A/N - Welcome to my post-S10 summer fic! Canon-compliant up to the S10 finale. Starts 3 months later. I've been posting it on AO3 and it just occurred to me that it is suitable for ff as well (it is not explicit).
... um ...
SERIOUS WARNING: THIS FIC IS VERY DISTURBING. I am deliberately telling everybody the main point of chapter 1, even though it's a spoiler, just to make sure readers are sufficiently warned: Dean kills Castiel right away in chapter 1. And it is really, really bad. (Those who've read my other stuff, this is much worse than anything in any of my other fics.)
Destiel readers: This is a no-smut fic. Honestly this fic is a little hard for me to categorize as Destiel or not, but I am thinking of it as "repressed Destiel" - repressed on Dean's side, that is, and unrequited on Cas's. So the Destiel is mostly in the form of unrequited longing and regret. I do not rule out the possibility, though, that things may shift (whether this might be past or future I cannot say...) I'm trying to keep it very canon-compliant but am also letting the characters guide me, so this may evolve during writing.
WARNING: TORTURE, DEATH, MISERY, INSANITY, GRIEF. I'm not kidding.
THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE! STOP HERE!
It should have been an ordinary hunt.
It should have been easy. Just another ghost, just another monster. Dean had been certain it would be easy. The three of them —- Sam, Dean, and also Cas these days— were only working a simple case: a few strange deaths in a small Ohio town.
Just a handful of deaths. Nothing unusual.
Well, except that the deaths were maybe a bit more grisly than the norm. And a bit sadder than the norm, too. Five separate people had each slaughtered their friends and families, all in messy bloodbaths. Perfectly ordinary people, with no history of violence, had just snapped out of the blue, and had gone into what seemed to be some kind of a psycho-killer frenzy.
Three of the suspects had then killed themselves right afterwards. The other two had gone insane.
Dean shuffled his feet, and tugged at his collar. The trusty old FBI suit didn't seem to fit too comfortable anymore. The jacket seemed pretty warm in the August heat, the shirt was itching, and the dress shoes seemed to be pinching Dean's feet.
He tried to focus. They were at the the fifth death scene— a tidy little suburban home in Sandusky, Ohio. Last night a young mother had somehow managed to slaughter her entire family using only a broken vodka bottle. She'd slit her own throat right afterwards.
More dead folks, Dean thought, looking around once more at the bloody scene. Guess the reapers are all still in business? The death of Death, and also the still-closed Veil, seemed to have had no visible impact at all. People still seemed plenty able to die. (Though what happened to their souls afterwards, he had no idea. Even Cas had no useful insights about that.)
The last of the bodies had just been taken away, and most of the cops had left by now. One last local cop was standing with them in the blood-spattered living room, droning through a pretty tedious history of Sandusky and all its local gossip, while Sam nodded attentively and took reams of chicken-scratch notes on a little pad of paper. Cas, who had accompanied them on this trip (though he'd insisted on driving his own car) was pacing around the edges of the room studying the blood splashes.
Jeez, was the FBI getup always this hot in summer? thought Dean, tugging again at the shirt collar. Sam paused in his chicken-scratches to slant a sideways look at Dean, and Dean had to force himself to stop fidgeting.
Truth be told, it was a bit difficult to concentrate on the case.
Okay... real truth be told, it was a bit difficult to focus on any case these days. Any case at all. The FBI suit wasn't the real problem, Dean knew. He just wasn't comfortable in the role anymore. Here it was the end of summer already, months since the removal of the Mark, but Dean was still finding it a struggle to get back in the groove.
For one thing, the Darkness was a perpetual worry. Sure, it had scattered pretty rapidly, after its first appearance back in May— that terrifying black storm-cloud had just rolled over the Impala harmlessly, wafted off into the distance and disappeared, and there'd been no sign of it since. But Dean knew, he just knew, that the Darkness was out there somewhere. There'd been an uptick in weird cases recently, for one thing. And earthquakes. And sinkholes. And trees disappearing.
Just last week an entire mountain in the Andes had reportedly vanished into thin air. That seemed a little ominous.
And then there was the set of big dark sunspots that had appeared on the surface of the Sun last month. It had been playing hell with radio transmissions. And apparently this wasn't supposed to be a major sunspot year. There was even a dark spot on Jupiter, too, right smack in the middle of its big Red Spot, which was now shrinking pretty fast. Might just be coincidence, but...
Dean couldn't shake a conviction that the Darkness was slowly nibbling away at the fringes of Creation. Gobbling stuff up, maybe? Bits of the Earth? Maybe even bits of the Sun and the rest of the solar system?
Which seemed like it might be bad.
Then there was the whole different problem about hunting. This was at least the tenth case that Sam had tried to take him along on, but every time Dean had had to struggle to get back in the game.
