Warning! Swearing.

Day 9.

It is on the ninth day that the group of hunters and the dying man research ways to cheat death.

Because frankly, there isn't much in the way of proof that Castiel is in fact going to Hell. This could be Swine Flu or Avian Flu or something else completely and utterly human.

But half way through Castiel's ninth day, when Bobby and Sam have gone for air and Dean and Castiel are alone in the sea of codex bindings and tomes and scrolls and the friggin' Bible, Dean firmly declares fuck it and throws the last of the old books to the floor with a quiet whoosh of dust.

Castiel looks up as Dean paces uneasily, watches frustration and anger and sadness and disappointment make a dangerous mix in Dean's face. Dean is not at all pleased with the lack of information about fallen angels.

Why should there be? Castiel thinks. Angels seldom remember what they were before their fall from Grace.

'Dean?' Castiel asks, voice meek. Dean looks over, eyes an angry watery color. The hunter is steamed and boiled anger, sterile and clean cut, sharpened like a hunting knife for easier cuts. Anger is something Dean must be used to by now. Anger and disappointment…

Dean punches the wall in his fury, over and over again, blood scrapes the wallpaper in brownish streaks, Dean's knuckles become a set of railroad tracks: cracked, crossing each other, droplets of blood oncoming trains as they spill in steadying streams on the floor.

'Dean. Dean!'

Cas rises from his seat on the couch and grabs Dean's wrist before the hunter's fist can connect with the brutalized wall again.

Heat comes off of Dean in angry waves, whereas it flows from Castiel in tendrils, twisting tentacles of flame that lick around the trench coat that Castiel would rather not wear, but wears to remind Dean that once he was an angel. If he can retain his image on the outside, perhaps he can retain it in Dean's mind.

Castiel thinks it's silly. But he does it anyway.

'You don't deserve this!' Dean screams at Castiel. 'Everything I touch dies! You were the one thing I couldn't break, the one damn thing that I could never destroy and I've fucked that up too! You're burning because of me! If I hadn't made you rebel, you would still be an angel. And we'd still be hunting. And you'd still be the one thing I couldn't… burn…'

Castiel takes Dean's hands.

There was a time, when if he desired, he could heal the hunter of any affliction.

Stomach ache? No problem.

Lung cancer? Easy.

Perpetual coma? Given the right tools, it would be simple reverse.

But Castiel is only human now, and though he wishes he could wash the blood away with his Grace, he can't.

'Dean. I have lived a good li-'

'Don't…' Dean growls dejectedly, before pulling his hands away and prowling out the back door to join Bobby and Sam while they do… whatever.

Castiel picks up a codex off the floor in the silence of Dean's absence, and replaces it on a desk. The fallen angel sits in silence for a while before heading to the couch for a nap.

He falls asleep the only way he has learned how, listening to his own heartbeat in the silence.

XxX

Zachariah comes to Castiel in his dreams, while Cas sits on a bench and watches a golden river rush by, molten metal catching brilliantly in the sun and lighting the would-be water on fire. In fact, the whole forest is made of metal. Silver trees flicker in the setting sun, iron trunks catch the blues and pinks that blush and lick the clouds in the low hanging sky, sliver leaves shinging like unsheathing swords while the wind rustles them. Bronze birds flitter and croak without charm to each other. Even the bench is not made of real wood, but has been whittled and worked into a believable shape and smooth texture out of cobalt.

'Is this what your Heaven would look like, brother?' Zachariah asks, sitting beside Castiel on the bench.

'I would not know. And I never shall.'

'I can still save you, you know.' Zachariah looks meaningfully at the side of Castiel's face, 'You don't have to die.'

Castiel does not look at him. His voice is emotionless as he says, 'And in return for my Grace you would have me forget the Winchesters. You would have me forget everything, turn me back into the obedient soldier I was before.' Later, Zachariah will understand that what is missing in Castiel's voice is fire. The fallen angel is finished. He is done.

Zachariah nods slowly, eyes hungry and never still. 'That is an appropriate price, I believe.'

'No it isn't.' Castiel's voice is so level, so calm.

Zachariah's eyes flash, and he raises his hands at the liquid gold. The river begins moving faster, rapids swirling and splashing, droplets searing Castiel's skin with a sizzle.

'You forget, little brother, that I can make you suffer more.' Castiel does not turn to look at the angel, so Zachariah grabs him by the throat, eyes a blinding white, 'How's about I just kill you right now?'

This is the majesty of an angel. An angel must possess both staggering beauty and dangerous power for the unruly and the sinful.

Zachariah's Grace uncurls and begins exploring Castiel's body, memorizing the fallen angel, a searing white pureness that is supple as smoke and as deadly as a whiplash.

The metal forest begins to reverberate with the earthquake the superior angel's Grace brings.

Pain ricochets throughout Castiel's body, elastic burns racing through his veins in blazing trails, his insides rearranging themselves into a jigsaw mess, and Castiel's screams echo through the metal forest like an explosion.

'Flay you alive once you wake up?' Zachariah's voice pushes through Castiel's pain.

Castiel feels his skin loosen and rip.

'Send you into a never ending coma?'

Castiel's limbs become impossibly heavy, and his eyelids feel like they have been weighted down with lead.

'Pull out your lungs?'

All the air in Castiel's body evaporates.

'Or I could just take away your senses, increase your fever shorten your 9 days to 2. How does that sound?'

'N…No!' Castiel manages, but then the burning golds and silvers become edged with images of Bobby's living room, of books and dust.

Castiel is waking up.

Zachariah senses this too, and withdraws his Grace painfully from Castiel's sleeping form.

Zachariah's roar echoes through Castiel's head as he sits up, fully awake and alert, in Bobby's living room. 'Remember my offer, little brother. I assure you it is much better than going to the Pit.'

XxX

'What will you do Dean? When I die?' Castiel asks when Dean returns from a walk out in the junkyard.

'Cas…'

'Will you remember me?'

'I won't have to, because we're gonna find a way out of this, like we always do.'

'You can't raise me from Hell, Dean.'

'Why not?'

'You know why.'

'No I really don't! You're human now! The rules should work the same!'

Dean storms out of the kitchen and Castiel only manages to catch him by the arm. 'Zachariah made me an offer.'

Dean's face both falls and rises. 'What did he offer you?'

'My Grace.'

'In return for?'

'All the memories I have of you, Sam and the past two years.'

Dean inhales sharply before saying, with as little emotion as possible. 'Take the offer.'

Castiel has never heard the hunter's voice so defeated.

'No.'

'Castiel!'

'I don't want to live forever as a blind soldier. I would rather live 8 days free and dying. Free and dying, with the only family that has ever cared about me.'

The silence that follows is the most weighted silence of Castiel's long life.

It is a silence that rivals Heaven's in the absence of laughter.

It is a silence that rivals Hell's in the absence of screams.

It is a silence that rivals the Inbetween's in the absence of the crying of spirits.

The silence is filled with the cracking of the screen door as Sam walks in.

Dean rushes out of the kitchen at the sight of his brother, ripping his arm out of Castiel's grasp, a single silver tear shining in the corner of his eye.

It takes a minute for Sam to ask, 'What did I just walk in on?'

'I believe Dean has just realized I cannot be saved.'

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