There was a brief window where it looked like the other shoe might just hold off on dropping. Sam and Cas watched carefully for signs Dean's behavior had altered, but it was a little slower on the hunting front, and Dean seemed more or less normal. Sam had told Cas about how quick he had been to accuse Gadreel when Metatron took him, and how close he seemed to actually killing the angel. They both had uneasily chalked it up to worry, and hoped it was a fluke. Weeks stretched on though, and with each case, he seemed just a little closer to snapping.

They had settled in after Metatron, the bunker more full than it had been any time before. Sam had insisted Gadreel stay in the relative safety of the Men of Letters base, and Kevin had done the same for his mother. The group fell into a sort of routine. Dean and Mrs. Tran took turns cooking. Kevin worked on translating more of the demon tablet (more or less relieved there was no specific time crunch on that.) Sam, Gadreel, and Cas poured through every angelic text in the bunker, hoping to find some hint as to what to do about Metatron.

Cas held off confronting the hunter about the effects of the mark, knowing he was keeping his own secrets. He had hoped his grace would rally after healing Gadreel, but it never quite seemed to recover. He could feel his powers fading, and he wasn't sure really how bad they were. He considered briefly telling the brothers, but the last thing he wanted was to add to Dean's burdens or take away from the fight for heaven. So for the time being, he kept it to himself.

It would be almost two months after the incident with Metatron when the other shoe finally did fall. Crowley had called with a request for help and the brothers responded, leaving the angels and prophet behind. Once they had Crowley sorted, they were on the path to the first blade. Cas had offered to come meet them, but Dean insisted they had it covered. That evening Sam walked down from the garage alone, setting his coat over the back of one of the chairs and sitting at the map room table with a heavy sigh.

"You should have seen him." He told Cas after recounting their misadventure retrieving the blade. "The look in his eyes… how hard it was for him to drop it. I've got to be honest, I don't think it's worth it. I don't think he should ever pick that thing up again, Abaddon or no."

Castiel left Sam to search out the hunter, finding him still in the garage, wordlessly sanding down the side of the impala. He could just still make out the words "be afraid" scratched in enochian, but he didn't ask what they meant, or how they came to be there.

"Hello Dean."

The hunter did not look up. "Sam tell you Crowley has the blade?" Dean grunted, finally moving to sand the front door too.

"He did." Cas picked up a rag from the tool box, wetting it and coming to sit beside the hunter. He began buffing away the dust he was creating, helping to get the doors ready for new paint.

"We have to find her. Crowley will bring the blade when we have her in our cross-hairs. Then we can be done with this."

Cas remained silent for a moment, working alongside the hunter, waiting to see if Dean had anything to add. He sighed, deciding to be direct rather than play games. "Sam told me you struggled with holding the blade… or rather with letting go."

Dean snapped his gaze up, but his anger died on his lips as he saw the concern etched into the angel's eyes. Something in it broke him, and he stuttered for a moment before his posture deflated.

It took some coaxing to get the older Winchester to abandon the garage, but eventually Castiel was able to get Dean back to his room. It was clear that the day's events had Dean more than a little alarmed. The hunter found himself laying on his bed, fully awake, curled up against the angel's chest in an uncharacteristic display of vulnerability. Cas simply held him, absently rubbing his back, entirely unsure of how to help.

Dean pulled back slightly to look down at the mark on his arm. "It's turning me into something. I can feel it, reaching out."

"It is corrupting your soul." Cas said softly.

"What does that mean?"

"I don't know."

"But you have a theory." Dean pressed.

Castiel sighed, looking down at the mark as well. "I worry what the implications of that are, should the worst happen in this battle. A corrupted soul… it is not permitted into heaven."

"You mean if Abaddon kills me, you think I'll go to hell." Dean repeated numbly.

Cas shook his head slowly. "I do not think your soul is marked for damnation either."

"Then where?"

The angel resumed stroking Dean's back. "I don't know if you'll go anywhere. I worry your soul will just cease to be." He watched Dean's expression closely. "It doesn't matter." He tried to assure him. "We won't let it come to that. We will have that thing off long before you find yourself in any sort of mortal peril."

"Yeah." He muttered, trying to think through the day's events. He closed his eyes as Castiel rubbed his hand further up his back, his thumb just brushing the base of his neck. He leaned into the angel just a little more.

"What does it feel like?" Cas asked softly, not sure if his curiosity was wise at this moment.

There was a hitch in Dean's breath, his pulse picking up as he thought about it too hard, but he relaxed again when Castiel's hand kept rubbing circles over his spine. "Most of the time… it doesn't feel like much. Just a sort of hum in the background." He admitted. "But when I'm hunting… there's…" He stopped, unsure if he should continue.

"You don't need to tell me."

"It feels like I did in hell." Dean finished at last.

"Ah." Castiel said softly. "That bad, huh?"

Dean shook his head. "No… not like… not like the start of my time in hell… it feels like it did when you got to me. When I'm on the hunt, when the opportunity finally presents itself, it's crystal clear. I feel the rush, I feel the pleasure… I never want to stop. Like I could draw it out for an eternity if I let myself."

"Oh." Cas said simply.