It wasn't just because of distraction about the Darkness. The real problem with the hunts was that every time Dean had to do anything the least bit aggressive or violent — pull his gun, or throw a punch, or even just yell at someone— he usually ended up puking his guts out in the nearest bathroom right afterwards. Anything that reminded him of the Mark seemed to set it off— any hint of anger or rage and he ended up with nausea, headaches, the shakes, nightmares, the works.
Sam thought it was some kind of Mark-withdrawal that would improve with time. Dean wasn't so sure.
Sam had sure had his hands full, that first month. Dean had been curled up in his bedroom for a while first, feverish and headachey, and puking his guts out about every other minute. Cas had turned up a few days later, plenty sick himself; turned out he'd been hit by some weird spell from Rowena. He'd survived, but apparently it had knocked all the mojo out of him again (he'd said that healing from the spell had "drained his grace," whatever that meant). Since Dean had been pretty deep in the shakes-and-fever part of whatever weird withdrawal he was going through, Cas (who was too wobbly to help much anyway) had ended up just getting out of the way. He'd settled in on a cot way up in the bunker attic.
Cas had recovered much quicker than Dean had (though Cas still seemed to be pretty low on power). Cas had tottered on down to the library pretty soon and then spent most of June trying to help Sam sort out the jumbled library books. Dean spotted them flipping through the books sometimes and whispering to each other. They were both obviously trying to find out something useful about the Darkness. Fat lot of good it probably would do any of them now.
Dean, for his part, couldn't stand to be in the library (it reminded him too much of a certain fight he'd had in there) and he spent most of May, and then quite a lot of June, lying on his bed staring at the ceiling. But he heard Cas now and then puttering around, shuffling stacks of books here and there, or sometimes lugging some books upstairs to read them up there on his own. Cas pretty much moved into the bunker, in fact. There'd been no real discussion about it, but Cas seemed to have finally decided to ignore Dean's long-ago decision, almost two years back now, to kick him out.
Cas had even been trying to entertain himself a little. Dean heard him plunking away sometimes at an old guitar that he'd picked up at a thrift store.
It should have been good to know Cas was settling in. (The kicking-out thing had always nagged at Dean. For two years.) But mostly the guitar sounds just made Dean's perpetual headache worse. As did Cas's choice in music, which was currently running toward old sixties folk songs.
But at least Cas was better.
But Dean?
Well... at least the puking had slowed down a little.
He'd been hearing Cas and Sam talking about him, recently, in the bunker. Murmuring quietly together. They probably thought they were being totally subtle, of course, but their voices carried more than they realized, and once Dean was on his feet and roaming around the bunker more, every now and then he overheard their whispers. Usually something like, "He's still adjusting," or "He may need more time," or "I suspect he's still having nightmares," or "Has he ever talked to you? About... the... y'know."
That last one was always Sam talking to Cas. About that one time. In the library.
That time when Dean had battered Cas to within an inch of his life. That time when Dean had nearly killed Cas, and Cas had just let it happen.
No, of course they'd never talked about it. It got so that Dean could barely stand to be in the same room with Cas at all. He just couldn't seem to look Cas in the eye. Or talk with him. About anything. The most Dean seemed able to do was listen to the distant guitar strumming in the evenings, lying on his bed and hearing the faint sounds drifting down from the stairwell, and think, I gotta go up there someday and talk to him.
He never did. The most talking Dean did these days was usually just to burst into pointless rounds of bitching now and then, at both Cas and Sam, about the damn spell and the friggin' book and poor Charlie, and how it was all Cas's and Sam's fault that the Darkness had got out. Some days Dean couldn't decide who to be more pissed at: Cas, for going ahead with that harebrained spell idea and pretty much starting another Apocalypse? Sam, for pushing Cas into it? Or both of them, for trying to save Dean at all?
But of course Dean knew damn well whose fault it really was.
The cop finally left. Sam flipped his notebook closed. "There's definitely some kind of common thread here, to all these deaths," he said, "But damn if I know what it is. Cas, you spotting anything?" Cas was still pacing slowly around the bloody living room, now with a rather puzzled look on his face.
In answer, Cas closed his eyes and held out one hand into the air. "There's a signature of some sort in the air," he said, eyes still closed. "Something odd. Something I haven't felt before. I wonder..." He still had his hand out, waving it around now like it was some kind of antenna.
"Wait, Cas," asked Sam. "You're picking up something? I thought you were all out of mojo. Is your grace working again?"
Cas gave a little shrug. He opened his eyes and dropped his hand down to his side, frowning down at the bloodstained carpet. "Not really. I do still have a small grace, but it's still very low on power. But sometimes I do sense things. There's sort of a trail in the air. It reminds me a little of..." He paused.
His eyes slid to Dean.
It reminds him of something evil, thought Dean immediately. Something bad.
Cas looked away. "A demon, maybe," he said. "Or something else. I'm not sure. But I might be able to track it."
