Snow-White and Rose-Red

-VVV-

Like anywhere in the world where one thing is prevalent, the denizens of Hell had many names for which they had plenty. While Hawaiians had hundreds of fish and Inuits had endless stretches of snow, Hell had a limitless supply of one thing:blood. Though not as simple a compound as snow or ice, the demons of the Pit had many words to describe the mixture. There was talutah which meant 'blood-red'. There was akeldama which meant 'field of blood'. They even had names for the blood of various organs, such as muhjah which meant, 'heart's blood' or 'soul's blood'.

Castiel, however, would always remember Hell described by two words: Rose-Red.

-VVV-

When he first reached his goal in Hell, Castiel had no such names to describe that which he saw before him. Only one word came to mind when he laid eyes on the sight in stretched out before him: red.

The walls were painted in it, some of it more brownish, old and crusted. Other parts were smeared deep crimson, glistening and wet against the stone. The floor was covered in a wash of red and other fluids, along with shreds of skin and other, more unidentifiable body parts. It didn't matter which parts, really, for every body had the same name in that cursed land: meat

There was meat hanging from polished hooks, some the size of children, others the bulk and mass of obese adults. Some were skinless, others were boneless, and some were just hairless pelts stretched out and pinned up like tapestries.

There was also a bed in the room, lending the gruesome chamber a more intimate feel - this is where the monster came to lay its head to rest. The headboard was an intricate pattern of interlocking bones ranging in size from huge ones, as if from a giant, while others were barely the size of an infant's tibia. A quilt, stitched in a patchwork of human skin, was thrown across it.

Here and there Castiel would find things that were strangely out of place amongst the gruesome décor. Set carefully on a shelf was a ripped and bloodstained bunny that had undoubtedly been a child's toy. Next to it was a comb with broken teeth, carved from a piece of ivory. He found an old picture, a chess piece, a pocket watch, a toy car, and even a perfectly round glass marble, all meticulously arranged and displayed.

The angel committed it all to memory, even inhaling and cataloging the stink of the room. Here in this chamber, sulfur didn't burn his nose. Not every part of Hell was fiery pits and cries of the damned, after all. The room instead bore a strong coppery scent mingled with a heavy perfume that permeated the cracks of his skin. It lingered on the tip of the nose and smelled of decaying flowers and rotten meat.

In some ways Castiel preferred the stench of the old eggs and brimstone to this cloying aroma, for the smell seemed to settle so deeply into him that it stained his very Grace. It made him want to run from the place and all that it stood for, but he would not. He had come too far into the Pit to stop now. He had battled with his brethren for forty years to reach this spot. It would not do honor to the memory of his fallen brothers to fail his mission now and run home.

It was his duty to raise Dean Winchester from Hell and he was the only angel who could do it.

He was the only one left.

Long and hard he had fought even after demons had torn apart the last of his companions, until finally he had made it to the inner sanctum of the damned - this room.

This was Dean Winchester's domain.

"It's not often I get willing visitors to my little slice of Hell," purred a voice from behind him, "but it'd be rude of me not to give you a proper welcome." There was a hint of derision in the tone, but Castiel thought he could detect the slightest edge of self-depreciation too, like a knife with its point turned inwards.

He turned and came face to face with the person for whom he had been sent to Hell to rescue.

Castiel had been expecting a lot of things but the man who stood before him with eyes as glossy and black as a raven's wing, wasn't it. He had of course, known that Hell could warp a soul until it was unrecognizable as anything vaguely human, the darkness that resided in the heart of every man coaxed out by the inquisitors of the Pit. He had expected Dean Winchester to look more like one of the grotesque demons he had slain, a caricature of what he once used to be.

What he did not expect, was to find Dean looking as unscathed by the Hell as a newborn babe. He looked vibrant, healthy even, and despite the layer of blood and grime that coated his smooth skin, he was beautiful. The light of his soul shone bright and pure and its host remained painfully ignorant to that fact.

He could see why his Father had ordered him to rescue this man. He could see why this man was the one they needed.

