A/N -
I will warn you right now, we're coming into the emotional nadir of the whole fic - this chapter and the next one.
Serious warning: Suicidal talk coming up. Please tread carefully if such things disturb you.
Can't do a stakeout on your own past twenty-four hours, was what Dad had always said. Can't watch someone all on your own. For a short time, sure, but not forever. You'll fall asleep at some point. You'll miss something.
Sam tried anyway, of course — tried staking out Dean, in other words. He knew it was damn near hopeless, but he tried. He managed to stay awake for most of the drive, even convincing Dean at one point to let Sam take a driving shift.
Sam had been doing the whole watching-Dean thing for months now, of course. It was always easier when they were both in the Impala; Sam felt pretty sure Dean had meant what he said, about not doing anything "while you're in the car, Sammy."
Which meant that as soon as they pulled into the bunker, just before noon the next day, Sam's worrying instantly ratcheted upward. What was Dean going to try? When? Where? How could Sam prevent it? Could Sam possibly manage to keep an eye on him at all times?
Dean, for his part, said nothing at all as he pulled the Impala into the garage. He didn't head up the hill, and he didn't do any of his usual prayers to Cas. (Which seemed rather ominous, actually.) Instead he strode off toward the shower and just a few minutes later tottered out, clad now in a t-shirt and boxers, and collapsed onto his bed. He didn't even bother shutting his door, and seemed to fall asleep instantly, sprawled on his stomach, head twisted to one side.
I have to watch him, Sam was still thinking. Gotta keep an eye on him. Even though Dean was asleep it still seemed like a bad idea to leave him alone. So Sam leaned against Dean's doorway for a while, watching him sleep.
There was something in one of Dean's hands. Sam peered at it in the dark. Dean's bedroom was only faintly lit by a shaft of light from the hallway, and Sam had to take a few cautious steps forward before he saw what it was: Cas's little black feather, of course. Dean had it clutched in his hand again. He'd barely let go of the thing for the entire journey to Ohio; it had been either in Dean's pocket or in Dean's hand for the whole time. Even in his sleep, now, Dean was still holding tightly onto it.
Pretty sure I know what that means, thought Sam, backing up to the doorway with a quiet sigh and leaning against the doorframe again. For one thing, Sam had read some of "The Physiology Of Angels" on the drive back.
For another thing... well. It had been kind of obvious all along, really, hadn't it?
All along it had been pretty clear. Even back in those early days when Cas had seemed so fascinated with Dean, studying his every move with that intent, steely-eyed stare. And Dean's reaction; he'd always seemed oddly unsettled by Cas's presence. Flicking those uncertain looks back at Cas, eyeing him up and down.
At first Sam had thought it was just, well, the whole angel thing. Dean was probably acting a little unsettled because Castiel was a friggin' "soldier of God," after all. A real live angel. Later, though, once Sam and Dean had both gotten used to that... those looks had continued.
And there'd been those strange comments from other angels. That angel in the dirty trenchcoat who's in love with you... He was your boyfriend first... The moment he laid a hand on you, he was lost.
For a long time Sam hadn't been sure if it was just on Cas's side or also on Dean's. But there had been a moment, after Cas had disappeared into that lake, when Sam had been watching Dean handle that bloodied trenchcoat, rolling it up in his hands... Of course, they'd all been crushed to see Cas killed (apparently killed, anyway), but Dean, especially, had seemed nearly crippled by it. Sam's memories of that time were none too clear, but he did remember that look on Dean's face.
And every time they'd changed cars after that, Dean had grabbed not only that bag of ammo but also the coat, that worn-out bloody coat, always patting it awkwardly and then stuffing it into the trunk of whatever car they'd just stolen. Even though they'd been trying to travel light, Dean had never left that coat behind.
It had been pretty clear what it all meant.
Sam had never been sure whether Cas and Dean had ever talked about it (not likely, given those two) or ever done anything (possible, actually, Sam thought). Once upon a time he'd considered needling Dean about it, teasing him a little, really just to try to figure out where things stood. But something had held him back. Somehow it hadn't seemed like a teasing matter.
