Apologies, accidentally uploaded a much later chapter. This is the correct Chapter 4.
My Bloody Valentine
"Oh, you can smirk and joke and lie to your brother, lie to yourself, but not to me! I can see inside you, Dean. I can see how broken you are, how defeated. You can't win, and you know it. But you just keep fighting. Just... keep going through the motions. You're not hungry, Dean, because inside, you're already...dead."
Dean stood in the darkened cafeteria, another quip already at hand. Sure, it seemed like he, his brother and Cas were about to be killed by a horseman of the apocalypse, but that was no excuse for not having a witty retort. It didn't matter that as far as he was concerned, Famine was probably right. The fires of hell had burnt his soul, and now that he was up topside where things were actually alive, it didn't do anything except highlight how blackened he was inside.
Another explanation occurred to him some months later, while a shotgun shell exploded from the gun in his hands. Blood spurted from the monster in front of him, and with the hard kick of the gun against his shoulder, it occurred to him. Maybe he had just been hungry for something he'd never let himself have. Of course, he kicked the thought aside like he kicked the bloody corpse into the ditch. Not in a million years.
Dark Side of the Moon
Cas leaned against the motel divider, staring up at the ugly ceiling. Dean distracted himself from the heartbroken angel's face by chucking gear into his duffle bag.
"Maybe… maybe Joshua was lying," he suggested. The last straw grasping of a hopeless man.
"I don't think he was, Cas. I'm sorry." Sam sighed. Dean was lost for words. That's right, Dean goddamn Winchester, lost for words.
Cas walked a few paced into the entry hall. "You son of a bitch. I believed in…" his voice broke, face tilted towards the sky, begging for something, anything. Dean watched, insides twisting inside him. This was something akin to how it'd felt when he'd found out about Adam. John Winchester's other life. His lie. "I don't need this anymore. It's worthless." Cas tossed the amulet to Dean, who caught it effortlessly.
"Cas, wait." Sam sensed Cas' imminent disappearance too late, and was rewarded with only the sound of wings and an empty space where he'd been. Where does he have left to go? Dean watched as the amulet dropped into the trashcan, and as the familiar metal form left his fingertips, he grasped a little more of how Cas felt. Lost. Utterly, desperately, lost. Maybe Cas would've been better off if Dean had never made him doubt, never chipped down the walls of his faith. I'm sorry, Cas. Really damn sorry.
99 Problems
Cas sat on the bench behind Dean as he slammed the Impala's glossy black trunk. Dean tossed him a bottle of aspirin.
"How many should I take?"
It struck him just then how very inhuman Cas was. Either inhuman or childish. No idea even how many aspirins to take. "You? You should probably just down the whole bottle."
Cas grimaced. "Thanks.
"Yeah, don't mention it. Yeah, I've been there. I'm a big expert on deadbeat dads. So…Yeah, I get it. I know how you feel." Dean wasn't good at having friends, probably as a side effect of never having had any for long. He was pretty sure expressing empathy was a common theme, but then that sounded a bit chick-flick-esque, so he wasn't really sure.
"How do you manage it?" Damnit, he'd almost preferred it when Cas was a righteous asshole to this newly broken version.
"On a good day, you get to kill a whore." Dean smirked. He asked himself right then, Do I love him? Is that why it friggin hurts this much to see him like this?
No. We're just… friends. I guess.
God, having friends was a tricky bastard of a pain in the ass.
Point of No Return
"You pray too loud." The bizarrely bearded street preacher's voice was cut off abruptly as Castiel touched his shoulder. Dean's eyes widened as Castiel grabbed the collar of his green jacket and hauled him into the nearby alleyway. Cas threw him up against the bricks like he was a rag doll. Cas wasn't even yelling, but the anger in his voice almost bled through the air onto Dean's skin. He punched Dean several times before Dean could gasp out, "What, are you crazy?"
"I rebelled for this?! So that you could surrender to them?" Cas' fist slammed into his face, knucklebones drawing blood as his head knocked back against hard stone.
"Cas, please…" There wasn't any point in fighting back. There was nothing to fight for.
"I gave everything for you. And this is what you give to me." He held Dean's head, almost lolling from the beating he received, and looked straight down into his eyes. Dean wasn't sure he'd ever seen blue smoulder that hot before. Dean slumped to the ground, the stench of the dark alley coming to his almost broken nose. He wouldn't have fought back against Cas anyway, not after everything they'd been through. What made it worse, though, was that Cas was right. Dean had more or less sworn to stand by Sam and Cas and here he was letting them down like everything else he'd cared about. Ever. Sam'd let him get away with it; well sure, he'd try to stop it, but in the final moment, he'd let Dean go with that sad puppy dog eye glance.
"Do it. Just do it!" Kill me. Before I let you down.
A single muscle in Cas' jaw twitched as he watched Dean, slumped on the wet concrete. His fist clenched and the moment stretched for longer than it should have. He reached down to touch Dean, and was met with a flinch before Dean slipped into oddly blissful unconsciousness. Damnit Cas. Why'd you have to keep me fighting?
Swan Song
Sam was gone. Sam was just so fucking gone. On top of everything, Cas, who'd healed him, brought Bobby back and had been the only thing whose existence he could cling onto like a rock in the moments after Sam fucking cast himself into hell - he was going back to heaven. After everything. At least he had his faith back, and he was just gonna swan off to be Heaven's new sheriff, leaving Dean as the miserable alcoholic motherfucker he was down here on Earth. Dean supposed it wasn't fair, really. Sam had been his rock, and now he was gone he'd figured Cas for his replacement. Though he wasn't sure what having a rebellious angel to keep you grounded would really do for him.
Cas startled him out of his thoughts. "You got what you asked for, Dean. No paradise. No hell. Just more of the same. I mean it, Dean. What would you rather have? Peace or freedom?" Light played over his jaw and cheek, eyes sparkling in the dark. It wasn't fair how normal they both looked right now. Dean sitting in the impala just like always, Cas' stupidly tousled hair. They should be broken and bruised and bloody. And damnit, the sonofabitch had a point.
Dean looked back at Cas, only to find an empty seat. His face fell, and he closed his eyes. He wanted to keep them shut just then, just to ignore everything that had happened. Finally, they opened to the forest road in front of him.
"Well, you really suck at goodbyes, you know that?"
