Happily ever after.
That was how the stories were supposed to end, right? All the tragedy of the past who-knows-how-many pages - or who-knows-how-many minutes, for those of the more visual leanings - wiped away with three brightly-colored words stretching out in gently looping calligraphy. The hero or heroes slay the big bad and all is right with the world; family - the right kind of family, that of spirit and not of blood - sticks together and moves on to bigger and better things; injustice gone, case closed, story over.
Chuck's idea of a good story hadn't had as tasteful an ending as all that, but they'd long established that he was a hack anyway. Any respect to the way he said things should go stemmed from the fact that, well, he was God - and, admittedly, they'd never really respected that anyway - but that had flown out the window the second he'd lost control of the narrative. Apparently, he hadn't accounted for his main antagonist getting written out of the story with their own scythe, and definitely not for his grandson usurping his powers in a particularly Biblical turn of events.
Dean had a habit of thinking cynically - hell, not even a habit; a default - but even his innately dark mind had let himself wonder if maybe, just maybe, beating Chuck would bring with it a happy ending. With no one artificially screwing up their lives in the name of literary symmetry, maybe they could actually have some semblance of control. Maybe things could go right after all. Maybe they could be who they wanted to be instead of who they'd felt they had to be.
In some ways, to be fair, things had shaken out that way. Jack had brought back Eileen when he undid all of Chuck's machinations, and she and Sam still hadn't surfaced from their honeymoon period (figuratively speaking, but Dean was pretty sure he'd seen Sam looking intently enough at rings that the phrase might turn literal pretty soon). Jack, after they'd reassured him that he'd always be welcome at the Bunker, had vanished, off touring who knows what. Without Chuck making things worse, even normal hunting had calmed down, and there were more days spent milling around the bunker or running errands than there were days spent driving for a case. Dean had spent the first week just reordering everything, taking his time to make sure it all looked right; yeah, fine, sure, maybe he was nesting, but the kitchen had never looked as spotless, so that was a win.
By rights, Dean really ought to have been happy. Or even just content.
He wasn't, though, and the problem largely stemmed - whether he'd admit it to himself or not - from the fact that Cas wasn't either. Not that Cas' seeming unhappiness made sense to him, to be honest. Jack was safe and, judging by the ear-to-ear smile he sported every time he came back home, happy. Cas, himself, was fine; he'd picked his own room in the bunker and everything, settling down - for once - and getting some kind of stability. They'd more or less come out ahead - definitely better than he'd expected, that's for sure - in every category.
But, whether it made sense to him or not, the fact remained; Cas was clearly unhappy about something.
It started out simple. Almost like they'd switched personalities, actually, and Cas was the one rejecting any optimism whatsoever. An off-hand aside about Chuck being gone led to a five minute rant about we don't know that, and what if… until Sam accidentally interrupted by walking in. A small comment - "at least the kid seems happy" - spawned by the sudden appearance of one of Jack's travel souvenirs was shut down immediately by Cas up and walking out of the room. He didn't eat his favorite foods, even if Dean made them - yeah, he said they all tasted like molecules, but there were some that tasted like better molecules than others - and he avoided things he used to enjoy doing in favor of what could only be described as brooding.
And then he started pulling away.
Suddenly, it was Cas who was compulsively looking for hunts. It was Cas who trawled through all the news he could find - even going so far as to become proficient in computer usage, for all his distrust of them - trying to find something, anything, away from the bunker. It was Cas setting out on days-long trips just because a potential homicide was reported as being a touch too savage.
And, the thing was, he wasn't pulling away from all of them. He and Sam still went on hunts together, on the instances where the long-shot case did indeed turn out to be something supernatural. They went to the farmer's market, too, returning with enough natural, organic, and otherwise disgusting food to overload the fridge. Jack's visits saw the two of them hidden off in some obscure section of the bunker, the kid chattering away about who knew what. (Though, admittedly, even then, Cas would leave the room after half an hour, making some excuse or other before ducking into his room and hiding there for a few minutes.) Even Cas and Eileen had become pretty damn good friends, and Dean had seen them watching movies together at least once a week since the whole fight against God thing happened.
No, the problem, it was plain to see, definitely wasn't with anyone else in the bunker. The problem, by and large, seemed to reside with Dean and only Dean.
If Dean were the one to offer company on a long drive to a possible-but-unlikely hunt, he got a shake of the head (at best) or a sharp, curt, "No." Inviting Cas along on his own shopping trips - ostensibly since Sam's busy and rabbit food ain't my strong suit, but you know his tastes, right? - yielded only a neatly printed shopping list shoved into his hands and a door shut quickly behind him. Any time he accidentally walked in on him and Jack, Cas would immediately halt the conversation until Dean left again, the voices picking up mere seconds after he'd turned the corner or shut the door.
