Cas knows before he wakes that Dean isn't beside him. His grace – so used to distinguishing Dean's soul from the rest of humanity's, so used to reaching for him in his sleep – has no trouble finding him on the sofa, before Cas has opened his eyes. For a second, he waits there, wondering if after all this time, Dean's hunter senses are still sharp enough to wake him. For once, he doesn't stir. In the burnt sunrise coming through the window of their home, his skin is grey, the circles under his eyes black. Cas returns to his body and opens his eyes, a hand brushing his forehead. His other arm stretches to Dean's side of the bed unconsciously, pulling at the sheets where Dean's body should be.
He sighs.
Slowly, he peels off the duvet off clammy skin and rises, stretching, hearing his joints click softly. He doesn't relax his muscles until he's sure he's more awake, readier to deal with the mess Dean's become. He's tried to help before, but Dean has never let him in, not really. Cas didn't push. He's sick of Dean sleeping on the couch, if at all. Today's the day he'll confront him.
His heart's hammering as his fingers brush the cool wood of the bannister, it's no trouble working up the courage to ask him – he's no stranger to honesty. The trouble lies with the care he has to take choosing his words. He rehearses the conversation in his head, approaching it differently each time.
When he stands in front of Dean's sleeping form, Dean shifts to face him, still asleep. His guard is down, his expression is so vulnerable it hurts Cas to see. The past few days Dean's face has shut down every time he thought Cas was watching him. Dean turns away again, as if he's unconsciously shielding Cas from his own pain. The difference is so startling – so startling it's frightening to think he's almost become a stranger – Cas can't wake him up to confrontation. His resolve crumbles. It's too cruel. Instead, Cas runs his fingers across the firm muscles of Dean's back as he goes past, intent on making breakfast.
He leaves the door to the kitchen open so he can hear, just in case. He hums an old rock song as he cracks eggs into a frying pan, reminding himself to do the dishes lying on the side. He smiles as he hears the groan he's been waiting for, just audible underneath the hissing eggs.
It takes longer than it should for Dean's barefoot shuffle to reach him. Hands hold his waist to Dean's, lips at his neck. Though it's distracting – Cas really hates burning breakfast – he's afraid to push him away.
"Morning, Dean," Cas murmurs, smiling. He leans his head back until he rests it against Dean's shoulder. He can't see Dean's expression. In the cold air of the kitchen, Dean's body buffers it and keeps it at bay. At least that hasn't changed. He feels the vibration of Dean's ribs through his spine, though he doesn't concentrate on Dean's reply.
The smell of fresh coffee is reassuring as they eat at the small coffee table in front of the sofas. Dean sits on the sofa opposite Cas, quite still. He's pushing the eggs around his plate rather than wolfing them down and the worry spikes again. He can feel the frown on his face. Wordlessly, he pours coffee and slides it over to him, watching Dean closely.
Dean's fingers fumble as he almost knocks the cup over, and from the way he flinches Cas can tell he's burned himself. He knows it's not the pain that made him wince – pain is no stranger to Dean, and a tiny singe to the nerves in his fingers wouldn't do that. It's the small blunder of his fingers slipping against the ceramic, when he used to snatch guns and talismans from the air when he was hunting.
Dean stands.
"It's your turn for dishes, Cas," Dean mumbles, trying for a distraction. He hovers for a second, as if he's not sure what to do with the object in his fingers. He brings the cup to his lips, looking anywhere but the angel. He moves away from the sofa as if he's leaving.
"Dean."
"What?"
The dishes can fucking wait.
Cas rises off the sofa slowly, feeling his heart beat steadier than it has in days.
Cas pries the mug from Dean's hand and sets it on the table, hard. He moves towards Dean, who takes a step backwards. It makes Cas's heart twist in confusion.
In the next second Dean's back hits the wall, and Cas's hand is resting lightly on Dean's chest, feeling Dean's heart pound against it.
"C-Cas," Dean mumbles, unable to look at him or Cas's touch, and the sound is broken.
"Let me help," Cas says, and the way Dean closes his eyes in response is painful. Heart-breaking. Cas can't stand it. Dean has always been the stubborn one, the one telling him never to give up. He's never seemed affected by anything until it's too much, never showing how bad it is until he can't bear it any longer.
He wants to burn Dean's worry, whatever that is eating him, reducing him to being broken. He wants to destroy it so badly he's certain Dean knows it too.
Dean's breathing turns uneven. He frowns as if he doesn't understand, and Cas knows damn well that's a lie. "You already fixed me up, Cas," he says, and instantly Cas's mind flashes back to Dean asleep in a hospital bed, his last hunt a week ago.