Dean sighed. "Back then. You knew I broke long before you got to me."

"I did."

"How much did you see?"

Dean could feel Cas tense, the slightest bit. He adopted that expression that showed he was uncomfortable with giving the answers.

"Cas." He pressed.

"Hell is complicated." Cas replied at last.

"Yeah, no shit."

"There is context you need to know about your place in hell before I can answer this question fully." He waited to make sure Dean was listening before he continued. "There are many parts to hell, and each behaves differently. Nearest the surface, if you will, are the parts of hell that are most trafficked. The seams that, before the cage opened, demons just barely slipped through to press into this world."

"The cage opening kind of blew those doors open."

"Not all, but yes. It is much easier for a demon to walk the earth now than before." Cas shifted slightly to rest against the hunter as he spoke. "Crowley until recently conducted his affairs from these parts of hell, and if I understand correctly, now Abbadon does." He paused for a moment before continuing. "Beyond that is, what I suppose you might think of the normal part of hell. Almost all souls reside there. They are tortured, sure. Occasionally. But largely their torment is neglect and isolation. These parts of hell would have been easy to retrieve you from."

"I was somewhere else." Dean followed.

"There are two deeper parts of hell. One is of course the cage, and the other is, amongst demons, known as the hole." Castiel felt discomfort growing at talking at length about his siege on hell, feeling still after all these years like it had been a failure on his part that he did not reach Dean before he succumbed. Even knowing that the conspiracy of angels had delayed his salvation. "There is no part of hell that runs slower than time moves on earth besides the hole. Even the cage, though as your brother found out, the cage holds far different horrors."

Dean remained silent, trying to absorb this new information.

"The hole is different from any part of hell for more than just that reason. It is designed for the express purpose of corrupting souls into demons. Alastair led an elite trained unit to torture nonstop with personal attention given to every soul. You know this. No rest. No isolation. Only pain and torment until they break. And then the real work begins. It takes centuries for a soul to blacken and become demonic. The hole is designed for high priority cases. Humans whose souls have been determined to be exceptional in one way or another. Those they wish to turn into demons without the time they'd spend waiting for it to happen else-wise."

"I don't-"

"You did not just last thirty years in hell Dean, you lasted thirty years of non stop torment specifically designed to prime you to break and begin the corruption of your soul."

"But did you see me?"

"Yes." Cas said simply. "In hell you are just your soul. As such, there is nothing shielding your thoughts from an angel. I did not need to touch you to read your mind. Given who you were, and my mission, I could hear your thoughts plainly even years before you broke. I knew what I would find when I finally breached the final barriers of the hole and reached in to pull you from the pit."

Dean absently brought a hand up to the scar on his arm, and Cas covered it with his own. He closed his eyes. "It doesn't change anything."

"It does."

"It doesn't. I still enjoyed it."

"It is more complicated than that." Cas said firmly.

Dean pulled his hand back. "I've tried to stay off that path since then… I almost lost myself in purgatory… ripping apart those monsters, stringing them up to find you. Then just the nonstop killing… there were times I didn't want to get out, and times since that I've wished I was back."

"I know."

"I feel that now… this thing on my arm… it's like every time I hunt, I'm back riding that high in purgatory, or slicing into a fresh soul on the rack. And I don't want to stop. And when we're not hunting? It's even worse. I feel like I'm shaking apart. Like I need that next hit, and I-" His voice broke off.

Cas held tighter to the hunter in his arms. "You'll get through this." He said softly.

"I don't think I will."

"Even feeling that way, you got yourself out of purgatory."

Dean snorted a humorless laugh. "Yeah. Barely. I got myself to that portal because I knew it was the only way out for Benny and You. I had people to worry about. That's all that's ever kept my shit together."

"You have people now. Who worry about you. You have to let that be enough."

Dean fell silent for a while, trying to think through all the information he had gotten. "I think you should start coming on hunts with us." He said at last.

"With you and Sam?"

"I need…" Dean swallowed, trying to keep his voice from shaking. "If things go sideways I'd feel better knowing there was someone who could stop me."

"Dean-"

"Just in case." He finished. "Please, just… it'd give me some peace of mind."

"If you wish." Cas said at last.

"Thank you."

"You should rest."

"I don't know if I can." Dean admitted. "Could you-?"

Cas lifted a hand, touching two fingers to the hunter's forehead and sending him into a deep sleep. He let his hand come to rest on the hunter's shoulder, taking a deep breath and trying to process the conversation they just had.

After a brief hesitation, Cas lifted his hand again, pressing it flat to the side of Dean's head. He would not normally take such a liberty, or invade Dean's privacy like this, but he felt deeply troubled by the things Dean spoke about. So deeply asleep, his surface level thoughts were quiet, but deeper Cas had more of a sense of Dean's innermost feelings, and he recoiled at their familiarity.

Dean Winchester was giving up. Just two months after Cas had felt this first from the hunter, Dean drew his first blood in hell.

The angel shuddered to think of what this could mean now. Carefully, the angel slipped himself from underneath the sleeping hunter and quietly left the room to dig into the bunker's library afresh. There was a renewed fire, a drive to find whatever it took to get this mark off his arm now.