Cas's faint spidey-sense eventually led them to the foggy Lake Erie shoreline. It took a while, but by nightfall Cas, leading the way in his gold Continental, had homed in on a set of five ramshackle warehouses in a big old dockyard by the lakeshore. After some sniffing around and some more Obi-Wan style hand-waving, Cas announced that the thing he'd sensed before, whatever it was, was probably inside one of the warehouses.
But now Cas seemed uneasy.
Dean and Sam were standing at the Impala's trunk near the first warehouse, bickering about who was going to check which warehouse and whether to stay together (Sam's vote) or split up (Dean's vote). (On almost every hunt these days, Dean found himself wanting, sometimes wanting very much, to march into the most hazardous possible situations all on his own. With no backup. He didn't think too closely about why.)
But Cas didn't even seem to be listening. He was standing a few feet away staring out into the foggy night.
Cas broke into their argument with, "Something's wrong."
"What do you mean?" said Sam.
"I don't know," said Cas. He turned in a little circle, scanning all five warehouses. The warehouses were huge, lined up in parallel and receding away in the fog like a series of rectangular mountains. The closest one loomed overhead; the last one or two were only half-visible through the wisps of fog.
Cas couldn't seem to explain the worry that had come over him. He looked around a while more and then shook his head. "Sorry," he said. "I don't know what it is that I'm sensing."
"You're just worried, Cas," said Sam, walking over and clapping him on the shoulder. "It's probably just that you know you don't have your powers now."
Or he's freaked out by being with me? thought Dean. He always avoids me in the bunker. He hardly ever comes with us. He didn't even want to drive with us.
"But we'll be fine," Sam was saying. "Weapons work pretty well too, you know. We'll be fine. Quick in-and-out." Cas gave him a somewhat skeptical look, but Sam grinned at him and said, "Let's stick together. We'll all stay together and check the warehouses one at a time. C'mon, first one."
The first warehouse was empty. The second was empty. The third was empty. The fourth...
It should have been easy.
All the warehouses were pretty much identical in structure, and by the fourth one they knew the layout. Sam busted through a padlock on a small side door with a pair of boltcutters, and they made their way through a long, empty entry hallway, and then through another little door that led to a vast open interior. Skinny windows loomed high overhead, most of them broken, letting in just enough of the foggy glow of the streetlights to get a sense of the space. It was a huge, cavernous work area like all the others. Great big wooden pillars holding up the roof, dilapidated piles of equipment sitting around, and a few abandoned wooden pallets heaped against the walls.
Sam flicked his flashlight into all the corners. Nothing was in sight. Nothing behind the equipment, either. Dean started checking the stacks of pallets, and had just started to say "Well, on to the fifth," when it jumped him.
It'd been hiding behind a pallet. Dean didn't even get a clear view of it at first, just a jumbled impression of a huge horrid dark spidery thing that darted right up at him with heartstopping speed. It was on Dean in an instant, pinning his arms to his sides before he could even bring his pistol up, and hurling him to the floor. Cas and Sam flew into action and actually jumped right on the thing. There was a bewildering scuffle, all three of them rolling around with the spidery thing. Sam took a pretty rough blow and went flying, but Cas had his angel-blade out by then and he managed to slice off one of the thing's black, twisted limbs. It howled and loosened its hold on Dean enough for Dean to yank his trusty demon-blade out of his boot. Dean plunged the demon-blade deep into the thing's torso. It let out a squeaking sound, finally let go of him and flipped over, the wound leaking dark smoke.
Dean scuttled back on his hands and knees, gasping. Sam slowly sat up from where he'd been flung, rubbing his head. Cas was poised near the spider-thing, his angel-blade up. They all watched it as it writhed for a moment.
It glowed with a vivid purple light, let out another big puff of black smoke and collapsed, dead.
Sam and Dean heaved a sigh of relief. (Cas didn't; he was already scanning around the room again, still looking worried.)
Sam said, "Hey, that actually didn't go so bad."
Dean had to agree. "Scared the bejeezus out of me, though," he said, getting to his feet and brushing the dust off. He scratched an itch on his left arm. "Jeez, that thing was fast." Though, Dean realized, at least he wasn't feeling any of the post-fight nausea that he usually felt. He'd fought, he'd stabbed the thing, and... no nausea!
In fact, Dean realized, he felt pretty good. Maybe he was getting his hunter legs back after all!
Castiel said, "We'd better burn the body. Just in case."
Dean scratched his arm again. At that point it began to occur to Dean that he was going to want to spend some time here, with Cas maybe, and that maybe it would be better if Sam went elsewhere.
"Hey, Sam," Dean said. "It's getting late and none of us have eaten. Why don't Cas and I wrap up here— we'll burn it, and make sure it's down to ash, and how about you go get us some dinner in the meantime. Pick up some takeout or something, and meet us at the motel?"
Sam glanced back and forth between Cas and Dean. He actually looked a little happy about this plan, for some reason, and he nodded. Dean tossed him the Impala keys. Sam brought in some salt and lighter fluid for them before he left, and then off he went.
