"Thanks, Garth. Let me know as soon as you know something." Dean hung up the phone and sat down on the ratty old sofa, resting his head in one hand and wearily rubbing at his temples with his thumb and forefinger. "It's gonna take him a little while to get us that much morphine," he informed Sam, as his brother moved around the sofa to take a seat close beside him. "He said he'd call back."

"Dean," Sam said firmly, concerned. "I said we didn't have to do this…"

"Yeah, but you were lying, weren't you?" Dean raised his eyes to his brother's face with a rueful, unhappy smile.

Sam looked away, silent and troubled, raising one hand to rest on Dean's shoulder. He couldn't exactly argue with that, as much as he wanted his words to be true – not when he couldn't offer any viable alternatives to the test Ion had proposed.

Dean sighed. "Yeah, that's what I thought. It's not like we've got a lot of options right now."

"If Cas is doing this… if… we find the tablet, then… then we'll know we had to…" Sam reasoned, but it didn't actually make him feel any better about what they were about to do.

"Yeah, and if we don't," Dean cut in, determined, "I don't care what that dick angel wants us to do, we're breaking this Jacob's Call bond and letting Cas get his grace back so he can heal. Period. The way I see it, if he was gonna do this thing, there's no way he'd let the tablet out of his sight before the spell was done – right?"

Sam nodded thoughtfully. "Right. That makes sense. So – we don't find it, he's not guilty. We let him go, right away."

"We can't let the world end on our watch, but we're not letting the angels play us, either," Dean declared. "Especially not if it hurts Cas."

Sam didn't say what he was thinking, what he knew Dean was already aware of – that the test alone was going to hurt Cas, far more than either of them were comfortable with. But at the moment, it seemed to be the lesser of two evils. And it wasn't as if he wouldn't heal, very quickly, the moment Dean cut through the sigil on his arm and broke the bond.

"We can't kill him," Sam reasoned, trying to sound more reassuring than he felt. "Like, literally can't, unless we use the angel blade, and we won't. So, what we've got to do to – to find the tablet – it'll heal in like, minutes once the bond is broken."

"And – if we do find the tablet… inside Cas?"

Sam felt the shudder that passed through Dean with those words, heard the ragged, trembling sound of his voice, and understood – because this was an utterly horrifying prospect to him, too. Sam edged closer to his brother, sliding his arm around him. Cas was Sam's friend, too, but Sam knew that Cas had always been closer to Dean. Yeah, they'd been through a lot of ups and downs over the past few years, including times when it had looked as if their friendship was over for good – but that only made this harder for Dean, not easier.

"I don't think we will," Sam said, for Dean's sake trying to fill his voice with all the confidence he didn't quite feel. "But – if we do, then… then I guess we won't have to feel quite so shitty about doing this."

Dean didn't answer, his downcast gaze anguished as he folded his fingers together and raised them to rest his head in his hands. Sam sighed, looking away. He knew his words were weak reassurance, but they were all he had to offer at the moment. He knew already, though – there was no good solution to this problem. They could find the truth about the tablet, but if they were wrong, then they'd have badly hurt a dear friend, and more than just physically.

And if they were right, well – somehow, Sam doubted that being right about Cas's betrayal would make either of them feel any better at all.

Garth called Dean back within the next hour – but the nearest of his contacts with access to the necessary amount of morphine was a good four hours' drive away from Rufus's cabin. Dean felt a strange sense of relief when he got the message, though he knew it was actually a setback. They didn't have much time, according to Ion; hours spent on the road were hours wasted.

But Dean had spent the time waiting for Garth's call pacing back and forth across the creaking cabin floor, his thoughts increasingly troubled, his nerves increasingly frayed. Cas was out of sight, locked away in the basement, but Dean couldn't shift the disturbing image from his mind of his friend, chained and kneeling and just helplessly waiting for them to…

He closed his eyes, shook his head, trying in vain to clear it. He just needed to get away for a little while, needed to get out of this cabin just to feel like he could breathe; so the moment the call came through, he took off in the Impala to meet the contact halfway, leaving Sam to keep an eye on Cas.

A little under four hours later, when Dean made his way back down to the basement – this time with a nauseatingly large hypodermic needle loaded with an obscene amount of morphine hidden in the place where the angel blade had been last time, and his brother right behind him – he didn't actually feel any better about the situation.

Cas looked up at Dean as he approached, then at Sam behind him – and the relief Dean saw on Cas's face at the sight of Sam – well, it stung. More than a little.

"Sam," Cas began, urgency in his voice as they approached him. "I don't know where you've gotten your information, but it's false information. I'm not doing anything with the angel tablet. I can't even read it, you know that. It's useless without a prophet to read it. You can let me go…"

"We'll see," Sam replied, his tone carefully non-committal, not meeting the questioning gaze that followed him as he moved to stand behind the kneeling angel, placing his large hands firmly on Cas's shoulders to hold him down and in place as Dean stepped up close in front of him.