Not then, and certainly not now.
Sam gave another quiet sigh, still leaning against the doorway, as he wondered for the hundredth time what had really happened on that night in Ohio. For it was clear, that this wasn't just grief about losing Cas. That was bad enough, of course, but there was something worse going on too.
It seemed like Dean felt guilty.
Seemed like Dean felt that Cas's death was all his fault.
For some reason.
Dean stirred in his sleep, muttering something. It sounded like, "Parrot? Where are you... parrot?" Sam frowned; Dean had mentioned something, a couple times now, about a "parrot" he'd been dreaming about. Who knew what that was about. Whatever it was, it didn't look like a restful dream; Dean's mumbles sounded strained and worried, and his hands and feet were twitching a little. As if he were dreaming of walking, of running around... maybe searching for something.
How long is he even gonna stay asleep? Sam wondered. What's he gonna do when he wakes up?
Sam could hide the Impala key, he could hide some of the guns, but...
But they'd driven through the night, and Sam was desperately exhausted too. It was getting hard even to hold his head up; he felt fuzzy-headed with fatigue. Can't do a stakeout on your own past twenty-four hours, he thought again.
He'd already known this, of course.
The problem was that you eventually had to fall asleep.
The problem was that you just couldn't keep your guard up forever. Not by yourself.
Sam pulled the ivory-handled pistol out of his jacket pocket and looked down at it.
There seemed hardly any point to even trying to hide the pistol. There were a hundred other weapons all around the bunker. If Dean didn't use this pistol, he'd just use another one. If Sam hid them all, Dean could just buy go buy one; he could even buy a shotgun right in Lebanon's little hardware store, if he wanted. If Sam hid the Impala key, to keep Dean from taking off, Dean could always hotwire the Impala. Or take another car. Hell, he could do it even quicker than that; he could just use a noose or a belt. There were plenty of trees outside, convenient trees with convenient branches that a rope could easily be hung from. There were high windows that a person could jump out of. There were a million ways to do it, and Sam couldn't prevent them all.
I wanted to end it once, Sam remembered. A couple years back, after the trials... I wanted to let it all end, and never come back. And Dean wouldn't let me.
Dean made me stay alive just so he didn't have to be alone. And I was pissed.
I was more than pissed. I was furious at him, for keeping me alive. (That hadn't been the only thing Sam had been furious about, of course, but it had been a big one.)
He wouldn't let me make my own choice.
Am I just doing the same thing now? Am I just being selfish?
But the image of the long, empty road ahead was chilling. Sam tried to picture it: No Dean... No Cas. No brother, no friend. The empty bunker; the empty Impala, just Sam in the driver's seat, the passenger seat empty. Nobody at his back, nobody to call when shit went south. And meanwhile the world slowly collapsing all around, and all the other realms too.
The whole goddam solar system collapsing, by the looks of it.
Maybe the angels and demons would find a way to fix everything? But more likely they wouldn't... seemed like it would be left to Sam to try to find the mysterious Crown all by himself, or go "into the fire" (whatever the hell that meant) to try to fix the disaster they'd unleashed on the world.
Sam stared at the pistol dully for a few minutes more, trying to come up with a plan, or at least with some kind of decision. What was the right thing to do? For Dean? For Sam? For poor Cas? For the whole world? But it was too much to think through, and Sam was too tired, his head too fuzzy. Finally he turned and made his way to his own room, hoping Dean could just get through one afternoon nap without Sam hovering over him..
It seemed right to at least go through the motions, though, so Sam hid the pistol as best he could, tucking it under a false panel he'd installed in his bottom dresser drawer a couple years ago and that he was pretty sure Dean didn't know about. The ammo and Impala key he wedged under the mattress. Then he set his phone alarm to go off in an hour, hoping this would ensure he woke up before Dean did.
