It is the quiet murmuring that brings him back. Hushed whispers break through the stillness of the air, invading the silence broken only by the low and distant rustling of leaves and the splash of water meeting the pier - his pier. All sounds carried to him in the wind, the same wind that carries his mind away to some intangible serenity. He knows that none of this is real, that in his life, there is no peace, there is no breeze that lifts the burdens scatters them amongst the swaying reeds, granting his mind and body solace. But he needs this. He misses the quiet.
He never thought he would see this place again, never feel the warmth of the sun on his face as he sat in the silence, clear mind and clear soul, never feel the soft breeze dance across his lashes as he closed his eyes against he world, losing himself to time as he waits. Just waits. Waits for a the pull of a bite on his fishing line, waits for the splash of a hawk diving for its prey, waits for a cloud to obscure the brightness of the sun, waits for an eternity that suddenly seemed so easy to grasp. It is peaceful there...just waiting. But then again, Dean figures he couldn't keep waiting forever. There were still the whispers, fluttering through the air, ghosting against the back of his neck and disrupting the silence in one resounding wave of strange familiarity, signaling the end of his sick illusion of salvation.
As sense rushes back to him, Dean's perfectly honed instincts struggle against the displacement of time and awareness to assess his surroundings - excellent mattress, the scent of whiskey hanging in the air, and the ticking of that goddamned clock that Sam insisted on buying that he swears he can hear all the way down in the fucking dungeon. Home. Safety. The quiet whispers reach him from somewhere off to his right, a subtle note of desperation coloring the low, rasping voice. The voice does nothing to temper the storm brewing underneath his skin as it ignites in lightning and red tinged fury.
It all came back to him in vivid flashes. Pain. A blow to the head, a boot in the face. Blood. Silver glistening in the light as it cuts through the air, cuts down to the bone. Fire. Ash in his throat, heart beating out the pulse of the Mark scorching his skin, scorching within. Blood. Vengeance. A challenge echoing in his veins. Death. The darkness within consuming him, lulling him away with whispers of a gift, of a promise.
And he's there, on his knees in a sea of the blood of broken men, shattered by his hands. His hands. His shaking and dirty hands. Shaking and wanting for more. So much more to be taken, so much more than the damned souls of killers parading in the meat suits of ordinary men. He is hungry and he is nothing. Just an empty vessel of flesh that can never be filled, an infinite expanse that reaps the profit of bloodshed and purpose, but is never to be sated. And if he tilts his head just so, from the across the abyss, he hears the hum of the poison in his veins, hears a distant scream for mercy - begging for an ending, begging to never stop.
Dean throws himself over the left side of the bed and dry heaves, fingers groping at the sheets around him, reaching for something solid, something his, something he can hold in the palms of his hands without the compulsion to destroy. His hands. His trembling, tiny, goddamned hands. The stillness of the room is broken by his gasping breaths, his shaking limbs, and he's still reaching, still searching for something to hold on to. Something he can fix, something he can save.
He imagines stitching the broken pieces of broken men back together, an act of sorrow and a plea for forgiveness written in the bloodstains on his hands.
He blinks, shakes his head, tries to expand his lungs to breath in fresh air to cool the burn beneath his skin. Tries to ground himself here, in his room, in his own body.
"Dean?"
Cas' voice is still barely above a whisper, as if he fears the volume of his voice will throw the quiet - or relative quiet beyond Dean's obscene attempts at breathing - into abject chaos. He feels a dip in the bed behind him, a hand hovering close to his back, hesitating to touch. Just like a caged freaking animal, Dean thinks as he continues to struggle to pull air into his aching lungs, to calm the shuddering of limbs and of his heart.
"Dean, you're okay."
Dean stills at that, taking in another deep breath and curving his neck around to look at Cas. Dean may not be the brightest fucking crayon in the toolbox, and he may not be the poster child for self-awareness. But if Dean knows one thing, right now, in this moment - with the Mark searing his skin, charbroiling his goddamned soul, with the awareness that his entire body is resonating, throbbing and aching with the high of the kill and the assurance of another bloodletting - he knows he is nowhere near okay.
Something tells him that Cas realizes the absolutely ridiculous implications of his statement as his face falls into those pathetically endearing puppy dog eyes and his hand falls closer to the mattress, just by the tiniest fraction that mirrors the slight fall in the set of his lips and this is just way more than Dean can process right now.
He shakes his head and shifts his body away from Cas' tentative hand. He lifts himself to lean against the headboard, willing his heart to calm to a pace that resembles something other than death metal percussion. He fists the sheets in his lap, if only to hide the relentless shaking in his hands.
"Thought your old man was gone," Dean says, voice rough with disuse and sleep. He knows it's a stupid thing to say the second that Cas' frown falls even further as he tilts his head in a question. Dean gestures vaguely with one hand before returning it bunch the sheets in his lap, "I heard you. Praying, I mean."