Dean thought he would feel the usual cringey awkward guilt, being all alone with Cas like this, but instead he began to feel almost relaxed. Why had he been feeling guilty about Cas, anyway? Just becasue of that little library fight?
If anything, Cas was the one who should feel guilty. Cas had totally pushed Dean into that whole fight anyway. Not to mention all the other things he'd done wrong. None of it had been Dean's fault at all.
This cheery thought relaxed Dean further. Cas was now shooting him questioning looks now and then, but Dean ignored him and focused on the fire. Together they set up a little pyre in the middle of the cement floor. They broke up some of the wooden pallets for fuel, Dean added some salt and lighter fluid, and soon the spider-thing's corpse was burning away.
When it was all over, Dean poked the warm ashes with his foot. "See, Cas," he said, "All just ashes now. Feeling 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 left arm again.
Cas looked around. "Something bad coming, I fear." 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 too. "Dean, I'm really getting quite worried. I think something bad is going to happen. Maybe we missed something?"
Cas began to pace around the perimeter of the room, inspecting all the corners again and looking carefully behind every remaining wooden pallet.
Dean's left arm was really itching quite a lot. He finally looked down and realized he had four thin, long scrapes across his elbow. Whoa. What was that? Claw marks?
Tooth scrapes, maybe?
He glanced at his other arm, and was startled to see a faint ghostly impression of the Mark fade into view.
A brief surge of panic flickered through him. A dawning horror...
... and then Dean forgot all about it.
Everything was all right. Everything was just as it should be.
Cas was still checking through the far corners of the rooms, saying, "Dean, I'm starting to suspect I may be experiencing some sort of premonition."
Dean sighed to himself. There Cas went again... Cas and his squirrelly theories. Which no doubt were wrong, since Cas was always completely wrong about everything. Always making mistakes. Always fucking everything up.
And sure enough, Cas then started going on and on about some idiotic theory of his, some tedious nerdy explanation about how angels' sense of time occasionally stretched slightly into the future, and how they could sometimes detect if something really horrible was about to happen. Soon Dean found he was getting more and more irritated just at the sound of Cas's voice. Dean finally snapped, "Would you just shut the hell up?"
Cas turned and looked at him. Dean was standing by the door, clutching his left arm; Cas was at the far corner of the huge empty space, 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 agreed for you to come along on these hunts. You always get everything wrong. Not to mention, you've betrayed me so many damn times already, I don't know why I even thought I could trust you for even a second."
"Dean...," said Cas. He inched a little closer, scanning Dean from head to foot. Dean scratched his left 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? How about thinking about something useful, like, oh, the fact that you've gone and started another fucking Apocalypse? After fucking LYING TO ME for months about what you were up to? But, oh, wait, that's what you do, isn't it! You lie, and you fuck up. You always lie. You always fuck everything up!"
Cas blinked at him. His eyes flicked down to Dean's arms. Without thinking Dean turned a little to hide the faint imprint of the Mark on his right arm, but instead Cas caught a glimpse of the scratches on his left.
Ah, now Cas was doing that damn head-tilt.
"Dean, did it bite you?" asked Cas, quietly. "On your left arm?"
"Would you stop tilting your head like a goddam dog, Cas, you look like a complete fucking moron when you do that," said Dean. "You fuck up quite a bit, did you know that? How many sins have you piled up now? Oh wait. Let me list them." All of a sudden it was seeming highly relevant, necessary in fact, to try to figure out how many sins Castiel was guilty of, and just how bad they had been. So Dean started to tick off a list on his fingers. "Let's see now. Let's start right after the Apocalypse, shall we? Sin number one— lying to us about the Purgatory souls, and Crowley and Raphael, and what you were doing for an entire friggin' year."
"Dean, listen to me," Cas said, his voice tense now. He started to edge a little to the side, obviously trying to sidle around Dean toward the door. "I think you may have 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 is because you deserve to be hated, Cas," said Dean, talking right over him. As Dean spoke, he felt a wisp of power starting to thrum through him. It was just a faint shadow of the exhilarating power he'd felt all last year, the power he'd been desperately missing ever since he'd lost the Mark, but even just this little whiff of it felt intoxicating. I bet I can take him, Dean thought. I bet I can take him. With that "depowered grace" he's gotta be weaker now than he was that time in the library, right? Hell, I bet he can't even heal like usual.
Dean began unloading his shotgun, dumping the salt cartridges and swapping them out for ones with real buckshot. "TWO," went on Dean, "You decided to try become God. 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— those scratches on your arm— you've been infected by something. And you can't hide the Mark from me; I see it too. I think I know now what this creature was. It was a manifestation of the Darkness. And its task was to turn you into the most destructive version of yourself. It's using you as a tool of destruction, Dean, that's what the Darkness— it destroys things. "
"Don't fucking change the subject, Cas," said Dean.