"I have come to pull you out of this hole, Dean Winchester," said he in a voice which filled every corner of the bloodstained room, "you are not meant for this fate."

Dean only chuckled gruffly in response and drew very close to Castiel, well within the confines of personal space.

"What makes ya say that, pretty bird? You're a stranger around here, I can tell," he said with a pointed look at his pristine white wings. "Feathers aside, you don't wear the stink of the Pit as well as the other souls who find their way to me - you are the one who isn't meant to be here."

Castiel didn't shy away from the other's proximity, though the brush of skin on skin burned him like a white hot iron held flush against his Grace. Dean's soul was so tainted and so smeared by the sludge of Hell it fairly amazed him, but he had to believe in him. He had to believe in his father's will. He had to have faith.

"Indeed I am a stranger here in this realm so far removed from my home," said Castiel after a moment, looking straight into Dean's onyx eyes. "You too are a stranger here. You were never meant for this place," he paused, placing a hand on Dean's chest. "I know you can feel it."

Dean jerked away from his touch and sneered, breathing a long, angry hiss into the hot air. "You don't know a goddamned thing, angel," he spat nastily. "You came here for nothin' because I damn well ain't worth saving."

His lips drew back from his teeth in an animalistic snarl and he lunged at Castiel without warning. The pair tumbled back in a confusion of limbs, teeth, nails, and ivory white feathers.

Castiel was born to the ground by Dean's weight and felt the breath leave him as he fell hard against the stone floor. His wings became sullied and tacky with crimson stain and other grisly fluids as they rolled around and grappled for dominance. Dean, however, was ruthless and Castiel was unwilling to hurt the future savior of earth, despite any injury to himself.

Everything went dark when Dean dealt him a vicious blow to the temple, loose stone in hand.

-VVV-

The world came back into focus slowly, sounds forming into recognizable words and colors into recognizable shapes. Castiel rose from the blackness of his mind to the surface of waking like he was rising from the depths of the deepest ocean.

At first everything was dark and grey with little variance. Then there were many shades of blue and faded purples and after that, bright spots of mottled reds and browns. Slowly, very slowly, the world began to swim into sharp definition.

Castiel shifted, winced, and felt the bite of thick leather straps looped beneath his armpits and across his chest, holding him aloft and upright. A bleary glance revealed it to be a harness of sorts; a marionette left hanging and strapped against the wall. His wings had been forcibly outstretched and he could feel them delicately pinned to the rack on either side of him, just like an insect on display behind a glass case. Acute, driving pain in his limbs told him of further injury, and when his vision had fully stabilized, he saw that something akin to steel railway spikes had been driven through the joints of his ankles and wrists.

His blood dripped down his palms and from his fingers, rich crimson in color and strange as it filled the whorls of fingertips and lines of his palms. It trailed down his toes in deep red rivulets, stark against the unnatural glow of his skin. It collected in the crook of his arms and pooled in the delicate fold of skin behind his knees, and it made him itch terribly. To struggle would be to worsen the injuries and though Castiel would heal from this, for the while the pain was unbearable.

Eventually, Castiel became aware of a faint buzzing in his ears. He closed his eyes and concentrated on it; haltingly, the buzzing noise manifested into understandable speech. A prayer slipped from his lips and a voice which pulled on the tattered edges of his thoughts, answered him.

'Necessità 'l ci 'nduce, e non diletto.' - 'Necessity brings him here, not pleasure.'

Castiel closed his eyes and inhaled a shuddering breath. His shoulders flexed and his wings twitched in response, eliciting exquisite pain from the motion. He forced the air through his teeth slowly, willed his muscles to still, and willed calmness to settle into his soul.

"I understand," he whispered quietly, no more than a pretense of sound as the words dropped from his lips, weighted with significance.

Castiel knew then what he had always known: there would be no reward for the what he would suffer at Dean's hands, but he knew that he must suffer. He must sacrifice his blood, homage to his slain kin who had sacrificed their existence for this man. He had to understand who he was saving. He must know Dean Winchester. He must believe that his soul was worth saving, and he must believe it with the same devotion he gave his brethren. He must believe it until the very essence of his Grace was imprinted with the strength of his belief; until Dean was imprinted into every fiber that was Castiel.