That done, fatigue seemed to crash down on him. Sam kicked off his shoes and collapsed onto his bed with all his clothes still on. A one-hour nap; that was all he'd need, right? Just a one-hour nap, and then Sam could go on watch again.
The last thing he thought, before he fell into a heavy sleep, was:
I just wish this would all end. I'm so friggin' exhausted.
Sam blinked awake. Some sort of noise had woken him... some faintly distant, slightly familiar noise. He gazed up at the ceiling for a moment, still half-asleep, before he realized he felt far too rested for that to have been just a one-hour nap.
Sure enough, when he scrambled upright and grabbed his phone he discovered it was six hours later. It was seven at night already. He'd somehow slept for six whole hours! Had he slept through the alarm?
No — the phone had been put on mute. Sam stared at it, clicking the mute button off and on a couple times, thinking, I know it wasn't on mute when I went to bed. I'm certain.
Dean had been here. Dean had muted Sam's phone alarm.
Sam felt under the mattress. The ammo was gone.
And the Impala key.
A quick check of the dresser revealed that Dean had found, and taken, the ivory-handled pistol too.
What was the sound that woke me up? Sam thought, and his blood seemed to chill in his veins.
Sam stood by the dresser for a few more moments, actually thinking Well, that's that then, almost in a numb fog, before he managed to make himself leave the room and walk down the hall to Dean's room.
He knew what he'd find. But when he at last slowly pushed Dean's bedroom door open, croaking "Dean?" in a suddenly hoarse voice, the room was empty.
No body, no blood.
Maybe he did it outside?
He's up on the hill. He would have gone up the hill to do it. Sam felt certain. Dean had gone up the hill, to Cas's grave, to do it.
Sam got his jacket on, his hands stiff and clumsy. It seemed strangely difficult to decide whether he should be running in a panic, or simply plodding up there fatalistically. It occurred to him, then, that he could just go back to his own room, and lie back down on the bed, and curl up and go back to sleep. If I don't look, then I don't find a body; if I don't find a body, then I don't know; if I don't know, then it hasn't really happened.
C'mon, Sammy, he heard in his head, in Dean's voice. It was some long-ago memory of his older brother's voice, in some long-gone motel. Probably decades ago now. C'mon, Sammy, gotta get up and face the world, Dean had told him, shaking him awake from a tired sleep on a creaky mattress. Can't hide forever.
Sam finally managed to stumble out the front door and onto the little path through the field. It was very dark, and Sam had forgotten his flashlight, so he had to navigate his way up the hill by the faint light of his phone. And now Sam wanted to run, run at top speed, but it was far too dark, and he kept tripping.
But when at last he got up to the top of the hill, after far too many stumbles and falls over roots and rocks on the trail, Dean wasn't there.
Sam looked around, panting, mouth dry, as he scanned around with the weak phone light. Cas's grave was undisturbed. Nobody was there. The little folding chair was empty. A thin frost on the ground was undisturbed, all the fallen leaves edged with little lines of frozen rime. Sam spent a few more minutes peering around at every lump on the ground. (He jumped in alarm at one point at a suspicious-looking lump on the ground, his heart thumping, but it turned out it was only the ever-present backpack. The one that had the snacks and clothes and phone for Cas.) He even checked the nearby trees for any possible hanging figures.
Dean wasn't there.
Sam stood there for a minute or two at the foot of Castiel's grave. There was a quarter-moon rising, and Sam could just make out the little wing-carving that Dean had mounted at the head of the grave.
"Cas," Sam finally said. "Castiel. If there is the slightest chance that you are still out there anywhere... we really fucking need you."
It was a stupid thing to say. It didn't even deserve an answer.
There was no answer. Sam turned and trudged back down the hill to the bunker.
Sam's next guess was that Dean had taken the Impala and driven somewhere far away to do it. But the Impala was still in the garage. Though Dean seemed to have moved it; Sam was pretty sure it had been in the right garage bay before, and now it was in the left bay. Maybe Dean had taken it out and then changed his mind and brought it back?