Dean might've been stupid, but he wasn't dumb. He could see patterns, even when they weren't as blatantly in-his-face, and he could sure as shit take a damn hint.
So he adapted. Stayed on the edges of the room if he ever went into the public space (which was rare), and spent all the rest of his time either in his room or outside the bunker. Stopped asking about shopping requests, eventually, and just put a notepad in the kitchen for people to make shopping requests. (It wasn't a surprise when nobody but Cas ever seemed to use it, and even then it wasn't often.) Resigned himself to nights rewatching his favorite films without Cas' company (up until he figured out that the activity had become a lot less enjoyable, and, thus, also became a lot less frequent of an activity). Went hunting solo, on the occasions when he wanted to work off spare energy.
It wasn't fun, but it worked.
Perhaps most confusingly, while said adaptation changed things, it changed things in a way that made even less sense than everything else; for all Dean had intended it to cut their interactions down to the minimum that Cas seemed to insist on maintaining, they promptly started interacting more, not less. Cas would materialize out of nowhere every time Dean went into the bunker-at-large, doing nothing but lurking there until Dean left again. He'd pop by, knocking awkwardly on Dean's door and stuttering out something to explain why they had to talk, and then hovering there awkwardly until Dean shut the door or something else interrupted them. Hell, the almost-frenzy Cas flew into as he went to heal Dean every time he got hurt on a hunt was almost enough to make him think that nothing changed at all, that Cas actually still cared.
The whiplash could almost be funny, except that it wasn't.
He asked, once or twice. Talking still wasn't his cup of tea - either Chuck hadn't screwed with that factory setting or he was just used to it, and he wasn't sure which - but he tried, at the very beginning, to make an effort beyond his usual check-ins.
The first time, he hadn't asked outright. Not only had he not been fully certain he could take an outright question and an outright answer, the feeling of something is wrong with Cas had been just that: a feeling. An instinct, lacking much of anything that might back it up or grounded in fact. So, when he asked, he asked it as subtly as he could, a burger and a beer each, accompanied by a gentle-as-he-could-make-it, "How're you doing these days, Cas? You good?"
"Of course," he'd gotten back. "Why wouldn't I be?" He hadn't had an answer, and Cas hadn't eaten his burger.
The second time had been a little more overt. Two weeks of outright avoidance, no question, had been so blatant a sign that he couldn't just ignore it anymore. Two weeks of bare-minimum conversations and tension-riddled terseness made him think that maybe Cas would actually say why he was pissed at Dean. Two weeks of whatever was going on meant that maybe there was a single problem to be fixed before that fabled happily ever after.
Subtlety flew out the window without ceremony, and he ended up just pulling Cas to the side like he had after Purgatory, sitting him down in His Chair of the two in the Dean Cave and stringing together some of the most emotional sentiments he'd ever freaking uttered. "Something's off, Cas, and I don't know how to fix it. I get that you're pissed at me about something, or- or I'm doing something wrong, but I don't know what that is. O-Or… Maybe I'm wrong and it's something else. But, whatever; the point is: we can't fix anything if you don't talk to me, and I just… I don't know what to do. Talk to me, man."
He hadn't actually gotten a verbal answer that time. The chair was just suddenly empty, silence falling thick and heavy and devastating over the room as the door slammed shut.
He might not have gotten a verbal answer, but the implied one was clear.
That had been one of their last interactions before Dean set about making himself as unnoticeable as possible, and he hated it. The urge to fix something was infuriating, but only half so maddening as the fact that he didn't actually know what was broken. He couldn't just get past it, either, not when the whole situation was shoved in his face every two seconds. For all the teasing they'd endured over the years - the (groundless) innuendo and the (baseless) comments and the (ludicrous) implications that Cas cared in That Way - even he hadn't really noticed how close the two of them always were until Cas essentially vanished, the negative space where he should have been morphing into a glaring absence that never shut the hell up.
This made it all the more unexpected when, one cliché dark and stormy night, Cas' familiar knock sounded on the door. Dean wasn't sure if it was late or early - instead, it was somewhere on the cusp between the two - but most normal people would have been asleep. His insomniac tendencies hadn't disappeared when he made the transition from full-time to part-time hunting, and he'd been making an effort not to drink, so he was already quite awake; the sound shocked him out of it the rest of the way.
The door was opened within a few seconds, evidently more quickly than Cas had been expecting judging by the way his hand kept falling through the air for a few seconds past the wood's disappearance. He didn't speak immediately, and Dean wasn't sure if he was worried or confused or angry. Or, possibly, a mix of the three.
"Heya, Cas," he managed eventually.
"Hello, Dean," Cas echoed.