And he would learn through blood sacrifice, a trial as primordial as the earth his Father created. He would accept whatever came to him.

He had faith.

-VVV-

Dean liked to torture Castiel daily, enjoying the way his screams would echo off of the blood-slicked walls. He claimed it was like listening to a Heavenly choral and all he needed were a few harps and trumpets to round out the chorus. Most of the time, Dean was brutal and without mercy, rhyme, or reason. He was sadistic for the plain thrill of it and Castiel accepted that, even when he had screamed himself hoarse from the pain, or worse yet, when Dean had ripped his throat from him, tired of his cries.

Other times Dean did odd things to him (for him), childish things, such as slit his wrists and paint him a picture with his blood. He would hold it up to him, black eyes shining as he showed off his work with a little, pleased smirk. Something deep within the depths of that inky dark gaze, however, unconsciously sought approval.

It puzzled Castiel until he began to praise Dean for his work as one might praise a child seeking favor from his parent.

At first Dean reacted badly to the praise and punished him more, doing everything from carving Byzantine patterns into his flesh, cuts over cuts, to merely bludgeoning him with a heavy object until all of his bones were crushed to dust.

Soon enough, however, Dean began to accept the compliments and stopped abusing Castiel for his praise. He did other things, very cruel and painful things, to Castiel to seek his approval , and Castiel always managed a smile. Sometimes it was quite ghastly with split lips and blood frothed in the spaces between his teeth, but he always found a spare breath to murmur a kind word to Dean.

"That's creative, Dean," he might whisper, or, if Dean had drained his blood instead of taken his bones (from which he would make the macabre equivalents of macaroni necklaces - the little bones in the hands and feet seemed created just for that), he might even nod his head a bit.

There were times (very special times, Castiel soon realized) when Dean would pick one of Castiel's veins and puncture it with a thin, hollowed out metal tube , much like a dirty needle without a syringe. Castiel would watch as his blood began to seep from him in rhythmic spurts, growing weaker as the minutes ticked by.

Dean liked to read to Castiel in those times and oddly, his preferred stories were fairytales.

His favorite was one called Snow-White and Rose-Red written by two brothers named Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. Sometimes Castiel wondered if Dean liked the story because two brothers had authored it. He wondered if it reminded Dean of Sam. Many times he was too weak for such thoughts and he simply tried listen to Dean's voice, the cadence and deep timber keeping him tenuously tied to consciousness.

Dean particularly liked the passage where the dwarf was killed by the black bear. At first Castiel thought it was because the bear killed the cruel little creature without any remorse. Later, he suspected Dean liked it it was because it him of hunting.

Often Dean would skip ahead to that passage and read it to him over and over, until Castiel fainted from blood loss.

'Then in the dread of his heart he cried, "Dear Mr. Bear, spare me, I will give you all my treasures; look, the beautiful jewels lying there! Grant me my life; what do you want with such a slender little fellow as I? you would not feel me between your teeth. Come, take these two wicked girls, they are tender morsels for you, fat as young quails; for mercy's sake eat them!" The bear took no heed of his words, but gave the wicked creature a single blow with his paw, and he did not move again.'

When he had healed and woken again, Dean would still be reading to him.

He read the tale so much that Castiel learned it by heart, and when he still had strength and the where-withal to do so, he would recite the passage along with Dean. Mockingly at first, Dean began to call him Snow White because of his pearly feathers. Eventually it became something of a pet name, Castiel supposed, and in turn he called Dean, Rose Red.

The nickname often made Dean chuckle unpleasantly and when it did, he would pick his favorite knife from his arsenal and slowly whittle out the angel's heart. As he did so, Dean would chant a variation of a rhyme from the tale and gleefully set to work:

"Snowy-White and Rosey- Red,
Will you beat your lover dead?
Snowy-White and Rosey-Red,
Let us paint the walls in instead!
Snowy-White and Rosey-Red,
Watch he blood drip from his head.
Snowy-White and Rosey-Red,
He's dead, it's done, the beast is fed."