There was a fourth option, of course; a fourth place Dean might have gone. If not his own bedroom, or Cas's grave on the hill, or the Impala, then...
Soon Sam was walking up the back staircase that went up to the top floor. He kept his eyes on the stairs all the way up, watching his feet. One stair after another went by, and Sam thought the whole time, would I have heard a shot if it were up at the top of the bunker?
What kind of sound was it that woke me?
The door at the top was open.
Sam stepped into the attic. Dark, moonlit. Quiet.
"Dean?" he called.
There was no answer. Sam flicked on his cell phone again to provide a little light, and made his way over to Cas's little corner. By this point Sam was so ready for the worst that he jumped in surprise when his little light showed a glimpse of a figure sitting upright on Cas's bed — Dean — it was Dean— Sam moved closer and the phone light flickered faintly on Dean's face, and Dean's eyes were open, he was alive, he was sitting on the bed, and he was fine.
Dean wasn't even holding the gun or anything. Nothing so dramatic. He was just holding the guitar — and now Sam realized that the "faintly familiar" sound that had woken him up had probably just been the distant strumming of the guitar. Dean wasn't playing it now, though; he was holding it vertically, the base of the guitar resting on the floor between his feet, the neck balanced loosely in one hand. Dean was staring down at the guitar, his head bowed. He'd opened the window, and a cold breeze was blowing through the room.
Sam was abruptly so near to collapse that he had to grab a chair at the table and slump down into it, burying his face in his hands. "Fuck, Dean," he began, when he could breathe again. Though then he realized there wasn't much concrete to complain about. What could Sam say, really? "You took your own gun back?" "You turned off my phone alarm to let me sleep?" "I thought you'd gone up to Cas's grave and killed yourself?"
All Sam could come up with was an admittedly lame-sounding, "I didn't know where you were. I thought you... uh."
Dean didn't say anything.
Finally Sam said, "You took your gun."
Dean gave a tiny shrug. Sam could almost read his face in the dark: It's my gun, Sammy.
"And the car key," Sam added.
Dean shifted his feet a little. "Went to get bulbs," he said.
Sam blinked. "What?"
"Bulbs," said Dean. "Got two hundred."
"Light... bulbs?" said Sam, bewildered.
"Daffodil bulbs," said Dean. "Crocuses." He shrugged again, tilting the guitar slightly with one hand and gazing down at the moonlight reflecting off its face. "Dumb idea," he added.
Flowers, thought Sam. Dean got flowers.
"You... uh... you gonna plant them or something?" Sam guessed. "On the hill?"
Dean didn't respond at all.
After a rather long silence Sam said, "Mind if I turn the light on?" Dean was silent, so Sam reached across the table to Cas's little desklamp and flicked it on. Dean squinted in the sudden light, but still didn't say anything, still staring down at the guitar.
Sam had no idea what to do. He looked at Dean for a while. Eventually he walked over and sat down next to Dean on Cas's little cot.
"You gonna give Cas some flowers?" Sam ventured at last.
Dean said, staring at his feet now, "Cas is gone." His voice was soft, but steady.
Sam swallowed. "Yeah."
There was a long pause. Sam had to resist the urge to talk. He waited in silence, hoping Dean would say something more.
"Cas isn't coming back," Dean said at last. "Is he." It wasn't really a question.
Sam took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. "I don't know. But... I don't think so."
Another long pause.
Dean shifted position a little. He lifted the guitar up a little, hooking one foot on top of the other, and setting the base of the guitar on his feet. He raised his head to look across the darkened attic.
"I was so sure he would come back," said Dean, staring out across the room at nothing.
"I know," said Sam softly.
"I had another dream," said Dean. "This afternoon. Another parrot dream. The parrot's really gone. I looked for ages but there was just another big black feather. And some scratches and scorch marks on the rocks, like there'd been a big fight or something. The parrot's gone."