"Dean, I think it may be turning you back into a torturer of Hell, into the bearer of the Mark. Into a destroyer. I can see it in your eyes, Dean, please—"
Dean ignored him. He had the shotgun loaded now, and he hefted it one hand, his pistol in the other hand, both trained right at Cas now. Who was, sure enough, backing away across the room. He's acting like he's vulnerable to gunfire, Dean realized with delight. Which probably means he IS vulnerable to gunfire. This is better than I thought. Cas tried to turn away, and he was fishing in his pocket now too, so Dean fired the pistol, aiming two feet to Cas's side.
The shot boomed through the vast room, shockingly loud. Chips of cement went flying. Cas froze.
"Don't you fucking dare touch your phone," spat Dean, for he knew that's why Cas had been reaching into his pocket. "Don't you fucking dare try and call Sam or I'll shoot your legs off right now and then shoot him too. Throw the phone on the ground. Toward me. NOW." There was an exultant rage building in Dean. It was partly the Mark again, of course (or some kind of strange ghostly memory of it at least), bringing with it a taste of that delicious anger.
But as Cas slowly tossed the phone on the floor, Dean realized something else had returned as well.
Righteousness.
Righteousness, and the cold judgmental fury that went with it.
Dean had long known he had a bit of a righteous side. Especially when he'd been younger. Cas had called him "the righteous man," of course, and though Dean hadn't really believed that he was the "Righteous Man," something about the phrase had rung true. Dean knew he'd been a little arrogant, even. Arrogant and sure of himself and always trying to do the right thing... and raining down death and destruction on those he viewed as evil.
And that was exactly why Alistair had chosen him to groom as a torturer of Hell.
The righteous always made the best torturers, Alistair had explained.
"Would you deny, Castiel," said Dean, "that you have sinned?"
"No," said Castiel, standing very still, his voice low. "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 started to take one step forward, so Dean fired the pistol, a bare inch over Cas's head this time. Cas froze in mid-step.
Dean said, "One more step, Cas. One more step, and I shoot you where you stand. And you're not exactly sure how much damage that would do, are you? You know you can't really heal yourself very well right now, isn't that true? Such a pity. So here's what you should do: Do not move. Cause I'm not done listing your sins. I'm not even halfway through. 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—I didn't know the Purgatory souls would take me over like that, I truly didn't know. Nor did I know about Metatron's spell, nor about the Darkness—"
"Yet you barged on ahead anyway every single time," said Dean, taking another step forward, "and made the worst fucking mistakes possible every single time, too. Isn't that right?"
"Please, Dean, after Metatron I stopped even trying to do any of that. I knew I'd failed. But I did want to help you, still— and, Dean, you know how I regret my mistakes, 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 DID NOT even help me. You don't even take care of your very, very, VERY few friends, because, four, you FUCKING ABANDONED ME in Purgatory! 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. He fished it out of his pocket with two fingers, keeping the shotgun trained on Cas.
It was a text from Sam. He'd picked up a couple pizzas and was heading to the motel.
Dean laughed. "Sam got pizza for us," he told Cas, dropping the phone back in his pocket. "Pepperoni okay?"
Cas just gazed at him.
Dean dropped the phone back in his pocket. "I'll take care of Sam later. He's made quite a few mistakes too."
"Oh, Dean," whispered Cas. "Not Sam too—"
"Then, SIX," went on Dean, "you stole the tablet and you didn't come to me for help, remember that little episode? 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 were exploded by angels for months after. SEVEN... unleashing the Darkness, and I don't even know how to count that one up. Creation is going to be eaten up, from crown to core—" (Dean had no idea what this phrase meant, or how he knew it; it had just surfaced in his mind, his arm itching furiously all the while.) "And it is all... your... fault."
Dean began to walk toward Castiel again, slowly, one step at a time, his pistol in one hand and the shotgun in the other. "That is seven times you've sinned, Castiel," said Dean. "You so-called servant of Heaven. And if only stupidity counted as a sin too, well, then, you'd be up in the thousands of sins, not just seven, wouldn't you? Now, what do you think you deserve for all that?"
Cas suddenly had his angel-blade in his hand. But he didn't move.
"What's the matter, Castiel?' said Dean. "You could skewer 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. This is what you were becoming in Hell, before I pulled you out. It was what the Mark was going to turn you into, too, eventually. But it isn't you."
"You're thinking about throwing that blade, aren't you," said Dean, taking another step closer, and another. They were only about ten feet apart now. "You're thinking about it. Throwing it right into 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 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 anymore in whatever stupid prattley theories Cas would spout out. It was time to get down to business.
Cas had sinned, and he needed to be punished.