It was achingly familiar, and Dean hated himself for how pathetically relieved he was to hear it said again. It had to have been weeks, probably months, since he'd heard it - or, honestly, much of anything from Cas beyond the barest minimum - and, irrationally, the phrase made him feel like maybe (just maybe) things were… fixable. Salvageable. Not permanently shattered to tiny, itty-bitty pieces like a glass vase hit with three shells of rock salt.
He didn't realize that they'd just been standing there, staring at each other and just waiting, until Cas eventually added, "May I come in?"
Dean wasn't sure he actually wanted to have whatever conversation Cas was trying so awkwardly to start, but he was firmly in the "beggars" camp and not the "choosers" camp, so, like the ridiculous idiot he was, he nodded. "Sure." He stepped back, the maw of the doorway opening even wider. "Come on in, man." Cas obliged without his customary thanks, and that had no right to turn his stomach as much as it did. "What's up?"
Cas didn't answer until he'd reached the chair near the bed - another chair Dean had come to think of as Cas' and Cas' alone - and settled into it. His hands were clasped in his lap, and he sat, as he usually did, ramrod straight. He didn't usually look that uncomfortable, though, and nor did his hands usually fidget as anxiously.
"Are-" He managed. Paused. Straightened again. "Are you… happy?"
Of all the possible questions and comments Dean might have been expecting, that was very much not one of them. "What?"
"Are you happy?" Cas repeated, as though Dean simply hadn't heard what he'd said.
"That's-" Dean blinked. "Relative to what?"
"I don't understand." Cas frowned, tilting his head in the endearing way he always did. "That was a yes or no question; are you happy?"
Dean shrugged. "Been worse." It was his turn to look at Cas, confused. "Been better, too; look, man, what's going on?"
"By all accounts - largely even by your own - we've won."
"Right."
"But you're not exhibiting signs of actually being happy."
It had been a very, very long time since Dean had heard Cas speak quite so analytically, with quite so measured a tone and quite so precise a wording. "Look, is something the matter?" Vaguely, he remembered a conversation he'd had with Sam earlier that day, in one of his brother's rare, non-lovesick moments. "Did the hunt go bad or something?"
"No!" Cas said, though it was a bit more of an exclamation than a statement. "No. I've just been… thinking."
Dean waited a second. No elaboration came. "About?"
"The present. Especially relative to the past. And how the past now has its impacts on the future. Irrevocably." The final word wasn't normal Cas; it was quiet and sad and concerning for reasons Dean wasn't quite sure he could isolate.
"And all that leads you to ask… if I'm happy?"
"Yes." Cas nodded, matter-of-fact. "Are you?"
Dean wasn't sure how to condense, I'm fine, but I'm not really happy, and I'm not going to be happy until my best friend - and yes, dumbass, that's you - finally tells me what the freaking hell is bothering him so much about me that he can't stand to be in the same room as me for more than one minute without bolting for freedom into a not annoying, not utterly pathetic, not too-verbose sentence.
Instead, he avoided the question. "Are you?"
"I hardly see how that's relevant to the question."
"You hardly-" The words broke off, and he looked away, eyes closing of their own accord. He pulled in a vaguely steadying breath, exhaling it slowly in an attempt to calm the hell down before he said something he'd regret. Then again, he was getting the unfortunate feeling that he was going to regret the entire conversation regardless. (It felt like they were on the threshold of something too permanent, and, call him a coward, but Dean would rather put off a conversation of recriminations and departures for as late a date as possible. Especially given how angry Cas was acting, and the unfortunate fact that him leaving the bunker was an awfully real possibility.) "You hardly see how that's relevant, huh?"
Dean wasn't sure how it was possible, but Cas somehow looked even more confused. "I-"
"Yeah, we beat Chuck. And Billie. And the others. But that doesn't mean we won."
"How-"
"Because!" A completely incoherent fluttery gesture later - no one said gestures were his strong suit either - and he'd fumbled for a vague sentence that might make sense or might be complete inanity. "Because winning … doesn't mean we actually, you know… won."
"I think that, by definition, it rather does."
"You know what I mean." A glance at Cas made it blatantly clear that no, actually, he didn't. "Look. You've been hunting with us for years at this point. You remember that case in Milwaukee, few years back? That chick… Abigail?" Cas half-flinched and looked away. "Exactly. We got the vamp, right, but it didn't help her. Technically, we won. But it didn't feel like it after, did it?"
"No."
"And right now, it feels a helluva lot like we got the vamp but we lost too much shit along the way for this… this victory to feel very victorious." Dean shrugged, shifting in place. He really was not in the mood for actual communication, not when he felt a sword he couldn't see hanging over his head, but at least Cas was talking to him again. "I'm fine. And we've had enough low points that, yeah, I'm… I'm better than I could be. But things ain't perfect either. Or even as good as they've been, sometimes."