Sam still had no idea what that was about, so he stayed quiet.
"I wasn't crazy, was I?" said Dean, in that same soft, steady voice. "To think he might come back? I mean... he did come back several times. It wasn't nuts to think he'd be coming back, was it?"
"It wasn't nuts," agreed Sam. "It's pretty much uncharted territory, right? Seems like nobody really knew for sure."
"I killed him, Sam," said Dean, his voice still perfectly steady, his face smooth.
Sam looked over at him. "What?"
"I killed him," said Dean, still staring across the attic. "I killed Cas."
Sam shook his head, saying, "It wasn't your fault, Dean. Just because you couldn't save him from the spider doesn't mean it was your fault."
"No, I killed him."
"The spider thing killed him, Dean," said Sam gently.
"The spider thing was already dead," said Dean, gazing into the darkness. "It stayed dead. We burned it down to ash. But it had bitten me. I didn't realize it had bit me till later. Cas knew what was happening. That's why he was so worried earlier, you know... I think somehow he... he sensed what was about to happen. The spider thing bit me... It didn't take effect till after you were gone. Cas tried to get away, but I was blocking the door." Dean stopped there, but the implication was clear, and Sam felt his heart sink through the ground.
Sam kept silent by Dean's side, hardly daring to breathe. Dean continued, "Cas tried to explain, he tried to tell me, it was an agent of Darkness all along. The spider. The bite makes you into the worst version of yourself... it makes you a destroyer... it makes you destroy whatever's nearby... "
He stopped again.
Dean bit his lip. He drew the guitar up into his lap and put both arms around it, hugging onto the guitar body tightly, the neck of the instrument extending up over his shoulders. He whispered, "I killed him, Sammy, it was me. It was me. I killed him. I couldn't tell you."
Sam drew a long breath. I should have known, he thought. The other people who had died in Sandusky... there'd always been some poor tormented survivor, always one survivor, always either going insane or committing suicide. It had never been clear to Sam what exactly the survivors had been through. He'd been hoping, all along, that the survivors had simply witnessed the spider killing their loved ones.
But there had always been another possibility, hadn't there?
"Dean, it wasn't your fault. It wasn't you," said Sam, turning slightly toward Dean now. He found himself setting one hand on Dean's shoulder. "It wasn't your fault. It was the spider's fault. The Darkness. And Cas would have known that. He knew it wasn't you."
"It was me," said Dean. His eyes had gone a little glazed now, unfocused, as he stared, unseeing, across the attic. "It was the me I was in Hell. The me I was when I was with Alistair. Sammy, I... " Dean took a big breath and said, in a rush, "I, I, I, tortured him, Sammy." He closed his eyes and tucked his chin down against the guitar, pressing the side of his head to the guitar neck. His next phrases were whispered so softly that Sam had to lean closer to hear. "He was begging me to stop," whispered Dean. "I shot him in the leg. I bled his grace away. I made him mortal. Then I put him up on a cross... I ... crucified him. He was crying, Sammy, he was crying... and... he was screaming, it hurt him so much, I hurt him so bad... I still hear it all the time, I hear his screams, I hear him begging me to stop... and... I... I couldn't even remember his name, I thought I was back in Hell, I thought he was a sinner I was supposed to punish. I thought it was my job... I just kept hurting him... I cut him all up, I hit him... "
Sam couldn't say anything. Oh, god, no, was all he thought. No, not like that. Poor Cas... Poor Dean. I should've guessed. I should've known.
But it was clearer than ever that it hadn't been Dean's fault. Though Dean would never be able to see that, of course.
Dean seemed to be almost shrinking as he curled down around the guitar, now mumbling, "I hurt him" and "It was me" into the guitar neck. Tears were running slowly down his face now.