Dean 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. They turned out to be fairly evenly matched, Dean's partial resurgence of Mark-like power just about equalling Cas's weakened little grace, and they ended up scuffling on the ground for a surprisingly long time. Dean was heavier and taller and had a longer reach, and Cas couldn't seem to heal his leg, all of which should have given Dean an advantage, but Cas turned out to be just full of unfair squirrelly little grappling tricks. He was even somehow managing to put up a better fight than he had that day in the library. In fact, Cas should probably have won except for the fatal flaw that Cas 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 the fucking idiotic wimp that he was. 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— It'll pass in a few hours— the other people snapped out of it in a few hours— Dean, you just need to fight it off for a few hours, please!"
Dean ignored all that pointless blather, for Cas was weakening as the fight went on, while Dean was only growing stronger. At last Dean got the upper hand. Soon Dean was battering Cas's face into the floor, just as he had during that wonderful day in the library. It felt simply fantastic to be able to re-live that moment and savor it all over again. Dean savored the sound of the cracking bones, he savored the sound of Cas's helpless gasps, and he savored the feeling of Cas going limp under his hands, too dazed to even hold himself up. Once again Dean got him on his back, bloody and beaten. Once again Dean took hold of Cas's blade.
And Dean didn't miss this time.
But neither did he stab Cas in the heart.
That would have been too quick a death.
Instead Dean sliced Cas's neck, and bled his little grace away.
Cas went into a weird stiff paralysis as this happened, gasping "No... " just once and then falling silent. The grace dribbled out, just a tiny little pathetic wisp of silvery light. It tried, briefly, to flow back into Cas's mouth, but Dean held one hand over Cas's mouth and the other over his nose (Cas seemed too stunned to even move). The grace nosed around at Cas's bloodied face for a moment, and then seemed to give up. It wafted away into the air and dissipated into a thin cloud of very faint little silver sparks, which floated upwards and were soon lost overhead, drifting out of the broken windows up to the sky.
Cas's faint gasps brought Dean's attention back down. Cas was stirring under him once more.
Cas was now entirely mortal.
Cas started scuffling again, trying to squirm out from under Dean's grasp. He was soon muttering the stupid stuff again about "Dean, this isn't YOU," which was getting pretty annoying, so Dean finally grabbed hold of Cas's mangled leg and twisted it brutally. Cas screamed (seemed like it hurt much more, now that he had no grace) and his last weak hold on Dean finally wavered. Dean got a chokehold on him and as he throttled Cas into unconsciousness, it was a hell of a relief when Cas at last SHUT UP.
Dean stood, breathing hard, and looked down at him, flipping the angel-blade around in his hand. One quick blow and the irritating angel would at last be dead.
It was quite tempting.
But of course, Cas still needed to be punished more.
Back when Dean had been Alistair's brightest new protege, back in Hell, Alistair had instructed him in some of the finer nuances of torture. There were quite a lot of interesting little psychological details 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 a 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 met 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. Some pieces of the wooden pallets were still nearby, and Dean soon found a sturdy good-sized plank and some nails. He hammered the plank horizontally onto one of the vertical wooden pillars, about seven feet up. Then he managed to get the angel strung up by a waist rope upright against the vertical pillar. It was a bit difficult; the angel kept coming half-awake and Dean kept having to choke him out again, and also Dean had to build a stack of pallets just to make a crude little ladder to haul him up there. But Dean kept at it and finally got the angel tied up on the cross with some pieces of rope.
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 very 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, and till he managed to raise his head. Dean waited for the angel to start pleading (which the angel did, predictably), 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 blade. It would do for one wrist. The demon-blade would do for the other wrist. Pity there isn't a third blade for the feet, Dean thought. The feet would have to just stay tied with the rope. Oh well. Can't have everything, I guess.
There was a special sweet delight in the moment when the angel realized Dean was really going to go through with it.
Dean was glad he'd sent the brother away (whose name he was also having trouble remembering); otherwise the brother would certainly have heard the screams.
The brother would need his own punishment, of course. That would come later.
The angel didn't scream all that long. This was too bad, but Dean had been prepared for that small disappointment. Alistair had explained many times (with many demonstrations) how it was always a little difficult for crucifixion subjects to breathe properly. This meant the screaming inevitably faded away pretty soon. But Dean was a professional, and he didn't let the disappointment get him down; he just moved on to Phase 2, lacerations down the chest (and maybe a little bit of flaying), on a small scale. Cut after cut after cut. Dean's plan was to keep this up as long as he could, but always 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.
The angel was a sinner. The sinner was an angel... This concept rattled around disturbingly in Dean's mind. Sinner, angel... something seemed... wrong? Was something wrong?
But Dean finally decided, It's some kind of a sinner-angel, and then he was able to keep going.
It's a sinner, and I must punish it.
Because this is my job.
Because this is what I am.
All the stuff about being a Knight of Hell had been a bit beside the point, hadn't it? Dean's real calling, the one he'd worked at for decades, the job he'd been damn good at, the job he'd spent most of his life doing, was that of Torturer of Hell.