"But the hunt is over. Sam's alive. And Jack brought back everyone Chuck vanished, so the losses have been negligible." Dean would almost feel bad for how confused Cas looked, if he weren't also wondering how the hell he could be so infuriatingly oblivious. "What, precisely, is causing you distress?"
"I-" And, okay, that was getting a bit close to the side of things Dean never wanted to admit, but the situation wasn't sustainable anyway. Cas was already pissed at him to some degree; a little bit more wasn't gonna make things that much worse. "You don't talk to me anymore, man. Something's wrong. Has been for a while now. And I don't know what it is, or what I did, but I can't fix whatever it is unless you talk to me."
"You didn't do anything-"
"Oh, come on." Again: stupid, yes; dumb, no. "You can't be in the same room as me for more than a minute. You've actively avoided hanging out every time I offered, and we barely say a word to each other outside of what absolutely cannot be avoided. You talk to the damn grocer more than you talk to me. And it's not Sam. It's not Jack. It's not anyone. It's just-" He paused, steeled himself again. "Just me." Another shrug. "And I can't fix it. I can't do anything. I've tried talking to you, and that didn't work; I've tried leaving you be, and that doesn't seem to work… I'm running out of options here." It took too much effort to raise his hands from his sides in an open half-shrug, but he did it anyway. "So, yeah. Not perfect. But I'll get over it."
"I-" Cas paused. Opened his mouth to say something and then didn't. Made an aborted attempt to move, then stopped. "I-" Tilted his head again, and squinted. Straightened. "I can't do this." And then he promptly walked out the door.
– – –
Dean caught up to him in the library. Sam and Eileen were already in there, hunched over a lore book together. Any other time, and Dean might have made a joke - a line about nerds of a feather or something similar - but he was too confused even to wonder why the hell they were still awake at - he'd checked on the way out of his room - one o'clock in the morning. They looked up in sync as Cas entered the room, Dean still on his heels because what the hell was going on, and released simultaneous, equally-confused exclamations. He might have been able to translate the blur of noise into two distinct thoughts if his own head hadn't still been going a mile a scattered minute; as it was, he just appreciated knowing that he wasn't the only one completely freaking lost.
"Sorry to interrupt," Cas said. "I'm afraid I need to talk to you." He looked at Dean for a split second before fixing his attention on the other two. "All of you."
Sam looked over at Dean, and years of silent communication meant that it was really easy to translate it into what the hell is going on? even with the same question - and about a billion others - already ping-ponging around his skull. He shrugged. Sam nodded, subtly, before looking back at Cas. "Uh… Sure. What's up, Cas?"
Cas looked away from all of them, eyes cast down. Something dark and twisted settled in Dean's stomach, nausea pulsing steadily despite deep-as-possible breathing. "When Jack was dying… I made a deal to save him."
Dean's stomach promptly dropped. This had the upside of unseating the darkness from its residence there, and the downside of sending said nausea to clog up his throat. "You what?" The words sounded hollow to his own ears.
Cas didn't address them. "The price… The price was one I didn't intend to pay. One I didn't think was likely to come up anyway. But I see now that avoidance is… untenable. And I need to request your assistance, one final time."
Final. The word itself felt too definite, too conclusive. Final. "What?" Final. "What are you talking about?" Final.
"I-" Cas paused. "I feel as though Jack should be here for this."
Final. "For this," Dean echoed. Final. "What's the 'this'?" Final.
Cas looked over at him again and, for a second, his expression looked vaguely regretful. Or maybe Dean was making that up, because then Cas was turning away completely.
"Cas?"
The only response wasn't really a response. "Jack? It's time to come home." A moment, then, "It's important, I'm afraid."
Dean wasn't sure if Jack popped in immediately or if a greater period of time passed before the kid arrived. Not with the word final still echoing in his head, not with It's important, I'm afraid joining it in a cacophony too loud to be anything but deafening. Not with his legs shaking so much that he was half-propping himself up on a nearby chair as it was.
The kid popped in with a cheery, "Hello!" It wasn't his fault - it wasn't like he knew what was going on, probably - but the mood whiplash felt wrong anyway, and Dean's stomach wrenched violently at the shock of it. To his credit, Jack seemed to recognize the overwhelming disquiet of the atmosphere almost immediately, and, if Dean had the mental space for it, he'd probably have felt bad for the way the kid's smile dropped, confusion and concern taking root. As it was, he barely had the sanity to keep himself grounded, and even then the floor was slipping away like so many grains through clumsily grasping fingers. "What's wrong?"
"Hello, Jack," Cas said.
