A/N: Apologies for the incomplete link at the end of the last chap (copy'n'paste error). Here is the link for Set The Fire To The Third Bar watch?v=bfa9yxCpWoA

Chapter title from What I know by Jake Epstein

"What I know is that I hurt you, oh.

What I know is that I suck and what I know is that I'm sorry.

What I know is that I'm a loser to you-

What I know is I screwed up and then I never earned your trust.

What I know is that everything I touch just turns to dust."

I can't watch Clip Show... too many feels... Here is the chapter-

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All the way back in the car Dean's mind was running on a loop.

Don't you die Cas.

Don't you freaking die on me.

Don't you die Cas, you leaving bastard, don't you dare die on me.

There was the background noise of the engine, the nightmarish gurgling breaths from Castiel behind them, Sam coughing and attempting to start conversations that Dean could not hear.

Castiel was insensible and rambling by the time Dean took his shoulders and Sam his legs to get him inside the bunker and down to the Men of Letters' infirmary room.

"Is that Enochian?" Dean spoke for the first time since he had said Castiel's name by the side of the road.

"Elvish" Sam smirked, "Castiel has encountered Tolkien or else there is a whole other dimension of weirdness."

Dean's brain still wasn't able to focus and Sam's words slipped around him like melted butter down a hot baked potato.

Once Castiel was laid on the gurney by the white tiled wall Dean looked up at his brother. "Get out of here."

"No. Dean. I'm helping."

"Get the freaking hell back upstairs. Take a shower and some Advil and go to fucking bed."

"I'm not seven, Dee. You can't tell me what to do." Sam sounded seven.

"Sammy bedtime." Dean's forced his tone to be light but his eyes were like rocks.

It took a few moments of standing immutable in the wake of bitchface #5, the one with the side order of pleading Sammy puppy eyes, but the younger brother turned around and walked gingerly to the door,

"Holler if you need me, you know, to pass you a scalpel or the iodine, Dr Sexy."

Dean nodded with a grim expression and turned to examine the gaping hole in Castiel's abdomen.

"You stupid frigging celestial child." He spat the words as he cleaned around the open hole with some iodine and absorbent pads. "What did they do to you? Try and rip your heart out with their bare hands?"

Dean wasn't expecting an answer but Castiel muttered "Angel tablet… secreted in my chest cavity… "

"You stupid sonvabitch." Dean pushed himself back from the gurney. Castiel hadn't opened his eyes. Dean wasn't sure if he was conscious in the proper sense of the word. "What's this hole then? Digging around inside you were they?" He felt sick at the thought. Bile rose in his throat.

"Angel bullet… Crowley forged from a blade…"

"Swell. Freaking awesome. Angel bullets." Dean walked away. He opened the glass fronted unit to get some more gauze. The glass cracked with the force of his rage as he slammed it.

There was no point in stitching Castiel back together. His grace would heal him. It should heal him. Dean scrubbed the back of his neck wondering if he should have taken Castiel to a hospital. The angel still had juice. He had landed in the path of the Impala. Dean hissed his frustration at the whole damn situation.

Castiel lay prone while Dean carefully wrapped his wound in gauze and sterile dressings. With his fingertip he stroked the lower edge of the bandage just above Castiel's boxer elastic.

He felt human now. It scared Dean.

Castiel would need to be taken care of, he would need to watch over him, protect him, prevent the nightmarish 2014 version of Cas from coming into being.

He didn't know if he could do it. Sammy needed 100% from him now. They had to close Hell.

Finding a khaki army style blanket Dean tucked it around his angel.

He should have gone to find Sam, had a beer. Break his new three drinks rule and drown his pain in a six pack and a half bottle of scotch. Instead he sat watching Castiel breathing and sleeping. Is this what Castiel did for him so many nights? Sat and contemplated his sleeping form.

"Dean…"

He was up off his chair and at the angel's side. Castiel was still asleep. He strained to hear.

"…face this world alone… you were wrong… I have to…."

Dean couldn't listen. Even in his dreams Castiel was trying to leave him. He made his way through seldom used hallways to arrive back at his room without encountering Sam.

The room taunted him with his prayers. His pleas to Castiel to come home. Had they been heard? Had Castiel seen his weakness and despised him for it? Saw him as a flawed ally, an untrustworthy one. Once a day, early in his routine, Alastair had driven a burning poker through the left ventricle of his heart. He could feel it now.

Dean was practiced with his hell memories. He could wind them up like boxer's strapping and wrap them around his fists. They fuelled his fight and hardened his core. It was time to put back up the wall, harden his heart and stand beside Sam on his quest.