The horror of the scene Dean was describing was only made more awful by the sight of Dean shrinking down around the guitar in this way, his shoulders hunched as if he were trying to curl up into a little ball. I've never seen him like this, thought Sam. Not even when Bobby had died, not even when Dad had died. Not even when Dean had confessed to what he'd done in Hell, all those years ago. This was no single-tear-rolling-down-the-cheek, it was no minute-of-manly-weeping; Dean seemed to be actually crumbling. Sam still had one hand on Dean's shoulder, and soon he felt that Dean had started trembling, his shoulders shaking. This was so alarming and so un-Dean-like that Sam automatically put the other arm around him too, twisting sideways to fold Dean into a rather awkward hug that included not just Dean but also the guitar.
This was beyond chick-flick stuff, of course, but Dean didn't even seem to notice.
Dean quit trying to talk and just sat there breathing in long shudders, a steady trickle of tears running slowly down his face, clinging to Cas's guitar the whole time.
Dean muttered, a little later, "I can't take this, Sammy. I can't take this. I can't, I really can't. I can't take this any more."
Sam let go and pulled back a little to look at him. "We'll find a way through it."
"I don't want to find a way through it. If he's really gone... then I do not deserve to go on living either, and I don't want to, Sammy."
Here we go, thought Sam. It was almost a relief to at last have it out in the open. "I know," he said. "That's why I hid your gun."
"You suck at hiding things, by the way," said Dean. "I've always known you had that false panel there." Sam gave a faint laugh, but the smile faded from his face as Dean said, "I would have shot myself months ago."
Dean raised his head off the guitar at last, his eyes red. He seemed somewhat able to talk again, and he said, "I would've done it months ago, but I'm such a chickenshit, Sammy, I don't want to end up in Hell again and I know I will. And if I end up there I'll end up being a torturer again. And..." His face began to crumple again. "What if Cas is there too? What if the Oshossi guy was wrong, what if Cas is in Hell and he ends up being tortured by me again? What if they make me torture him?"
Sam stared at him. This was a horrifying idea.
"Because that's exactly the kind of thing they just love to do. Crowley and everybody in Hell. They would be just, all over that in a heartbeat. They would definitely make me do that to Cas, they would. Even if Cas isn't there they'll make me think he is, they'll make me think it's him, they'll make me torture him again, and I can't go there, I can't do that, I can't become that again—"
"Please, just, shh, no," was all Sam could come up with.
"I must have tried to kill myself at least thirty times by now," Dean went on. He wiped his eyes roughly. "Every time I'm up on the hill I think about it. Sam, I never really got before why people would do that. But now I get it. The fucking pain just will NOT fucking stop and it is never going to get better. This bullshit about time heals all wounds, it is fucking bullshit. But each time I think, if I go through with this, I will FOR SURE be back in Hell immediately and I will be torturing Cas to death all over again. And then I'll just end up a demon again, and I'll torture even more people... I cannot go on living with this, Sammy, I can't, but I can't die either! I can't live like this but I don't dare die..." Dean gave a hoarse sigh and tucked his chin down on the guitar's shoulder once more, staring at the floor again. He said, slowly, "So I don't know what to do."
What do I even say? thought Sam.
"Dean," said Sam at last, "He knew it wasn't your fault. He knew. He knew all along. Even if he was hurting, he knew it wasn't your fault. He must have."
"Yeah, he said that," said Dean.
"What?"
"He said he forgave me. Near the end."
"Dean, really? He said that? Then—"
"It doesn't seem to make it any better," said Dean. He sighed, and wiped his face slowly with one hand.
"I know this has been rough on you," said Dean. He flicked a brief glance over at Sam. "You lost your friend too. He was your closest friend, right? He was the guy you'd call when you needed help?" He eyed Sam up and down for a moment, focusing on him as if for the first time. "You miss him," Dean said. "You miss him too. Don't you."
Sam nodded, suddenly choked up. For it was true.
"You guys had each other's backs, didn't you," Dean went on, turning his attention back to the guitar. "This last year. Cause I was such a fucking asshole. I left you both alone. I'm sorry. So that was the other reason I didn't do it yet — I didn't want to abandon you all over again and didn't want you to have to deal with my fucking body, because I know what that's like, and jeez, you already had to do that, what, twice, right?"