-VVV-

Sometimes the nickname didn't make Dean laugh at all. When that happened the hunter would pause and stare at Castiel for a long time, and things deeply suppressed would flicker in the depths of his dark eyes. He would approach the angel and lay his head against Castiel's bloody carapace. Then he would whisper the rhyme in a raspy, strained tone; a lover murmuring sweet nothings against the lobe of their beloved's ear.

"Snowy-White and Rosey-Red,
Will you beat your lover dead?"

Dean would sigh against Castiel's warm skin like a lost child, his lips full and tender against slick, reddened flesh. Castiel would offer the same words he always did.

"You're worthier than you know, Dean Winchester. Let us be rid of this place."

"Lies," Dean would answer each time, and look up at angel on his rack, his chin resting against Castiel's the smooth plane of his belly. He always followed with the same question: "Why?"

"Because your blood is pure and your heart is true. This is not your fate," he would say.

"Why else?" Dean would press, with a small, enigmatic grin.

"Because you deserve to be loved, Dean. Let me bring you from this place. Let me show you," Castiel would reply.

And Dean, every time, would reach up and rip Castiel's tongue straight from his mouth.

-VVV-

Eventually Dean began to talk to him without any prompting, though he usually did so when he was working some writhing, screaming meat hanging from one of the hooks. Amidst the cries, sobs, and inane babbling, he revealed a great many things. He seemed to, in those moments, speak more honestly than he might ever admit.

Castiel only listened, though he prayed silently for the poor souls twisting and thrashing under the broken man's ministrations.

When Dean began talking he spoke of everything from the mother he barely remembered to his father, whose relationship with him had been strained when he had died. He shared tales of his youth and of his indiscretions. He regaled him with stories of his hunts and the scars those hunts left him (Castiel found that Dean wore the scars on his body proudly, as if they were badges he had earned) and of the first girl he ever went down on. He relayed the many things he felt guilty about; things that he had never admitted to anybody else. Castiel found that humans could store an astounding amount of guilt within them.

He came to realize that Dean was confessing to him, purging himself of every secret he had kept and every emotion he had refused to acknowledge. Though he never said it aloud, Castiel thought it was a good thing Dean was doing this. The more he learned about this lost soul, the closer he felt to him.

If he asked a question he was typically punished, usually by having his eyes gouged out or his intestines strung up while he was still awake. Dean was particularly gifted when it came to inflicting pain and he didn't like to repeat the same method of torture too often. He was at least very consistent about the level of hurt he liked to inflict on the angel for his verbal follies. Castiel could always count on that

Still, there were times when Dean answered Castiel's questions without the threat of violence, and those were the times that Castiel chose to remember.

When Dean finally spoke of his brother, he paid special attention.

Dean's love for his younger sibling was fierce and Castiel caught a glimpse of the warrior within Dean - proud, strong, and fearless. He saw him as the protector he truly was and not this twisted aspect of himself that he had become. Dean talked a lot about Sam - his Sammy, as he would say - and there was always a hint of possessiveness in the shadows of his words that made Castiel believe that he was lost without his baby brother.

"Sammy is mine," ranted Dean one time when he descended into a particularly fervid tirade, "ever since I held him in my arms and raced from our house burnin' with Hellfire." He made a wide, sweeping gesture, then casually carved a wide strip of flesh from his newest victim hanging on one of the largest hooks.

At this point the meat was unrecognizable as either male or female, but instead was merely a quivering mass of blood-slicked flesh that whimpered occasionally. (They called that one 'serkan' he thought, which meant blood head or some such but he couldn't be sure.) Dean continued speaking after stepping back and giving his work a once-over with a critical eye, as any good artist will do.

"I know every cord of muscle, every tendon, every stitch of my brother down to the stink of his breath in the morning. I used to wake up and just know he was there, by the way a room smelled when he was in it." He paused, wiping his blood-lubed hands on his pants. "I would've done anything for him; I would've died for him a thousand times over."