Jack looked from Dean to Cas and back again. "Oh," he said. "You're telling them."
Despite the questions clamoring in his head, Dean couldn't bring himself to speak, much less voice any of them. There were puzzle pieces around, scattered across the table, but he couldn't see which were rightside up and which were out of view all together, couldn't find where the edges fit together, couldn't see the picture they'd form. Sam looked over at him, inquiry written plainly across his features, and Dean shook his head. He couldn't manage more, not then, and, for once, his brother seemed to get that. "Telling us what?"
"About the deal." Jack said it matter-of-factly, and something twisted in Dean's stomach at the words.
"Yes," Cas nodded. "I think it's time."
Jack nodded back. "I see."
Dean was more grateful than he probably should have been to see that both Sam and Eileen sported matching confused expressions; at least he wasn't the only one in the dark. It didn't fix much - it didn't fix the fact that Cas had made a deal without telling anyone, or that said deal might be about to come due, or that their lives never went right and, thus, this whole situation was bound to go wrong - but it made him feel a little less adrift.
"As I said," Cas continued, still not looking at them, even as he faced them squarely enough that Eileen could follow along, too. "I made a deal. The price… was my life. When I experienced a moment of true happiness, The Empty would be summoned, and it would take me forever."
He was at least looking at them then, expression wide and open and emotive. The look was vaguely pleading, as though asking them to understand, to forgive. Dean could probably have done the latter if he were capable of doing the former, but too many things were being thrown at him all at once, the words slipping by. They mattered, too much, but they also didn't matter; the specifics were irrelevant because the tone was the all-too-familiar cadence of a goodbye.
They'd won. They'd freaking won. So why did it suddenly feel like all they'd done was lose?
"I thought, foolishly, that I could avoid the issue. That I could render myself unhappy enough to put the matter off entirely. And, in many ways, I've been successful." Cas paused. The silence that followed after was dead quiet, and no one dared to interrupt (or, perhaps, none of them were capable of it). "But, I find, I'm incapable of being quite as selfish as I've been in the past. This situation is not one that I wish to maintain, deal or no deal."
Dean managed to speak, then, though he wasn't quite sure how; he hadn't made the conscious decision to do it in the first place. "Why are you telling us this now?"
"Because, for all I've resolved to end this - as I've said, selfish - stalemate, I must be selfish again. One final time, as I've said."
"What are you talking about?"
"The Empty is… nothingness. Precisely what it sounds like: empty. Silence and darkness, interminable and neverending. Everyone there is asleep. The sole exception would be an immortal cosmic entity, so infuriated by my mere unsleeping presence that he might just resort to torture to work out his frustration." Cas' words were… not harsh, maybe, but vehement. Well-intentioned, perhaps, but cruel nonetheless. "And, as things stand, I'll be awake. Constantly. For every single second."
A wave of nausea swept over him in time with another tremor passing through his legs. "What's-" He broke off, throat dry. Swallowed. (It didn't help.) "What's your point?"
"I've spent lifetimes being unable to sleep. I don't want to spend lifetimes more in the same situation." Cas' expression was, at once, static and dynamic to an extreme. It conveyed too much - a vast flickering of emotions too plentiful and complicated to name - without changing from the same open, imploring expression it had been since he started talking. "I can't stay here for years of self-imposed torture, but nor can I sign myself up to spend millennia subject to the Empty's whims."
In normal circumstances, Dean's brain would be in motion within seconds, possible plans and strategies and loopholes flashing into place for analysis and whittling-down until he had something, anything that might just happen to work, no matter how seemingly impossible or ridiculous or far-fetched. A familiar routine, that, and one responsible for saving their asses time and time again.
Normal circumstances flew out the window with the words "I made a deal." Normal brain function errored out at about the same time. Plans and strategies and loopholes had been discarded in favor of bowled-over silence and a brain stuck in a permanent blue screen of death. (Error 404: rescue mission not found. not responding. An exception has occurred while running code formulate_plan.)
Dimly, Dean processed Eileen starting to speak. "Is there a way to get around the deal?"
Cas shook his head. "No."
"Jack?"
He, too, shook his head. "The Empty has been around longer than Chuck. He had no power there, so I don't either. I can't cancel the deal." He looked over at Cas, expression deeply saddened. "I can't give you peace while you're there either. I don't think it's possible. And, if it is… I don't know how." He looked down. "I'm sorry."
Cas smiled gently. It wasn't a genuine smile, but it was reassuring enough. "It's okay. It's not your fault."
Sam frowned. "Then what's your plan? If Jack can't even help, and he's… you know… God... then how do you plan to change the deal? To sleep?"
"That, I'm afraid, is where the selfishness comes in."
They waited for him to continue, but the pause drew on.
And on.