More than that, actually, thought Sam, remembering the Mystery Spot months. But he just nodded.
"I really, really hurt him, I hurt him so bad, Sammy. And he... he... " Dean drew a heavy sigh. "He always tried to take care of me. He always tried. I treated him like such shit and he still... he still... " The next words seemed to take something out of him. "... He still cared. I don't know why. I don't know why he couldn't see that I'm not worth that."
"Of course he cared, Dean, he cared a ton—"
"No, I mean, he... he was..." Dean's voice was getting very soft again. "He said he... I thought he just didn't know any better... I thought he wasn't used to being human? But he was... he was in... in... he felt... he said once... "
Sam began to get a bad feeling about where this was going. "You don't have to talk about this—" he began, but Dean couldn't seem to stop.
"He loved me," said Dean, waving one hand aimlessly in the air. "He said so. Last year."
Shit, thought Sam. This just kept getting worse.
"And I threw it in his face," said Dean. "I didn't believe him. I didn't believe him. An angel told me he loved me and I fucking kicked him in the teeth."
Sam wasn't sure whether Dean meant that metaphorically or literally, but it hardly seemed to matter anymore. "Dean—" he began.
Dean wasn't hearing him anymore. He just kept talking: "I fucking kicked him in the teeth. I kicked him in the teeth when he hadn't done a damn thing wrong and you should've seen the look on his face, Sam, my god, could I possibly have handled it any worse? I was just... scared... I don't know why... and... he backed way the hell off and I took that stupid fucking Mark just to stop feeling anything, it wasn't about Abaddon at all, I took it because of Cas, and then I beat the crap out of him in the library, you didn't know about that, did you, I nearly fucking killed him, I beat him bloody just cause he was still trying to help me, but that fucker, he just, he just kept... he never would fucking give up on me!" Dean drew a long ragged breath. "And then, then, then, he was going to try and fix all the mistakes I've made, it's my fault you guys did that spell, it was 'cause I took the Mark, so, I've destroyed the whole world and he was still going to try and fix it. And then I tortured him, and I killed him. And even at the end he was still calling me his friend, can you believe it? After everything... after all that... I tortured him, and I killed him."
Dean kept rambling on. He was starting to repeat himself, muttering "I tortured him and I killed him...I tortured him and I killed him."
At last Sam said, "Dean, c'mon, stand up, you gotta go back to bed," standing and tugging gently at Dean's arm. Somewhat to Sam's surprise, Dean staggered up to his feet, still clutching Cas's guitar to his chest with both hands.
"I laughed at his music," said Dean. "He was still trying to find songs I'd like." He looked bewildered at the thought.
"C'mon," said Sam, tugging him toward the stairs. "C'mon downstairs."
"He was going to give me his feather," said Dean, shuffling along next to Sam. "I know he was... In the library, Sam, it turned out, he was planning to stick by me for centuries, with the Mark... he said he was afraid he was gonna have to watch me murder the world... He'd been thinking about it Sam, he'd thought it all through, how he was gonna stick by my side for, like, centuries..."
After weeks of wishing Dean would start talking, now Sam found himself wishing Dean would go quiet again. Dean almost seemed to have gone into a trance now and couldn't seem to stop talking, stuttering out a long rambling series of incoherent comments, as Sam coaxed Dean down the stairs, keeping one arm firmly on Dean's upper arm in case he stumbled.
"At first I couldn't figure out if he would have gone to Heaven?" said Dean, shuffling down the stairs one step at a time, "But if that Oshossi guy really is the god of lost things... But could he have missed some place? Is there some other place? Did we miss anything?"
"I don't know," said Sam. "Here, step down—"
"Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, the Veil, Earth... Should we have asked more about Oz? Did Elegua say something I missed?"