"Dean."
Dean hadn't said what he'd been hunting, or where he'd been, the week he'd left. Beforehand, he'd been silent. If Cas had pushed, Dean might not have come back. He refused to let Cas come with him, and Cas had known instantly he would have to wait for Dean to come back to him.
Except he didn't.
"I'm fine, Cas," Dean says, another lie as his heart gives him away again, not that Cas needs it to tell him.
Dean vowed to never go on a hunt again. Being a hunter was his life, it was what he did and at times all he lived for. This scares Cas more than he can admit. How he could just give up on doing what he'd spent his whole life devoted to was frightening. He'd never known Dean to give up on anything, and any waver in resolve was always temporary.
It shames Cas that it makes him angry. Dean doesn't deserve to feel like this.
"Bullshit," Cas growls. "Stop pretending, Dean. I didn't push you about it before you left to hunt. I had to find you were in hospital, from Sam's phone call, who didn't even know until a nurse rang him."
"Let it go," Dean says softly, his expression shutting down again. He finally raises his gaze to Cas's, and the stare is steady enough that Cas doesn't believe it. He knows he's pushed him too far already to go back now. If he doesn't he'll never find out and it won't go away, he just won't know how to help him.
Cas's hands frame Dean's face, and he watches him shudder. Cas closes the space between them, resting his forehead lightly against Dean's, his ribs against Dean's. He hopes the proximity, in some desperate thought, might convince him.
The light in the room is now cold, and all the warmth it might have had is gone. The only sound is Cas's calm breathing, and Dean's erratic rise and fall of his chest.
"No." Cas is scared. He has only words to help him, and it's not enough. He's sick of Dean not talking to feels reminiscent of the apocalypse when he had a purpose, when Dean could barely function. He's angry and he can't afford to be. Dean – whose saved thousands if not millions of people, whose always been relied on to never give up even when everyone else had – does not deserve this. He doesn't deserve Cas's anger at the injustice, either.
Dean's eyes close before they can betray tears. His whole body shudders between Cas and the wall, two unmovable objects. He's acting like a trapped animal more so than before, and Cas needs to know he'll give in before he snaps. "Don't," the word is a whisper. "Don't, Cas, please. Just leave it."
"Dean, let me help you." Cas's thumbs stroke Dean's face, and he waits until Dean's breathing calms again before he says anything else. "You have to let someone in, sometime. Tell me what's wrong."
Dean's eyes open, and this time they are dry. "No, Cas. There's nothing to say, man," his voice has steadied, his hands come to cover Cas's in a weak grip.
"Let me in, Dean. I'm not going to hurt you." He watches Dean swallow visibly, avoiding Cas's gaze again. Warring with himself. Cas shakes his head. It's not like he hadn't expected Dean to just tell him. He knew him better than that.
"You can't fix it, Cas. You can't help, so just leave it, okay?" As the words wrench themselves from Dean, Cas feels Dean's hands turn into desperate claws. "Cas please. You can't just zap me and everything will be fine!"
Cas ignores this.
Dean's skin, despite the proximity, is cold and clammy as if he's unreachable, unaffected by anything but his own thoughts that twist themselves into barbs in the former hunter's brain.
"I'm not going to hurt you. I won't. You know I won't," Cas says. "I can help you, if you let me. Dean."
He sees Dean's careful expression crumple, and he knows he's finally got through to him. Relief floods through him. His grip on Cas's hands is becoming painful, but he doesn't care. He barely feels it through the small victory.
"There's nothing for me, Cas."
The angel frowns. "Elaborate."
"No," the word makes Cas's heart sink. He has to keep going with this, and it's hurting both of them. It's the only way.
Cas nods. "If you can't tell me-"
"That's me just letting you in, Cas," the words escape from Dean in a rush, laced with cynicism as if Cas has taken something precious from him. He's defensive, and Cas needs to stop him before he shuts him out forever. Either way, there's no going back. Not now. "Are you happy? Is it fixed yet?"
"-Then show me." Cas stares down Dean's fear.
Dean's fingernails dig deeper into the tendons of Cas's hands, and Cas feels something warm start to trail down his skin. He knows that Dean understands he can't continue like this, bottling things up until they exploded – especially just before a hunt. Cas is sure that was how he ended up in hospital with every rib either broken or cracked, every inch of his skin yellow or purple with a reminder he can't carry on.