And on.
Eventually, Dean managed to bite out a dry-mouthed, "What, then?" He was pretty certain that his voice cracked partway through, but he ignored it, and the way Sam was looking at him so intently. Eileen was too, but he told himself - lied to himself, more like - that it was just a means of tracking the conversation. "What's the plan?"
"I'm afraid," Cas continued, "that there's no choice left." He nodded once, resolutely. "I have to die. And you have to kill me."
– – –
Dean really shouldn't have been surprised that, as soon as the conversation turned to violence, all eyes turned to him. He'd long ago lost the energy to deny that he and death were close friends - even before he and Death actually, you know, became semi-close friends - and that blood and destruction followed in his wake. (He'd also slowly but surely lost the ability to pretend to himself that it didn't bother him, but that was irrelevant anyway.)
Of course, it usually wasn't in the context of someone outright asking him to kill them. It also hadn't ever before been Cas doing the asking.
None of that changed the quiet words, stated so blatantly. "Dean… I know it's unfair of me to ask, and I apologize for this, but I must. I'd do it on my own, but I can't. Will you help me do what I cannot?"
He hadn't answered, yet. Hadn't been able to. Had barely been able to process those words. Had hardly made it past I have to die. "I-" Final. "I don't understand." I made a deal. "You-" I have to die. "What are you talking about, man?"
"I know." The non-sequitur caught Dean even more off-guard than the rest of the conversation already had. He couldn't keep looking at Cas, not with those words spilling out of his mouth, not with that expression on his face. "I know how you see yourself." It was hard not to believe him when he looked like that, eyes so open and earnest that Dean could feel them even without actually making eye contact. "You see yourself the same way our enemies see you. You're destructive, and you're angry, and you're broken."
He wasn't wrong.
"You're… 'daddy's blunt instrument.'"
Dean flinched.
"And you think that hate and anger, that's… that's what drives you, that's who you are."
It'd be nice if Dean could say he was wrong. In some other universe - part of Chuck's multiverse, maybe, or in some djinn dream or other - maybe Cas was wrong. Not in theirs, though, no question.
Which is why Cas' next sentence was so very unexpected. "It's not."
Dean blinked. Somehow, he'd ended up looking at Cas anyway, and he couldn't bring himself to look away, no matter how ridiculous was his argument.
"And everyone who knows you sees it."
Like he'd said, ridiculous.
"Everything you have ever done, the good and the bad, you have done for love."
You're as mindless and obedient as an attack dog. You can still hear your Dad's voice in your head, can't you? Clear as a bell. Do you even have an original thought?
"You raised your little brother for love."
You didn't want to be alone, and that's what all this boils down to. You can't stand the thought of being alone. Your heaven is somebody else's Thanksgiving. It's worthless.
"You fought for this whole world for love."
'Cause you're following Dad's orders like a good little soldier? Because you always do what he says without question? Are you that desperate for his approval? I'm not pathetic, like you.
"That is who you are."
You don't know what it's like to be human. Dean, you are quite the killing machine. People in your general vicinity don't have much in the way of a life-span.
"You're the most caring man on Earth."
You are certainly willing to do the sacrificing as long as you're not the one being hurt. You play the hero but underneath the hype you're a killer, with oceans of blood on your hands.
"You are the most selfless, loving human being I will ever know."
You swoop in, and even when you mess up, you think what you're doing is worth it because you've convinced yourself you're doing more good than bad... But you're not.
"You know, ever since we met… ever since I pulled you out of Hell-"
Daddy's little girl, he broke. He broke in thirty. Oh, the first time you picked up my razor, the first time you sliced into that weeping bitch… God help me, I got right off it, and I started ripping them apart. I lost count of how many souls. The things that I did to them.
"Knowing you has changed me."
You know, when I knew Castiel, he was a soldier. He was a warrior. He was an angel's angel. Now look how far he's fallen. You survived Hell. You were chosen by God. But now look at you. You're just sad and pathetically weak. I rebelled for this?! I gave everything for you. And this is what you give to me. I serve heaven, I don't serve man, and I certainly don't serve you.
Cas continued speaking, and Dean wasn't sure if angel radio was picking up on his tumultuous thoughts or not. "Because you cared, I cared. I cared about you. I cared about Sam. I cared about Jack. I cared about the whole world… because of you." Dean didn't know how they'd gotten there, but tears were streaming down Cas' face. "You changed me, Dean."
Dean blinked, warm saline dropping in twin trails on either cheek. He didn't know what the hell was going on, couldn't keep track of so much stimulation that made so little sense, but he picked up on enough.
He definitely heard when Cas repeated himself. "You're not a blunt instrument, or a weapon to be used and discarded as you seem so fit to characterize yourself. And yet, I must nonetheless ask you to wield one once more."