"You did, Dean. Your penance has been paid and I'm sure Samuel knows this," Castiel offered.

Dean didn't appreciate the comment and turned his full attention upon Castiel. He left the meat he had been torturing, dripping and bleeding on the hook like a forgotten and unwanted plaything.

When he was done with the angel, when Castiel's ribs were split and bent back, the skin of his back peeled aside and stretched taut over the bones, only then did Dean agree with him. Only when his breastbone had been broken and the ribcage pried apart to display his faintly beating heart, did Dean admit that he thought Sam would have found a way to rescue him by now.

He later informed Castiel that this particular torture was an ancient Norse method called the "Blood Eagle" and that he was very special indeed to receive it. Then he left Castiel like that for several days, his eyes sewn shut to stew in darkness and his own agony.

Occasionally the angel would hear snatches of Dean's voice, chanting to himself as he wandered through the chamber.

"Snowy-White and Rosey-Red, will you beat your lover dead?"

-VVV-

"I traded my soul for his life," Dean announced one day out of the blue, elbow deep in the middle of reorganizing Castiel's entrails. Castiel was barely hanging onto consciousness, though he managed somehow to keep up with the thread of conversation.

The proclamation was not news to Castiel, though there was something in Dean's tone that made this declaration different. This was important. This was a turning point, or so he hoped.

"I know, Dean," Castiel gasped in response, concentrating with difficulty on the way his tongue formed each word, instead of on the exquisite pain radiating from his belly. "Such devotion is deserving of a second chance. Let me give that to you." He inhaled sharply when Dean delved deeper with his fingers, probing through his viscera like he was searching for something he wasn't sure he would find. Castiel coughed wetly. His teeth were deep red behind blood and spit-slicked, redder lips. The blackness began to crowd the edges of his vision.

"Sammy said I was stupid and selfish," muttered Dean, pausing in his work. He stepped back, holding onto something that surely belonged inside of Castiel, and stared at the angel intently. "You don't think that, do you?" he asked, and for the first time a note of true sincerity was clear in his voice.

"Never, Dean," Castiel whispered faintly, his head lolling to one side as his strength seemed to rush out of him. "I will always believe in you. I will always come for you, should you ask."

"You mean you'll come if the big guy up there asks," said Dean in retort, dismissing the answer with a roll of his eyes. Castiel mustered his fading energy and shook his head.

"I will come for you because it is your voice who calls," he rasped, his voice faint and distant but infused with the strength of his utter conviction; of his utter faith. Castiel drew in a deep, shuddering breath that sounded wet and terrible. He continued. "I've seen more of you than you think, Dean, and you are the most beautiful, worthy soul I've encountered." He gave a feeble smile to his charge, the barest lift of the corner of his mouth. He tried to reassure Dean with a rheumy gaze, even as he felt his strength fading away. "I believe...in...you're...my…Rosey Red."

Castiel couldn't be sure but he thought he heard a sharp gasp before he was pulled under the blanket of unconsciousness, once again.

-VVV-

As soon as he opened his eyes Castiel knew he had been taken off the rack. He was lying on his back upon something which scarcely made an attempt at being soft or comfortable. His wings were folded neatly on either side of him and his head was propped up against an object that was squishy and foul-smelling.

He recognized it as the bed from his position in the room, and struggled up to a full sitting position, unwilling to look behind him and see what it was he had been leaning against. The stench alone, was enough to guess at what it was. Dean was perched on the foot of the bed, cross-legged, with his elbows resting on his knees. He toyed absently with the tattered, stuffed bunny that Castiel had seen in what seemed like a lifetime ago, when he had first entered Dean's chambers. Dean didn't look at Castiel when he spoke, but his words were clear, open, and honest, with no trace of contempt.

