You swallow my heart and flee, but I want it back now, baby. I want it back.
Lying on the sofa with my eyes closed, I didn't want to see it this way, everything eating everything in the end.
We know how the light works, we know where the sound is coming from.
I'm sorry. We know how it works. The world is no longer mysterious. -Richard Siken

He didn't bother looking for the body on the garden. He had seen it all through a window, how in those last moments, looking at Sam putting his foot to his throat the Fearless Leader was gone, and for that last moment with the Devil wearing his brother looking down at him, Dean had become the man he once was.

He didn't worry for past Dean either, whatever his fate, it won't matter, he will be gone too.

He wondered aimlessly through the alleys, listening to the deserted city until the sun began to set, he found a house closer to the woods, a passing thought of making sure if the house was empty crossed his mind but he disregarded it, croatoans didn't tend to leave the city, and even if there were infected inside, it didn't bother him anymore.

He didn't notice the house had a door until the next morning; he had spent the night sleeping on the floor of what in another time would have been the living room.

The white painting was peeling off, but the entrance door was still there, otherwise untouched. It would have been a good acquisition for the camp. Castiel suddenly remembered that some of the cottages had only a piece of wood holding as a door or even less; it didn't matter now, there would be a lot of perfectly good cottages that will be open for new vacancy now, even his. He wondered who will get his. He could go back, he could at least say his goodbyes, but the only person he even knew by name was Chuck, he didn't deem it necessary to do so.

He searched his pants and sat on the floor when he found the plastic bottle that he always carried with him now. He still had two of the orange tablets, one blue and five capsules, he started with the capsules which were always easier to pass with just saliva. He was sitting in front of the door looking at the dirt road that had once connected the house to the town, already being reclaimed by the woods due to the lack of use. He watched as he swallowed the tablets, he broke them in two first, knowing how unpleasant it was going to feel when they got stuck on the back of his throat. When he was done he laid on the floor, letting the bottle roll out of his hand. He stayed there watching the shadows pass as the day progressed; at some point he must have fallen asleep because by the time he woke up the light coming from the window had already turned a lovely orange. Something was digging into the small of his back and he reached over to pull it out from where it was held by the elastic of his pants. It was a pocket knife he didn't recall taking from the camp. But he quickly remembers,

"Here, take this."

"A pocket knife? Seriously? That much fate you have in my shooting skills?"

He shrugged and reached to stuff it in one of Cas pockets, "It's just for safety, okay? When you're in there I won't be able to watch your back."

Castiel looks at him and for a moment he sees concern, he sees the unspoken message: keep fighting Cas, and keep on going where I have given up.

Castiel smiles and takes the knife from his pocket and puts it on his back, holding it with his waistband, "anything you say, Dean". He hasn't called him Dean for so long, but he wants to say to him his own unspoken message as well: please don't do this, stay, fight with me.

He doesn't realize he's crying until he gets choked on snot, he sits down and throws the pocket knife, it hits the door nudging it close, and that's when Cas sees all the locks; the past owner of the house was obviously concerned for the security of this house, and Castiel wonders if that helped him when the virus struck, or just like everyone, was caught on it.

He still has tears streaming from his face when he stands up and picks up the knife; he dislodges the blade and examines it in the dim light of the afternoon,

"It's just for safety…"

No, Castiel thinks, it is useless; because he fell, because he was a creature of celestial intent that could command the nature of the Earth with just a mere touch of his Grace; he stood on the surface of the sun and watched as the oceans parted and turned to solid ground. He had been a soldier and a weapon of God, he had thousands of his brothers in wars on Heaven and Earth fighting at his side, and then he had have Dean and Sam, who just as his brothers had taken care of each other on battle.

And now all of it was gone. Castiel stood alone, in the middle of nowhere, with no purpose to go on. And all his efforts to protect, all his careful consideration and training and choices he made trying to defend the Righteous Man— no, trying to look after Dean, it all lie on the ground, stomped by fate and…

He took the knife and began carving on the door, the letters forming words forming something; he was angry, he wanted the power to destroy entire cities at his command again, he wanted to watch the world burn, that world that his Father had made with so much care, so much love, and that it had taken away the one thing that had made him feel for the first time.

But now he is just a man, and so he carves on the door and throws the pocket knife through one of the windows when he is done, the house is bare and so he doesn't know what else to destroy, he peels the paper of the corridor, smashes all the windows and then picks the glasses and makes holes on the wall with them. He trashes and smears the floor with his blood, until he collapses on one of the bedrooms of the second floor. The sun has finally set and the air has grown cold.

Castiel stares at the sky as the stars begin to appear, the piece of window that he had picked up is still lodged tightly on his palm, blood is sipping from his wounds. He won't exactly miss Dean, he had lost him the moment Sam had said Yes, so he had some time to get used to his absence, but he wonders if he would at least meet Dean in Hell once more.