"Wait… Dean… Sam, what…?"

Cas's eyes widened in alarm at the sight of the needle that had appeared in Dean's hands. He pushed backward in a vain attempt to retreat, but Sam held him still easily as Dean swiftly plunged the needle into the side of Cas's neck. Cas looked up at Sam with such hurt and betrayal that Sam looked away, his expression pained and guilty. Dean swallowed hard, relieved to see the haze of confusion and disorientation sliding into Cas's eyes, just before his shoulders went slack under Sam's hands, and he slid down into a boneless heap on the cold stone floor.

They laid him out flat, and Sam took out the blade they'd chosen from among their weapons. Dean had sharpened it to a razor's edge, and sterilized it with boiling water and then with alcohol. Sam's mouth was dry, his heart racing as he knelt on the floor beside their unconscious friend. The idea of what he was about to do made him feel queasy, but he still knew that he could handle it a lot better than Dean could at the moment.

Dean just crouched on the floor a couple of yards away, his back against the wall, his fist pressed, slightly trembling, against his mouth, eyes closed, while he waited. Sam almost would have thought he was praying, except that they both knew the only one Dean prayed to at all these days was currently incapacitated and at their mercy. Despite the feeling of revulsion that filled him at that unsettling thought, Sam made himself focus on the task at hand.

The sooner it was over, the sooner they could let Cas go, and they could all move on and try to get past this.

The feeling of warm, wet blood on his hands – the sick squelch of his thankfully steady fingers against soft parts that should never be so freely exposed to anyone's touch – those were nothing compared to the leaden feeling of dread that tightened in Sam's chest when he felt the smooth hardness of stone under his fingertips. He closed his eyes as he carefully withdrew the thing from Cas's chest, as if doing so could somehow keep him from seeing what he already knew was true – if only for just a few seconds longer.

Finally, he forced himself to open his eyes, letting out a slow, shaky breath as he looked down at the stone tablet in his hands.

"Dean," he said softly, his brother's name coming out strained and hoarse.

Dean looked up immediately, anxiously, meeting Sam's eyes. He bit his lower lip, his eyes lowering to Sam's blood-slick hands, and the overwhelmingly heavy burden they held. Worry faded slowly into shock and hurt… and then a terrible, overwhelming defeat and resignation, as the implications of what Sam had found slowly sank in. Sam watched bleakly as Dean squared his shoulders and his jaw, visibly forcing himself to come to terms with what he was seeing.

The missing angel tablet had been found – right where Ion had said it would be.

And Cas was going to end the world.

"So… the chains keep him from… from flying. He can't go anywhere. And – the spell will keep him from calling out to Heaven for help. Not that they want to help him right now, anyway. The point is – he's not going anywhere until we let him…"

Sam was talking, and Dean knew what he was saying was important, but he was finding it difficult to focus past the overwhelming weight of the revelation they'd just uncovered.

Ion was telling the truth.

Cas had started the ritual to bring down the walls between worlds.

And Dean couldn't take time right now to think about how blindsided he was by that knowledge, after he'd nearly managed to convince himself that Ion had been lying, and that they would find nothing inside Cas's chest; how frustrated and angry he felt that Cas still hadn't learned his lesson, after all his past mistakes, all his previous rash decisions made with what he thought were good intentions; how hurt he was that Cas hadn't come to him, hadn't trusted him, but had instead listened to some random angel and taken the wrong path, again.

No, he couldn't think about any of that right now, because right now, they had to focus on getting Cas to stop the ritual before the walls all came tumbling down.

"… won't be able to fight us, or at least not to hurt us," Sam continued, as Dean forced himself to focus. "It was… easy to… to hold him down." Sam hesitated, swallowing nervously, before continuing, "With his grace drained, well – he might as well be human, right now."

Dean's stomach lurched, his mind going to the bloody gash in his chest that Sam had stitched up as well as he could. "Which means, he ain't healing 'til we let him go," he concluded grimly, rubbing angrily at his eyes. "And we already used all the damn morphine. When he wakes up… damn it, Sam, I hate this," he muttered.

"I know. Me, too," Sam said quietly. "But – it also means he won't be able to – to try to smite anyone, or – do any of his magical angel tricks. And – I don't know, maybe – maybe the fact that he's not healing – that he's… hurting…" Sam hesitated, and Dean looked up to see a guilty grimace on Sam's face. "He's – he's gotta know that – the only way it's gonna stop is if he just – tells us the truth, you know?"