"Cas, I-"
Cas waits, but Dean seems incapable of saying what he feels, what had been torturing him the past week. In the dim light, he can see the shadows of the bruises on Dean's face, his eyes desperate hollows of pain.
Slowly, to Cas's relief, Dean nods.
"I swear, if you-"
Cas presses his fingers to Dean's temple very lightly. "Try not to fight me," he mutters.
"Because that's so easy, Cas." The retort slips from Cas's mind as he concentrates on his grace, tapping into his power.
The room falls away to darkness. Castiel hunches, feeling the skin of his human vessel slough off him. For a second, there's nothing beneath. The next, Castiel extends his true form upwards, six wings outwards, every muscle in his six faces flexing, mouths opening and yawning, twelve eyes rolling before searching. He is the light in the darkness, pure white energy fuelled by his grace. It has been so long.
The small and very important soul of Dean Winchester is before him, the only other point of light in the void. It is shuddering, curling on itself over and over again – and in this void, the man's pain is on another level entirely.
Castiel expects resistance – something, anything, but the soul is exhausted, too wrapped up in its own agony to fight, even on a subconscious level.
As his hand curls softly around the soul, its torment envelopes him completely until there is no discerning where the angel ends and the soul begins.
"Cas," Dean's voice utters, somewhere far away. "Please just- leave it, okay?"
It's the fear talking, fear masking the real reason so Dean can pretend there isn't a problem at all. Cas knows it's how Dean's been able to keep it from him, through the silences and the floor gazing.
He ignores the plea, concentrating on bypassing Dean's terror. He has to stop and remind himself that he had expected this.
He's heard pleas of the same nature before, back in the days of the garrison, having to extract information from desperate, despairing souls. Thousands of times. But this is Dean: the warrior, the hunter of the supernatural that preys on humanity, primitive beasts and sad echoes of people's broken dreams.
And Dean, Dean taught him to never give up, no matter what. He taught Cas a different kind of loyalty, the kind Heaven had always condemned as being a distraction, and that in itself was enough to be condemned. It was a lesson no amount of time he spent alive or how many orders he carried out from heaven could have taught him.
This man is stronger than I could ever be, and he's broken.
"I've watched Dad been thrown across rooms, pinned by ghosts and fear, Sam in a freakin' hospital bed, Mom burning up on the damn ceiling. I've seen monsters eat teens in abandoned shacks, wear some kid and letting 'em scream in the dark, watching themselves gut their sister, their mother. But you – you who could see everyone – you never tuned into that channel upstairs, huh? It was all about the picket fence with you, too busy watching ants cook breakfast. Just like them. Too busy gritting their teeth, tucking brats into beds, punching some prick at a bar, always shouting down the sounds of their own voice. There's always nobody around when everything goes wrong, Cas. No one. Nothing.
Tell me there's anyone in the end."
Cas doesn't feel enlightened, only more confused. Something in Dean's mind shakes, and Cas withdraws, releasing his hold on the man's soul. His true form folds inward, his wings tucking in against the great spine, twelve eyes closing, and each face flattens into the next. The white light dims, and his vessel has him encased once more.
He feels his heart beat steadily in his ribs, blood pushing around his body in a regimented way. He opens his eyes to see Dean with his clamped shut, his expression closed off. Cas's hands leave the man's temples.
He knows in that moment. With all his power of his celestial being, all his knowledge of countless lifetimes, of good intentions, of learning from Dean, he has failed.
Dean had allowed him in at his most vulnerable. He never lets his guard down. He never messes up a simple hunt so bad he ends up in hospital, not after the years on the road.
He knows he'll never be let in again. That was it. The end.
When Dean finally opens his eyes, Cas leans his forehead against the hunter's, avoiding the vivid green gaze.
"You can't help," Dean says eventually.
Cas doesn't even have anger to help him anymore. He's utterly lost in his failure.
"No," Cas replies, watching something in Dean break, further. "Not unless you let me."
It takes a while for the words to bring out any kind of reaction from the former hunter, it's not what Cas was looking for, but it's damn better than nothing.
"I hate this," Dean swallows, and Cas's head snaps up. "I hate that I'm doing this to you."
When the sun relents to shadows and coffee is traded for stale beer and the distracted murmur of TV, Dean's head rests on the angel's chest. It's the first time he sleeps properly in months. Cas is still uneasy, the worry still flitting in his chest like a finch's wings, until the amulet in Dean's pocket starts to burn.
Perhaps the presence of God isn't a celestial being. Perhaps it's the return of something you thought you'd never lose and lost it anyway, something you felt couldn't come back.