This had been Dean's job for years, and years, and years, and years. Here in Hell, at Alistair's side. Where's Alistair? Dean wondered, glancing around. Alistair must be around here somewhere. He'd probably be back soon. He'd be pleased to see Dean doing such a careful, thorough job. Dean was good at his job. It was all that he was. It was all that he knew. It was 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 sinner-angel finally died, if blood loss could be minimized.
An hour or so went by.
Something odd began happening to the sinner-angel. He was starting to mumble little loops of dialogue, during which he 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" or "You're my family" and even with "I love you." All these phrases just made Dean laugh, for he had no idea what the sinner-angel was talking about. It was just kind of funny.
Once the sinner-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— Dean, I forgive you—"
Dean absolutely hated it when the sinners here in Hell began to talk like that. As if they had any right to forgive! As if Dean were doing something wrong! As if it weren't all their own fault for sinning in the first place! So the instant the sinner-angel began that line of talk, Dean belted him hard across the face with the butt of the shotgun. The sinner-angel nearly choked, spat out a mouthful of blood, and couldn't seem to talk much after that.
Soon afterwards the sinner-angel started drifting into a delirium. He seemed to be losing his edge; his eyes were unfocusing. Dean looked around, puzzled; had the sinner-angel been losing extra blood somewhere? He finally glanced at the wrists and swore. There was blood dripping from the hafts of both blades. The blades hadn't been angled exactly right, and had been slowly cutting through the bones and muscle of the arms. The sinner-angel had been losing more blood than Dean had realized. Dammit. Dammit! Slanting the blades correctly was basic crucifixion protocol. Dean had messed up! The sinner-angel was not going to suffer for long enough. The sinner-angel's words were even slurring now (always a bad sign); he'd been in a cycle for the last few minutes of muttering "you're my friend, you're my family,", but now syllables began disappearing, till he was just muttering "friend... fam'ly... frien'... fam'y..." Dean realized, with some regret, that it would be ending soon.
And then Dean started to get a little light-headed.
A few of those little tiny lights were still dancing overhead. Bits of silver glitter... floating around, very high, up by the ceiling; apparently a few of the little motes hadn't found their way out of the windows. Dean looked up at them, puzzled. There was something about the silver light that was familiar. Something he'd done... something he should undo?
Something was not right...
Dean forgot what he was doing, and stared up into the air at the last few little glittering bits of light as they drifted away. This seemed very worrying, somehow, but Dean wasn't sure why.
The room was completely silent.
The itching in his arm had faded. Dean glanced down; both arms looked normal again. No Mark; no scratches. It seemed like this might be important, too, but again Dean couldn't remember why. He began to feel very sleepy, and 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 foot away. He was silhouetted against the sky and Dean couldn't really see him very clearly, but Dean had the impression that something was a little off.
Cas's face was all in shadow. 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 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.
This time it woke Dean up. His head was throbbing terrifically. Damn... what a hell of a hangover, he thought, trying to remember where had he been last night. Mark withdrawal, too, maybe? But it felt much worse than usual. Dean blinked, and tried to swallow. Everything was blurry; his eyes were scratchy, his throat sore. He felt simply horrible. He closed his eyes and lay very still, 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 the bunker? Or in a motel?
No... neither. 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. A wooden pillar was very close to him. Oh great, another warehouse, thought Dean. I must have been on some kind of hunt. Got knocked out or something.
Something dripped onto Dean's hand again.
This time it occurred to Dean to look at his hand, and he realized there was blood all over it. He sat up, thinking, What happened to my hand?, and then saw he was sitting in a pool of blood. A huge pool of blood. Both his hands were bloody. And both forearms, too, were 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 the blood was dripping onto him from above.
It was someone else's blood.
Dean looked up at the wooden pillar. There was a body tied to it.
It was just above him. No—not tied—no, the guy had been—holy hell, the poor guy had been crucified! Dean scuttled backwards in shock as he took in the awful sight. The poor guy's arms had been pinned to a horizontal beam by—good god, were those angel-blades through his wrists?— one angel-blade, at least? 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; he was shirtless and his whole chest seemed just a mass of bloody red meat, covered with slices, dripping with blood. His pants were drenched with blood; blood was dripping from his bare feet. His head was hanging down, his face a mask of bruises and blood, his mouth hanging slackly open.
While Dean stared, 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. "Holy shit, holy shit— what the—" 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 crucifixion 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.
The next moment was the very worst moment of Dean's entire life (and there had been a lot of very, very bad moments in Dean's life). For in the next moment, all the memories of the past couple hours came flooding back.
Suddenly it was all back in his head, every single moment, in vivid, scalding, horrific clarity. The bite on his arm from the Darkness-spider-thing. How it had tossed Dean right back into his worst demon-self, mentally. The anger—the righteous rage—the maddening thirst for revenge—the absolute conviction that Cas needed to be punished—draining away Cas's grace—pounding the blades in—forgetting where he was, forgetting who he was—the screams—Cas begging—Dean laughing...
