castiel suddenly shifts does Dean stop.
Castiel moves, shivering, and turns his head to look up at Dean, one last contrast of olive and wondrous cyan blue that Dean always thought must match the sky or maybe the sea on it's best days, not that he'd seen altogether too much of it —
but he can see how hollow they are, how much the life is slowly passing away from them. It's the first time Dean can't help himself from tearing up. No. No. Anything but his eyes. He can't lose that.
The ex-angel closes his eyes, and leans against his shoulder. His lips part.
"Dean," he breathes, and it's there Castiel dies. (Forgiveness forever on his lips.)
He cries.