"This belonged to my very first victim," Dean said quietly, tracing the edge of a torn ear with his thumb, his brow forming a troubled crease. "Alastair wanted to make sure of my commitment to Hell. He wanted to make sure I was ready to be off the rack." Dean glanced up, caught Castiel's gaze and held it. "He brought me a child, a boy who couldn't have been any older than ten." Dean drew in a deep, shaky breath, as if the admission unlocked something he had hidden away within himself. "I asked him what the kid could've done, but Alastair just told me that you don't question in Hell. Meat is meat, nothin' more."

Dean buried his face in the grimy bunny and Castiel could see a trail of wetness glisten on his cheeks.

"The things," he stopped, gathering himself and steadying his voice before continuing, "the things I did to that kid, Cas…I - I can't be worth savin' after that."

Castiel blinked at his shortened name, but leaned forward anyway. He closed both of his hands over Dean's where they were clenched around the stuffed animal and simply held them. At length, Dean's grip relaxed slightly and he allowed Castiel to intertwine their fingers. Though he was hardly human, from the way Dean stiffened and nearly jerked away, the angel thought that this might well be the first compassionate touch that Dean had experienced in a great number of years - not counting the forty in Hell.

"You acknowledge your sins and you have honored the memory of this child by keeping safe what was dear to him. Forgive yourself, Dean Winchester; you must realize that you were never truly like those who sought to turn you permanently from the righteous path."

Dean's hands still trembled within his own but he held them steadily, in a firm, sure grip.

"Are the other objects on those shelves from your victims as well?" Castiel asked gently.

Dean nodded and twisted to look over at the shelf in question, though he left his hands in Castiel's as if afraid he would lose something vital, should he break the connection.

"All of those are mementos from souls I've tortured," he supplied after a moment. "There would be certain people on my rack who were so attached to their old lives that it just made me goddamned angry. They reminded me of what I had lost; I saw what it was they clung to, and then ripped it away from them." Dean's eyes grew distant as he remembered. "There was a woman who had this photo of her two boys in her pocket and I wanted it. It reminded me of Sammy and myself when we were little. She wouldn't let go of the fuckin' thing, so I sliced her hand off at the wrist and took it from her." Dean shifted his attention back to Castiel, his dark gaze haunted by memory. "I used to look at that photo for hours and wonder what Sammy was doin', if he missed me, if he was even tryin' to get me back."

Dean shook his head. "Everything I collected - the toy car, the marble, the pocket watch, etc. - they all reminded me things I couldn't have. And I was so goddamned jealous of those poor bastards. They were able to find comfort in these things when I had none, and I just...I just fucking took it all away. I didn't even care, I got off on hurting them like that. Hurting them physically was easy, but hurting them deeper than that was..." he trailed off.

"Hurting them emotionally soothed your own pain," offered Castiel, squeezing Dean's fingers. The man nodded silently. "Even if they will never forgive you for taking the things that brought them comfort, you must forgive yourself. It is time to let go of your guilt."

Dean expelled a huge, trembling sigh and released the toy bunny, letting it slide from his grasp like a final farewell.

A long, heavy spell of silence descended upon them. Castiel studied him when Dean dropped his chin to stare at their entwined hands, memorizing the dark fringe of his lashes, long enough to cast the barest shadows on the delicate skin beneath his eyes. He studied the bit of nose he could glimpse from where he sat; he noted the high, angular sweep of Dean's cheeks and the curve of his bottom lip. When Dean suddenly looked up and caught Castiel's unabashed scrutiny, Castiel knew what was going to happen.

Dean leaned forward suddenly, lurching like someone who had forgotten all notions of restraint. Castiel let Dean fist a hand in his shirt, let him curve a hand around the back of Castiel's neck and pull him forward to his mouth. Castiel knew that it was misguided attempt to forge a deeper connection, and felt, somehow, that this was the only way Dean knew how to express such things; it was as if he'd long, long ago given up hope for anything better and could no longer articulate what he frantically sought. Castiel knew that it would be Dean's own undoing.