"No no no no no no no no no no no," was all Dean could say. His knees buckled and he crumpled to the floor, gasping, 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—
A violent surge of nausea ripped right through him and Dean 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 had to undo the knot with his teeth, in between the retching. Then he staggered to his feet to try to tackle the blades that were stuck 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 cry. He cradled Cas's broken, bloody face in both hands for a long moment, still just saying "no no no no no no." 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. What's going on?" Dean finally managed to say "Warehouse, it's Cas, come quick come quick I need you." Dean dropped the phone then 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 floor, 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 were 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. He was alive!
His eyes were glazed and unfocused at first. He seemed to be staring 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.
Cas tried to lift one hand.
"Don't try to move, Cas—just take it easy—Sam's on his way, we'll get you to a, a, a hospital, you're gonna be okay, don't try to move—" 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 to hear.
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 now, focused right on Dean's eyes.
Cas's arm went limp. His hand fell away.
Dean glanced down at Cas's hand and only then realized that the wrist wounds had again 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 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. Sam's first clue about what an endless nightmare this would turn out to be was simply 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 sitting there perfectly still, looking almost serene. There was no expression at all on his face. He was simply gazing blankly across the room. Quiet. Calm.
It took Sam one long, awful second to take the scene in. Then he dashed over and fell to his knees next to them, blurting out "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, his hands shaking as he tried to pull Dean's hands off of Cas. "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. "Rocky Mountain High." It was one of Cas's favorites. A song Cas had been trying to learn on the guitar. It was a song that Dean had given him a particularly hard time about, actually. And now Dean was singing it?
Well, sort of singing it. Sort of just a hoarse mumbling whisper.
Sam sat there in the pool of blood, staring.
It eventually 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 deep breath, and then 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 spider wasn't dead? And it... it 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. Dean 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. "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, three or four miraculous recoveries by now?
But somehow this time felt different. There was no Apocalypse going on. For years now there had been no sign of any God stepping in regularly to resurrect helpful angels and push things along. As for demon-deals, they hadn't been able to reach Crowley in months. (Cas had said something about Crowley having been "badly wounded" in some sort of scuffle right after the Rowena spell.) Rowena had disappeared. The other angels seemed unlikely to help. Gadreel was dead...
Even Death was gone.
Sam reached out and touched Cas's hand. It was cool to the touch.
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 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, so he gritted his teeth as he tried to breathe.
He tried to wipe his face dry.
He muttered to himself, "I should have been here. I shouldn't've left..."
Sam finally got his breathing back under control. He wiped his face one more time and ran both hands through his hair, staring at the fog. What do I do? he thought. How do I make Dean let go of the body? How can I get Dean back home?
He made himself turn, and he 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. On his own bed, 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. "Let me help carry him. That way he'll be, uh, uh, uh, h-h-he'll be, m-m-more..." Sam just managed to bite back another near-sob, and then had to hold his breath for several seconds, till he got control. Once he could breathe again, he said, "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 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 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. Dean looked at Sam, and 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, 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 answered, "I won't," and he set down Cas's good leg, picked up the strangely floppy bad leg, crossed the bad leg over the good one, knelt and 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 he had to call out "Stop" a few more times in order to lean over with his hands on his knees and take a few deep breaths, thinking all the while, 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.
A/N -
:(
I am so sorry.
I don't know why this happened. I don't know how this happened. I don't know what is wrong with me.
For a long time it has been nagging at the back of my mind that Dean was a torturer in Hell for a large part of his adult life. It doesn't seem like he should be able to shake that off totally. Way back when I first saw S4's "On The Head of a Pin" I wondered if Cas was going to end up strung up and tortured like Alistair, and ever since, I kept wondering what would happen if somehow Dean were ever mentally sent back to his time in Hell. Even now, with everything that's happened between S4 and now, Dean's life in Hell STILL was a substantial portion of his adult life. I could not get the idea out of my head, and finally started writing this in S9. I posted the first three chapters originally on a different account over a year ago to see if I should even continue this terrible fic, which I have privately been calling the Fic That Must Not Be Named. Readers said yes, continue; but then the second I saw the S9 finale, I realized this fic is actually an S10 fic. So I have been waiting through all of S10 to see where to place the fic. After the Mark of Cain, demon-Dean, Dean's year-long descent into darkness, that amazingly horrific fight with Castiel, and then at last the unleashing of the Darkness itself, I knew this fic had always been destined to be an S10 fic, and that it should be placed after the S10 finale.
Now it seems I have to let the story play out, in all its darkness.
Finally - some readers have found they need to ask one or two things about the rest of the story before deciding whether they can go on reading it. I prefer not to do public spoilers, but you can contact me privately and I will try to answer your questions if I can.
Seven chapters are ready right now - I will be posting one a day this week. After this weekend it'll slow down to my writing speed of 1 chapter per week
Cas, please forgive me.