Dean opened his mouth to speak. He failed.
"You know," Cas said, a bitter chuckle imbuing itself into his words, "I always wondered, ever since I took that burden - that curse - I wondered what it could be… What my true happiness could even look like. And…" He shook his head. "I never found an answer. Because the one thing I want: it's something I know I can't have. And then- then I wondered, maybe- maybe happiness isn't in the having. Maybe it's in just being. In just saying it." He paused, then shook his head. "And I've realized it's not that either.
"Because, if I said it, right now - if the Empty came immediately and I disappeared for good - not only would I not be at peace, but you wouldn't either. And no version of true happiness can feature that as a side effect." He paused. Laughed, painfully. "It's a quandary. I say it, I'm happy, the Empty comes, and your despair taints the moment; I don't say it, I stay, the innate peace of daily life summons the Empty, and your despair taints the moment."
It was too much and not enough, too close and too far away from what Dean wanted to say or needed to hear. Too confusing and too self-explanatory.
"I truly believe that this is the best solution. I'm only sorry that you must be the one to help."
Sam broke into the conversation, and Dean jolted; it wasn't that he'd forgotten the others were there, and more that he'd completely and utterly forgotten that anything existed outside of the two of them and the terrible words spilling out of Cas to seep into the surrounding air as indelibly as blood on white cloth. "If… if there's truly no other way, then can't someone else do it? I can't… I can't say I like the idea, but if it's the only thing to do, can't I do it instead?"
Cas didn't look away from Dean, even as he answered. "I know your brother well, Sam. So do you. Do you truly believe that he would allow you to take on this burden? Or Jack?"
Sam wasn't the one to answer. Eileen was. "No," she said. The sound of movement accompanied a flash of motion, just visible in the corner of Dean's eye. "And," she added, "think of Madison." (At any other time, Dean might have registered the fact that they'd had the exes conversation, but, as had been established, it wasn't any other time.)
He could see Sam blink. Could see him look from Dean to Cas to Dean again. Could see something like recognition dawn on his expression. (At any other time, he might have felt sheer horror at Sam knowing. It wasn't any other time.) "Oh."
Silence fell again.
There hadn't ever been a question of if Dean would agree. He'd already known he'd agree, if there weren't anything else to be done. He'd already suspected - even before Jack's addition - that there wasn't anything else to be done; and he'd since come to accept that, indeed, alternatives were lacking. Even he could do the math on that one, and see, quite clearly, that Cas was asking him for something that was going to happen, one way or the other.
And, if anyone was going to do it, there was no question that it'd be Dean.
Judging by the silence, they all knew it, too. Heavy and absolute, it settled over the library with suffocating intensity. Lightheadedness was often a side-effect of hunting - blood loss, oxygen deprivation, exhaustion, and so on - but never anything like the atmosphere in that room. Never anything as all-consuming, as devastating, as pervasive as that one. Never as personal.
"Okay," he managed. His mouth was dry, tongue like sandpaper as it rasped out the word, the process of speaking quite literally grating, but the sound was audible nonetheless. "Okay," he repeated anyway. He swallowed - or tried to - and cleared his throat.
"Okay," he said again.
– – –
Dean's brain clicked back online as soon as the polished metal of Cas' angel blade was slipped securely into his hand. He'd held it before - and others like it - but not like he was then. Never like he was then. He wanted to drop it - instinct told him to drop it - but he couldn't bring himself too. Even if he could, Cas' hand was still wrapped around his fingers, keeping them locked around the hilt of that blade.
He stared down at it, at ethereal silver just visible through earthly flesh. Somewhere behind the distant thought of, huh; first time we've touched since before Chuck, nausea at what he was about to do blasted through stunned pliancy. Without him telling them to, his fingers relaxed, an instinctual attempt to rid himself of that damn blade, ineffectual though it was. He couldn't do this, not to Cas, not to Cas, how could he do this and just go on like nothing happened, like he hadn't been the one to kil- "You're sure there's no other way?"
Cas nodded. "Yes, Dean."
"Wh-" He swallowed. "What if we pulled out your grace? No angel… No angelic fate, right?"
No nod. Instead, a very pointed shake of the head. "There's no guarantee that would work. In rare instances, humans have been condemned to the Empty. As Billie was planning to do to you and your brother, so, too, could the Empty choose to do to me. Our deal was not exactly predicated upon my being an angel; just upon me being…" He shrugged. "Me."
"And." He looked over at Jack. "There's nothing you can think of?"
It was a stupid question, in a way. The kid looked about as devastated as Dean, and, even if he hadn't, Dean had no doubt that he'd have chimed in if he had anything that might stop what was about to happen. He shook his head. "No."
