"He's gone."
The words fell on deaf ears. Everything was muddled. Everything was a blur. Dean wondered how it was possible to feel nothing, and everything, at the same time. A void inside him that pierced like the hooks in Hell, gnawing, tearing, ripping him apart from his core. And yet, there was no pain, none that registered in a capacity he possessed. It should have, he knew, but instead there was nothing, nothing inside the everything. It didn't make sense to him. He was numb. He had been numb for a long time. Dean couldn't remember not feeling this way.
His body moved of its own accord and knelt down beside the fallen angel. His eyes raked over Castiel. They seemed to be searching, trying to make sense of it all. 'Tell me what to do Cas. I don't know what to do,' they seemed to plea as his gaze fell on Castiel's, still, frozen in time, and pale with the color of true death. He felt Bobby try to take him away, but he refused. At first, it was a weak protest, but in moments that passed, his voice became strong and thick with emotion; anger, denial, rage. "I'm not leaving him!" His voice thundered; his tone seemed almost otherworldly, a tone that even Bobby was surprised by.
He backed off, told Dean he was going to search for Sam. Dean didn't reply, didn't offer any acknowledgment of the other hunter's words. It was the first time Dean could recall that his immediate concern was not for his brother. It seemed selfish of him somehow, but then again, selfish was what he was, wasn't it? He was the man who wanted everything. And the man who wanted everything lost it all. Those were the rules.
With Bobby's departure, Dean found himself releasing exhaling, a breath, a sigh, something he had seemed to be holding in. Air flooded his lungs, and still, he didn't breathe, not truly. There was a deathly grip on his chest, on his entire body, that bound him with invisible chains, that made him rigid, still; he might as well have been a corpse next to Castiel. And so, he became the corpse.
"I don't know how this works. I'm no good with words when it counts." Utterly lifeless, save for the betrayal of breath, of a beating heart, Dean stared aimlessly up at the ceiling. Castiel was beside him, dead, but Dean spoke to him regardless. "I'm stubborn. Relentless, really. You know me. It's gotta be my way or the highway. No middle ground, no substitutions." He sighed through his nostrils, quiet a moment in contemplation. "Cas, I know you probably thought I never heard you. Maybe at times, I made myself believe I didn't. I don't know, it's hard to explain." Dean hissed in a sharp breath that he seemed to feel in his gut, twisting hard like a dirty blade, and exhaled shakily. "I just thought I could figure it all out," Dean continued. He rubbed a hand over his face, scrunching his eyes shut tightly as he pinched the bridge of his nose, before lowering his arm to rest across his chest, his hand rubbing idly at his arm, as if attempting to shake off some absent chill.
He sighed again. "You were right...you were always there for me. You did everything I asked. I..." Dean let out a bitter chuckle, shrugging, as if this confession alone was enough to make up for everything, but he knew it wasn't. He turned onto his side, pushed himself up into a sitting position. He looked into the distance. "And I guess...well, I guess I took what time I had left for granted. I took you for granted. You were right, and I was...I was wrong. And you know it ain't easy for me to admit it." His gaze was hesitant to turn back to Cas, but turn back, it did. His brow was heavy and his hazel eyes were filled with a broken sadness. The numbness he'd earlier felt was fleeting. He felt everything, and it was too much.
"We can't do this without you. I can't..." His voice became a hoarse whisper. "I never could." Without thinking, he scooped the lifeless angel up into an embrace, his face buried in the sullied beige material of Castiel's trench coat. His forehead rested on the angel's shoulder, staring downward without seeing. Every muscle and tendon in his body tensed and twisted, his jaw clenched, and it took every ounce of strength within him not to break. "Cas...I heard you." Only words. Meaningless. It was too late. And yet, Dean had to tell him, had to make Castiel understand somehow. This was the closest thing to an apology, to saying he was sorry, that Dean was capable of. And it wasn't enough. It never was.
His fingers twisted into the angel's clothing at his back, cradling his once friend close, so close that even in death, they could not be parted; Dean wouldn't allow it.
But he had to. He had to let him go.
Dean shifted to one knee, his other foot planted on the ground. His head lolled forward against the angel's shoulder again, his hands knotted into the front of Castiel's trench coat. Dean was closer to letting go, but not yet. He needed just one more moment. He needed a moment to not be strong.
And then, like that, he allowed the numbness to seep back into him, flourishing slowly through his steel veins, allowing it to take him over and swallow him up whole once again. It was the only way. It was the only way Dean knew how to go on.
He released Castiel, lowering him to the ground without meeting the face of death. But just as Dean shifted to move away, something unexplainable happened, something impossible. He felt the breath of life awaken beneath his fingertips. His head snapped toward Castiel, a mixture of puzzlement, shock, and disbelief etched across his features. He thought for a moment he had imagined things, but no, he felt it again; the angel's chest rose hard and fell. Hazel eyes darted to his face as Castiel's lips parted and he inhaled and exhaled sharply, as if startlement had roused the angel out of a deep, uninterrupted sleep, nothing more. "Cas!" Dean exclaimed urgently, as if life had suddenly thrust back into Dean himself. "Cas, Cas, talk to me!"
Blue heaven in the angel's eyes. He blinked once, and then again, shifting his gaze to the hunter. Cas seemed calm, almost tranquil, at peace. And then, the two most beautiful words Dean had ever heard tumbled smoothly from Castiel's lips: "Hello, Dean."