Cas sits back, widening the space between them on the bed. He looks tired, worn around the edges. Castiel, the disillusioned angel of the Lord, still praying to a family that doesn't believe in him because he still fucking believes in them.
"I thought, sitting Shiva would be too morbid. Probably uncomfortable, for you."
Dean can't help the smirk spreads across his face. Leave it to Cas, he thinks.
The barest hint of a smile lights Cas' sullen face before it falls back into something torn between wariness, concern, and something else he cannot quite place. Dean takes him in, accepts the wariness, turns a blind eye to that something else, studies the wrinkles in his shirt and in his coat that he's never seen before. Cas is rumpled like he hasn't moved from that damn chair in days. Knowing Cas, he probably hasn't.
Dean has approximately five thousand questions to ask, starting with why he woke up in his own bed instead of hogtied down in the dungeon like the freak that he is. He doesn't remember leaving that cabin. He remembers Sam's face, his pure desperation, his litany of, "We're gonna fix this, Dean. I'm going to fix this," and that's just a gateway promise to really horribly awful sacrificial crap that Dean doesn't even want to deal with right now.
He remembers screaming - blood, begging, promising . . .
No. Dean shakes himself. Focus, Winchester, he thinks. Screaming and crying… It was Claire.
Claire saw what he did. That kid had kicked and clawed and fought her way through the wreckage her parents left behind for her, that Cas left behind for her - orphaned, alone, with nothing to live for except the satisfaction of the big Fuck You to God because she survived it all.
Dean can relate. He can also pat himself on the back for a job well done in the role model department because if a family history of possession by angels and demons wasn't enough to land her in the loony bin, walking in on her not-father's best friend massacring a room full of people is definitely going to seal the deal.
And Cas. Goddamnit, Cas saw everything. Cas saw what he did. He saw the blood on Dean's hands. He saw.
He saw…
"Where's Sam?" Dean asks, grasping at straws for something tangible to root him back down to the moment. It's as good a question as any, he figures. One he actually wants the answer to, anyway. If Cas has actually been sitting Shiva for the full seven days, then Sam's not here, and if Sam's not here...
Dean quickly derails that train of thought and focuses his eyes on the furrow in Cas' brow. He brings his knees up to chest, flattening his palms against his thighs.
Cas takes a deep breath and shifts on the edge of the bed, turning his gaze toward the bedroom door.
"Sam is with Claire. He thought it best…" he pauses, measuring his words, "He thought she would be more comfortable somewhere…else."
His gaze shifts to the floor, shifts to Dean, shifts to the door, shifts back to floor and it just really never ceases to amaze Dean that this guy pulled off the coup of century to bust open Purgatory and devour thousands of souls, behind his back, with a goddamned poker face.
Dean sets his jaw and moves his head around to catch Cas' eyes, "You mean Sam took Claire somewhere safe. Somewhere away from me."
It's not a question, and the downcast of his eyes is Cas' reply. Dean nods, rubbing his right hand against his thigh. It was the right thing to do. Can't fault his brother that. Not at all.
"Sam called your friend, Jody. She said she would like child support payments in the future."
Deadpan delivery. Dean breathes out a laugh. Leave it to Cas to make a guy who is digging himself a hole straight back into Hell smile, twice. He shakes his head and sits forward, resting his arms atop his knees. His left hand moves instinctively to cover up the Mark on his forearm, hiding it from what he's not sure - from himself, from Cas, maybe. But Cas already knows. Knows who he was. What he has become.
The shame and the guilt slam into him all at once, folding him in on himself, arms instinctively wrapping tightly around his knees in a vain attempt at holding all of his pieces together. He killed humans. People. Doesn't matter that they were scumbags, that they would have hurt Claire, that they might have killed him. He murdered them. He tore them apart. He finger-painted the walls in their fucking blood and he liked it. And then he was on his knees, and he was lost and he was terrified because that wasn't supposed to happen. He wasn't in control and yet he was absolutely in control. But that wasn't him. It was not him.
That's not who I am, Dean thinks, closing his eyes against the furor of his thoughts, of the rattling in his bones. The memories are flashing across his eyes again – slaughtering and ripping souls from their bodies with his bare hands. It was familiar. It was absolute calm.
His eyes fly open as a hand falls onto his shoulder, pulling him back to the present. He almost relinquishes his hold on his thighs to grasp at the warmth seeping into his skin. Almost accepts the blind offer of gravity to pull him back down. But the images, the memories, they are imprinted in his mind, tattooed upon soul, inescapable, unconditional, and if he looks just closely enough, he is certain that is dried blood still caked beneath his fingernails.
Dean jerks violently away from Cas' touch. When he speaks, his voice is low and raw, words crawling their way out of his throat.
"Damnit, Cas. You should have killed me, you son of a bitch. You should have killed me right there in that cabin."