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Castiel stood silently with his arms straight at his sides. He was aware but disconnected from the townspeople surrounding him. He could not see their past and futures nor place them in the vast genealogy of their species. Two young teenagers biked passed high pitched laughter hitting him like a wave. He had no clue what they found so funny. He was isolated and bereft.

He could do this. He could enter the store and have vital human supplies back at the bunker for Dean, and for Sam, waiting for their return. He just had to get one of those wire basket contraptions, find his chosen products and pay with his money.

He had woken alone in the strange infirmary room. Dean was gone. When he found the brothers in their centre of operations, Dean was so tightly coiled with tension that Castiel could almost taste its acridity in the air. Castiel had attempted to complement him on his new home but Dean had walked away. Sam had shown him some concern, but when the angel attempted to apologize to Dean things went horribly wrong. He regretted not waiting until they were in private but Sam was sitting there and instead of saying I love you and I've missed you every second, he said those oft repeated words which drove Dean crazy. But he was sorry, so very sorry.

Dean thought that Castiel had been ignoring him and wanted to know if he was sorry for that. When he had answered Dean all that came out was a gravel toned 'yes' but he had wanted to say that doing so had nearly broken him. Then it became clear, all his fears had a solid foundation. He closed his eyes in the face of Dean's wrath. He shouldn't have come back. He should have tried to die somewhere cold and peaceful.

He had lost Dean's respect. He had lost his place in Dean's affections. Dean wouldn't listen to any explanation, leading Castiel to dejectedly agree that he hadn't trusted his friend. He saw with eyes of splintered glass that his bondmate's wall was back up, higher and thicker and harder than ever before, and Castiel knew he was to blame.

"You can take your little apology and you can cram it up your ass."

"Dean I thought I was doing the right thing."

"Yeah, you always do" ... and later..."We don't need your help."

Un-needed, unwanted, a useless burden. Just like he feared. Everything was ruined.

"Everything I touch turns to dust." He intoned to the air.

"Excuse me." A lady with a toddler in a stroller and two large grocery bags was looking at him. "I need to pass here."

"I'm sorry." Castiel moved from her path and entered the store. His thoughts filled with what Dean would like. This could be a peace offering, a gesture to demonstrate that he did think of Dean in his absence.

Beer, the Asian scantily clad women, the egg broke in his hand, there was no pie. It was ruined. Even this simple task could not be accomplished. A hysterical panic rose. It would reaffirm Dean's poor opinion of him.

Later he told Metatron how he had failed, but he did not include this latest profound failure. He followed Metatron's instructions nascent conscious pricking him at the death of the angel's child. This is what he was. He was a hammer. Metatron was wrong about his ability to help heaven but he could blindly follow orders. He just wished it was Dean telling him what to do, instead of shouting at him for what he had done wrong.

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Sam's eyes were filled with that terrible liquidity they had held when Jessica was gone, when Dad was taken, when Dean had confessed his deal. He wasn't in tears, but it was taking everything to hold himself together. He was doubting their mission, sacred freaking purifying quest as he termed it. Dean could see it all. He saw his brother's resolve crumbling in the face of the deaths of those they had saved. They had liked Sarah Blake. Dean suspected that Sam had thought of her many times over the years.

His phone buzzed. He looked at it and muted the call.

"Dean?" Sam called but Dean was off.

He was on the second target practice emptying his clip with precision when Sam appeared.

"Dean. He'll be back."

"Don't you get it Sam?" Dean spat with venom, "I don't care."

"You do. Your actions, lashing out. You do care. Don't do this to yourself."

Dean shook with unreleased temper. He kicked himself for his 'emo feelings' confession to Sam. He wished he could take it back now, so Sam wouldn't see him for the idjit he was.

Dean pulled his phone out of his pocket and smashed it against the wall. The second cell in as many days.

"Was it Crowley? Did he say who was next?"

"It wasn't that slimy turd. It was Paul. I can't do it Sam." The gun fell from Dean's fingers. Sam's eyes followed it to the ground. "I can't anymore. We aren't safe to the people around us. I can't answer him. He is looking for me. Sam he was freaking crying on the last voicemail, and I can't."

"Use my phone, call him. Go to Concordia, Dean. I'll be fine here for a few hours."

Dean made a primeval noise. "Can't have Crowley know about Paul. I have to stay away from him. I can't even call him. Crowley has to have some Hell link to our phones, Sammy. I can't put Paul in danger. I have to…"

"Dean." Sam's voice held little sympathy and that cold tone alone made Dean raise his head, "Isn't that what Castiel did to you?"

Dean stood there stunned and frozen, struck mute and breathless as Sam left the shooting gallery.