Dean closed his eyes, flinching a little as vivid sense memory filled his mind – a black blade with a razor edge, smoke and ash and bright red pouring out over his hand… hundreds of voices, screams and cries and desperate, broken promises for which Dean had no interest… there was nothing they had that he wanted, nothing but their suffering…

But… you want something now… and you know how to make him beg to give it to you…

It was Alistair's voice in his head, and Dean drew in a sharp, shaking breath, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes, struggling to shut it out. It was like some dark, tiny, whispering thing had crawled into him in Hell, and he'd carried it out with him, a constant reminder that he wasn't that "righteous man" Cas had fought his way through Hell to rescue. Not anymore.

A 'righteous man' couldn't even imagine the things you're thinking right now… not for a second…

Dean felt Sam's hand on his shoulder, felt his concern although he didn't say a word.

"It's just…" he tried to explain, before Sam could draw his own conclusions. "… Sammy, it's Cas…"

"I know," Sam said softly. "It's Cas. And I hate thethought of leaving him in pain as much as you do, but – we found the tablet. He's started this ritual. Letting him go right now is – it's not an option, Dean."

"I know," Dean admitted, quiet, defeated.

"It's Cas," Sam repeated, thoughtful, and clearly trying to sound optimistic, "He's no good at lying anyway, we know that. And as soon as he wakes up, he's gonna know we found the tablet. And yeah, he's gonna be in – in a lot of pain, and he has to know we know what he's doing. All we've got to do is just walk in there with the tablet, and he'll probably fold in a heartbeat. No sense lying if he knows we already know the truth." Sam hesitated, glancing down before meeting Dean's eyes with something resembling apology. "I'm just saying, you know… he's not used to pain. Not – not real, human pain. If it – if it makes him quicker to just tell us how to stop this thing, well… in the long run, it's better for everyone."

Dean nodded, but there was a heavy weight in his chest, and a knot in his throat that he couldn't quite swallow down. "Cas is – he can be pretty stubborn," he pointed out quietly. "And – us knowing the truth – that's not enough. Ion said Cas is the only one who can stop the spell."

"Yeah." Sam was quiet for a moment. "We'll just have to make him see reason," he said at last. "We can make him understand that he's not doing what he thinks he's doing, here. This isn't 'God's plan' – if he ever had one."

Dean nodded again, slowly, automatically – but he knew Cas a little better than that.

He remembered begging Cas not to go through with his plan to take on the souls from Purgatory, remembered trying to get through to his friend, and Cas's stubborn refusal to hear his objections. In the end, Cas had done what he'd intended to do from the start, heedless of their warnings – and he'd nearly destroyed the world in the process.

Dean couldn't let that happen again.

"I can't believe that Cas is doing this with anything other than good intentions," Sam went on, the willfully positive note in his voice only making Dean's heart feel heavier. "He has to think he's doing the right thing – and after what happened last time, maybe he'll be more willing to listen this time. We'll talk to him." Sam nodded. "We'll make him understand, and end the spell. And then it'll be over, and he can get better, and it'll all be okay."

But Sam's voice lacked conviction, and Dean was certain that he wasn't doing any better job of convincing himself than he was of convincing Dean. A cold, creeping feeling was sliding up Dean's spine – a sinking certainty that it wasn't going to be so easy.

Cas was a heavenly warrior. Cas had taken on archangels, more than once. He had experienced torture at the hands of angels, and while it had shaken him briefly – in the end, it hadn't broken him. When it had counted, he'd still chosen the right side.

Chosen Dean's side.

But… he did give in. For a little while. He fell back in line with what Heaven wanted…

And… all we need, now… is a little while…

The direction of Dean's thoughts made him want to throw up, a sick heat of shame sliding over him, as his mind traveled down dark paths into his past that he wished he could leave behind him. It was increasingly difficult to shut out that part of himself that he'd tried to leave back in the fires of Hell – that little part of him that kept insisting…

… there's an easier way to do this...

Dean shivered. He'd nearly given Cas a glimpse of that part of himself, just a few short hours earlier.

But that's all it was… just a glimpse… I'm not going there, not with Cas… not ever…

"Maybe he's awake," Sam suggested. "It's been a couple of hours. Let's go talk to him." Sam took a few steps toward the basement door.

Dean stayed where he was.

Sam turned to face him with a worried frown. "Dean?"

"You go," Dean said, his voice coming out hoarse and strained. "I – I just – you go talk to him. I'll wait here."

Sam hesitated, as if he wanted to ask for more information, but then he just nodded. "All right," he agreed. He paused a moment before adding softly, "Cas is gonna see that he hasn't exactly got another choice. It's gonna be all right, Dean."

Dean nodded, not looking up at Sam before Sam turned and headed down the basement stairs. He tried to hope that his brother was right… but he couldn't quite manage it.