When he finally speaks – seconds, minutes, fucking lifetimes later - Cas' voice is closer than Dean expected it to be, a gentle whisper, another prayer ghosting against his ear.
"I can't, Dean."
I can't. Like it's just that fucking simple. Like Dean isn't the problem here, like this is something that can just be fixed without apocalyptic fucking consequences. Like someone he loves won't end up dead, or dying, or twelve fucking degrees of screwed up, because that's just the Winchester brand of fixing it.
I can't. Like Dean's life actually means something. Like they're right back there in that barn in Pontiac and Cas is tilting his head and staring straight into his torched and fucking mutilated soul and is amazed that Dean Winchester would think he doesn't deserve to be saved.
I can't. Like Cas is making a promise to keep pulling him out of Hell again and again. Like he's making a promise to keep fucking saving him. Like this is a forever kind of deal and he's going to be pulling Dean's ass out of the literal fire until the end of the goddamned line. And Dean just doesn't fucking understand why. Monster hunter, Ghostbuster, Servant of Heaven - pick a fucking title, it doesn't matter. God doesn't want a wretch like him.
"I couldn't make that promise then," Cas breathes, reaching out a hand to cover Dean's, "and I won't. We will find another way, Dean."
And that's enough. He can't listen to this shit anymore.
Dean shifts his legs off the bed to stand and heads for the sink. His legs shake beneath him, his muscles are twitching, he's sweating, he feels disgusting and he probably smells even worse. He turns the knob of the faucet as he hears the bed creak behind him, feels the hairs on the back of his neck rising as Cas inches closer to him, giving him that caged animal vibe all over again.
Dean cups his hands under the ice cold water and splashes it across his face, not daring to look up and meet his own eyes in the mirror. He moves his hands back under the stream in an attempt to wash off just the tiniest bit of stink. Absently, he wonders who got him cleaned up in the first place because his skin isn't even half as dirty as it should be.
He scrubs his hands together, remembering the dried blood caked beneath his fingernails. He scrubs harder, using his thumbnails to scape himself clean. His eyes wander to the deep red in the nail bed of his ring finger. As he begins to rub at the spot with his nails, he finds the streak trailing a line through the crease of his palm. There's another on the back of his hand, following the veins up through his forearm. And he scrubs and he scratches at his skin to get it clean. He's dirty. There's blood on his hands, blood in his past, blood synonymous with his name. But if he could just get it all off, if he could just scour the stains from his skin...
But every time he scrubs a spot clean, he finds another and another until the water is running red, the sink is overflowing and the goddamned blood just won't wash clear.
Then strong hands are closing over his, stilling his hands, stilling his desperation, spinning him roughly away from the sink and into the wall, igniting sparks of light in his behind eyes as his head connects with the concrete.
Dean tries to jerk his hands free, to thrash wildly against the force holding him in place because he is not clean. There is poison in his veins and darkness in his soul, but the radiant force surrounding him only grips him tighter.
Dean. It's an echo, a trick. He's heard this before, a plea for consent for his own salvation that he answered with a resounding No.
Dean. It's louder this time, the pitch scratching at his eardrums, stuttering his pulse. There is a pressure against his body, restraining, pulling him down, pulling him in.
"Damnit, Dean. Stop."
He stills at the command, lips trembling as he raises his gaze to his bloodied hands. They're soiled, red and stained in sin - angry, bleeding scratches marring the rough skin of hands that once were used only to fix, to create. That used to know only the stress of good work and the tenderness of love. His hands are cracked and bleeding. He thinks again of stitching broken pieces of a man back together.
A firm shake brings Dean back to the present and out of his head. He focuses on his hands, currently in the death grip of an angel. His hands, his forearms, they scraped raw and bleeding, and this must be what it is like to Fall.
"Fuck," Dean breathes, choking on the curse, biting back a sob.
"Dean," Cas is pleading, begging. Dean looks up, looks into Cas' eyes, takes in the fear, the concern, the fucking heartbreaking shine of unshed tears. And he's done.
He's just done.
"Cas…" his voice is broken and his legs give out under the weight of it. Cas follows him to the floor, pulling him in and wrapping Dean in his arms. He wants to cry, he wants to scream, he wants to punch Cas in his stupid fucking face, but he's just done.
He's tired. He's so goddamned tired.
So he just waits. Waits for a change in the stillness of the air, waits for the echo of a closing door, waits for Cas to let him go, if only just to turn off the water still streaming into the sink. Waits for an ending – an absolution that would never come.
His eyes are closed against the world, against the blood. Against the warmth embracing him, against the hands smoothing comfort over the length of his back. Against the shuddering breaths and the tears falling softly into his hair.
He takes in the sound of the running water, splashing heavily against the porcelain, and he calls on the memory of the lake. He allows the sun and the breeze to carry him away, carrying him back to the solace of that pier.
The calm and the quiet, broken only by a hushed whisper in the wind.
It's going to be okay, Dean. I've got you.
I've got you.