"I don't know," said Sam, who'd actually been wondering the same thing. "C'mon—"
"I thought so many times about using the shotgun but didn't want you to have to clean up, Sammy... Sam, he kept begging me to stop, I dream about it every night, I see it every night, I hear him all the time... I was having these parrot dreams, this little tiny parrot, it was so helpless, with these little wings, and I thought that might be him, but now the parrot's gone. I wondered if, with Heaven closed, if Cas just sort of bounced off the closed doors? Bounced and went somewhere else? I know angels don't have a soul but they do have an essence or whatever, so, where the hell does it go?"
They'd reached the first floor landing. "Where does an angel's essence go?" repeated Dean. "What about the grace bits? Where does it all go?"
"I don't know," said Sam, guiding him down the hall.
"It's got to go somewhere. It can't just vanish. Where does it go?"
"Nobody knows," Sam said. They'd gotten to the kitchen. "C'mon Dean, just drink these down." He dug around in the cupboard where they kept some medical stuff, and handed Dean a couple of pills.
"What're these?"
Sam was too tired to lie. "Sleeping pills."
"Okay," said Dean. He took the pills, but didn't take the glass of water Sam was also holding out; instead he grabbed a bottle of whiskey from the kitchen counter nearby, twisted the cap off with his teeth and chugged the pills down, along with nearly a third of the whiskey bottle, before Sam managed to pull the bottle out of his hands.
The guitar became problematic. Dean wouldn't let go of it. Finally he grudgingly allowed Sam to take it off his hands just long enough for Dean to use the bathroom. Sam tried to get the guitar out of sight while Dean was in there, but Dean demanded it back instantly the second he got back out.
"Where's Cas's guitar?"
"I put it away, Dean, you really need to go back to bed."
"Gimme the guitar."
Sam gave him the guitar back and managed to get him into bed. Then Sam sat with him, sitting up on the edge of his bed. Dean had finally curled up with his arms wrapped around the damn guitar. He still had his flannel shirt on, and Cas's feather was still in his shirtpocket. Now he was getting woozy, his voice slurring, and Sam recognized the beginnings of a drunken weepy phase. "Sam, I never told him..." muttered Dean. "I never told him... I never told him. I'm never going to be able to tell him. I never told him, he never knew, Sam, I can't tell him now, he'll never know, I can't ever tell him."
Sam knew what this must be about, too.
"He knew, Dean," he tried to assure Dean. "He knew how you felt."
"He didn't," Dean mumbled. He let go of the guitar with one hand and patted the feather in his pocket. "He aban'ded his, his feather... he left it out in th' open... jus' left it there. That means... that means, he thought he's not worth... anything... it means... means he gave up."
He was at last falling asleep, his eyes sliding closed as he kept muttering, "I never told him. I never told him..."
At last he drifted off, his breathing still uneven, one hand still on the guitar and the other on the feather in his pocket. Sam waited till Dean was definitely asleep and then crept off to get some blankets. One went over Dean. With the others Sam set up a little bed for himself on the floor in Dean's room. Sam also tried to pull the guitar away one more time, worried now that the guitar would probably fall off the bed if Dean thrashed around in his sleep. The possibility of Dean waking up to find Cas's guitar broken on the floor was unthinkable, so Sam tried to gently work Dean's hand off it and slide the guitar slowly free. But Dean's arm just tightened down and then his other arm wrapped around it too; he wouldn't let the guitar go. Finally Sam went and got another pile of blankets and put them all around the sides of the bed, so that if the guitar fell off, hopefully it would just fall into the pile of blankets and wouldn't be damaged.
Sam woke early the next morning to find Dean still had the guitar tight in his arms. It hadn't fallen off the bed after all. Sam needn't have worried, for Cas's guitar was safe as could be. Safe and warm and protected, Dean's arms wrapped securely around it.
A/N - Yeah, like I said... the emotional nadir.
Please hang in there, Dean's going through the very darkest part right now but hang in there with him, please.
Up next: Daffodils. And Cas's car arrives... with a clue.