The kiss was desperate and sad, and Castiel could feel every suppressed emotion flood from Dean through the connection of their lips. Tears flowed down Dean's cheeks in wet paths, making the kiss salty and slick. Castiel swallowed Dean's sobs gravely, sliding his palms along Dean's jaw to press the tips of his fingers into the soft hair behind Dean's ears, anchoring him with ten points of pressure as Dean poured every ounce of himself into their kiss. And when Castiel kissed back it was a benediction; he offered his solace and devotion as he gathered the broken pieces of Dean's soul to him. He cherished what he was given, revered what he was offered, and then held it - every last piece of Dean's bruised, tattered soul - within himself for safe keeping.

"Let us go from here, Dean," whispered Castiel at length, lips brushing against the hunter's temple before he pressed a kiss to it. "Too long have you been alone. Let me return you to a world that needs you."

Dean rose with him when he stood up, but recoiled, drawing back from him when Castiel unfurled his wings. Though the white of his feathers was dirtied and dulled by blood and grime, Castiel's wings still shone with magnificence; a faint, faded reflection of Heaven's light. Castiel offered his hand to Dean and was only met with a look of clear apprehension.

"I...I don't know if I can do this Cas," said Dean, a look of child-like terror crossing his features. "I can't go back and face Sammy. He'll know...and...he'll damn me for it." Dean said the last in a bare whisper, the fear of his brother's rejection staining every syllable. Castiel thought he understood: Sam was Dean's only family, his truest and last tie to the world. If Sam were to reject him, Dean thought he would have nothing.

Castiel drew himself up to his full height and his presence seemed to fill the corners of the room. A soft, golden glow began to emanate from his skin and gradually grew in brilliance. He stepped nearer and this time, Dean did not shrink back from him. "You will never know if you don't go back, Dean." Castiel brushed the pad of his thumb across the sweep of Dean's cheek, as if he might smooth away the man's fear with that simple gesture. "I have seen that humans are capable of unparalleled depths of love and forgiveness. That is why your grace outshines ours in spades."

Dean still looked uncertain, like a lost child who was unsure of the way home. "I dunno if I can do this," he repeated, though turned his face slightly and pressed forward into Castiel's touch. "I'm weak. I broke after thirty years on the rack and became what I swore I never would - a fuckin' monster." Dean sighed against Castiel's palm, his breath wretched with despair. When he spoke again, his voice was small. "I can't do it alone."

Castiel grazed his thumb lightly over the arch of Dean's eyebrow, before dropping his hand and offering it to Dean to take, palm up and fingers splayed. "Then don't," he said, simply. "I am with you. And like in your story, Snow White always led Rose Red by the hand. Take mine and know that I will always come when you call, Dean Winchester." When Dean shifted his gaze away as if disbelieving him, Castiel tucked the fingers of his free hand beneath Dean's chin and directed his attention back to him. He looked Dean in the eye, and when he spoke it was in a voice serious and ancient, resonating with the depth of his faith and of his loyalty. "You have never been as alone as you've thought."

Dean hissed a breath through his teeth as if suddenly overwhelmed, and, tentatively, placed his hand in Castiel's. Castiel curled his hand over Dean's, tightly weaving their fingers together as Dean stepped closer, and letting his other hand slip from beneath Dean's chin. He trailed the tips of his fingers over the curve of Dean's neck, splaying them briefly as he pushed against Dean's chest, pressing in directly over his heart like he was memorizing the feel of it as it vibrated beneath the brand of his palm. After a moment, Castiel grasped the upper portion of Dean's right arm in an unyielding, iron grip.

"Will I remember this - you and me?" Dean asked suddenly, his voice cracking over the words.

"Do you wish to?" Castiel questioned.

Dean shook his head slowly. He didn't think that he could handle knowing what he did to the angel who saved him, in addition to the forty years worth of memories that were now ingrained into his skin, his bones, his blood.

"No." He said the word decisively, with conviction.

"Then you won't," promised Castiel. And then he pulled his charge tight against him until he could feel the beat of Dean's heart against his chest. It was the thrum of Dean's heart through his Grace, the rhythm that was in turns so fragile, so strong, and so human, that Castiel used as a tether to pull them both from the Pit. He spread his wings wide as the world around them erupted into glaring, white light.