Day 1.

Castiel begins eating again.

Almost like he knows that he has limited time, that Dean is rushing and trying to make every single second worthwhile. Dean wakes Castiel up with a kiss on the forehead, something he's never done before. Makes Cas breakfast.

Nothing stays down though. Why should it?

Castiel's body is being poisoned by flames and sin, something once so holy now tainted and smattered and flaking. Like his wings were a force field to anything evil.

Dean supposes that it wasn't the wings, but God.

And now Cas has been kicked out of Heaven, just like Sam was essentially kicked out of the family when he went to Stanford.

The thought of Sam and Castiel being in essentially the same situation, but with differing degrees of intensity makes Dean's skin tighten.

XxX

Dean takes Castiel for a walk. Sam says he'll meet up with them eventually.

They trail back behind the scrapyard n paths that are scars on the old and abused earth, graveyards of cars and metal parts twisting up like modern art, melted and worn. Dean doesn't expect Castiel to last long on the walk, but the ex-angel seems fine enough to set a brisk pace.

Castiel asks where they're going.

Dean says he doesn't know.

It's autumn. Leaves move like fire, hues bleeding together to become a solid mass of gold and red, orange snaking through the colors in thin tendrils.

Dean thinks they look like Hellfire. He shakes his head. No.

Think of Cas.

Dean begins scratching inside himself, feels claws digging into his insides.

Castiel was an angel. He never had a childhood. He was deprived of so many things, like learning to drive and high school and eating glue in the back of the class and trying a cigarette and hating it and sex and bad jokes and the first breakup and…

Dean reels through all the things his e-x-angel never got to do, the list growing ever longer, ever sadder.

Losing a tooth, having a blood sibling, the smell of Febreeze, owning a dog, having a fight with his dad, having a campfire, basketball on the playing court of an old motel, being bored at an art gallery, never having Christmas, never having a…

Castiel never had a mom.

'Hey Cas?'

'Yes Dean?'

Dean swallows. 'Is there anything you want to do… now that you're… uh… human?'

Castiel looks at Dean quizzically, as if he had not realized he was human until now.

The wind rustles piles of dead leaves through the rusted corpses of old cars, makes the trench coat that seems 12 sizes too big billow around Castiel's feet, who's deep electric blue eyes are… confused.

'What would I possibly want to do?'

'You know… Get laid, get drunk, get high… normal human things.'

'I'd rather not partake in those particular branches of human life.'

Dean wants to throw his hands in the air, but settles for an uneasy laugh. Does the guy still think he has to be faithful to a religion and a father that literally kicked him out?

'You're free Cas, for real. You can live your life however you want it.'

'What is left of my life, you mean.'

Dean freezes.

'What's that supposed to mean Cas?'

Castiel starts looking green, and he leans against the carcass of an old Honda, broken glass giving the busted window jagged teeth.

'I could smell Crowley on you when you came to bed yesterday. Or this morning. Whichever it was.' Castiel's mouth goes slack, his eyes fluttering, hand moving unconsciously towards his stomach.

'Cas, Crowley busted down our doors looking for you. Said he needed an angel to help with a little problem downstairs. We sent him packing.' Dean is worried by how easily lies to Castiel.

Not that his lie was a good one.

'Don't try and… deceive me Dean,' Castiel huffs, his face turning from green to white, 'I raised yu from Hell. I learned the way you… lie…'

Castiel heaves toast and hash browns onto the hard packed ground, and Dean is by his side in a second, hand on his back.

Sam chooses this moment to trot around the corner of the path, but stops abruptly when Dean silently waves a hand in the opposite direction, hoping this will ward off his giant of a brother.

Sam freezes when he sees Dean and mouths to his brother 'Bad time?'

Dean stops his frantic waving and nods, giving his brother a meaningful look. Sam proceeds to walk away quietly.

'You done?' Dean asks as the puking subsides and Cas stands up, swiping a hand over his mouth.

'For now.'

Cas looks at Dean, and Dean's skin begins to prickle.

'How long do I have left?'

It takes all of Dean's cruelty and will power to tell him the truth. All he wants is to keep walking, go down to the creek where Bobby took him as a kid and taught him how to shoot a crossbow, wants to tell Castiel some crazy lie and for Cas to believe it.

He wants this responsibility to be someone else's.

But it's on his shoulders.

Dean reaches down and grabs Castiel's hand.

'9 days.'