Dean nodded. Turned to Sam, and tilted his head at Jack. "Get him outta here."
"What?!" Jack shook his head again, far more vehemently than before. "No, I'm staying."
"Cas," Dean said, before breaking off under the realization that it might be the last time he ever says that, or at least says that to Cas. "I d-" His brain made a concentrated effort to break down, and he pushed through it to figure out what the hell he'd been about to say. "I don't think the kid needs to see this." He, Dean, didn't want to see it - had already seen it once, and that was already too many damn times - and definitely didn't want to do it, but he didn't want Jack's last memory of Cas to be him dying. Didn't want him to have the memory of Cas' death replaying in his head for days on end the way it had in his own after Lucifer stepped back through that portal. "He doesn't need that memory."
Cas nodded. "I know. But if he wants to stay, neither you nor I can stop him."
For all Cas was so damn brilliant, he was also, in some ways, so infuriatingly stupid. "You can talk to him, Cas." The name felt different, given what was about to happen. "Explain to him. He can make his own choices, but that doesn't mean he has to make them alone." He paused, took a breath. Pretended that what he was about to say didn't hurt as much as it really, really did. "Might be your last time to just talk to him. He still needs your guidance, Cas."
"I'll… I'll try," Cas said. His nod was hesitant, but there.
Dean was glad when he turned away, when he went to talk to the kid on the other side of the room and left Dean to his not-quite-mental-breakdown-but-pretty-damn-close. He took the opportunity to divest himself of that damn blade as quickly as possible, pretending to ignore the loud clang of the metal as he dropped it onto the table, much less the way it scarred its way into his brain in the same way it scratched the varnish of the table.
Standing wasn't easy. He felt like he was going to collapse, actually, legs quivering beneath him, and he was still propping himself up on the chair in front of him. If he wasn't, he'd already be sitting in it.
Sam chose that moment to wander over, and, selfishly, Dean wished he were already out of the damn room. He appreciated Eileen's kind of support - her quietly commiserating looks, the gentle pass of her hand along his shoulder in passing, nothing overt, nothing that made him confront what he was about to do - far more than he did Sam's insistence on blunt discussion about everything under the sun… and then he felt bad for thinking that way. He should be grateful that Sam was trying to support him, and not as snobbish about how that support came.
His question was relatively innocuous that time. "You good?"
"Course." It was blatantly false, but Dean was good at selling obvious lies. He smiled, pretending it was real. The energy of maintaining that expression set his stomach into knots again, but he did his best not to let it show. "Fine."
It didn't fly. He hadn't really expected it to. "Dean."
"What?"
"Come on, dude, I'm asking you. Seriously."
Dean managed a glare, but it was half-hearted at best. "How the hell do you think, Sam?"
"Yeah." Sam nodded. "I know."
No, Dean thought, I'm not sure you do. The situation with Madison was similar, but they'd only known her for, what, a day? And she'd been hurting people, even if it wasn't her fault. She hadn't been a close friend, hadn't hunted by their side for eleven-plus years, hadn't been leaving behind a kid, hadn't had to die because of a sacrifice she made for someone else. It wasn't the same. She hadn't deserved it, but it wasn't the same. And yeah, he'd have spared Sam from having to take her out if he could, but there was no way in hell he was going to let Sam deal with… with Cas.
He didn't say it. Tried not to let on that he didn't want Sam there, hovering over his shoulder as he prepared to kill one of the people he'd let the closest. Tried not to wonder how much more he had to lose, how much more he had to tear apart with his own two hands. (It wasn't enough that he'd had to kill Benny, had to kill Lee, had gotten Crowley killed; he had to kill Cas, too? To take his own blade and use it against him like… like nothing?) Tried not to think about any of it to himself, either.
"I can-"
"No." Dean shook his head. "No."
Sam nodded. "Okay." Another nod. "If you need anyt-"
Cas walked over before the sentence was done, and Dean didn't even bother with being subtle about the fact that he instantly lost focus in whatever platitude Sam was mid-spouting. He loved his brother - he did - but he couldn't deal with that. Not when the pretty lie was about to fly out the window with however much force it took to send an angel blade through flesh. Not when each passing moment left him with more and more certainty that he was going to either pass out or throw up, and he wasn't sure which.
"Sam," he said. "Would you take Jack out of the room?"
He nodded. "Of course. Are you sure you're gonna be oka-" He broke off. Swallowed.
"Yeah." Dean said. "We'll be fine." It was a lie. They all knew it. The expression on Cas' face twisted, and Dean looked away. "Go on."
Sam didn't say anything before slipping his hand into Eileen's as they walked towards the door, wrapping his arm around Jack's shoulders on the way. They walked out together. The sight twisted at something selfish in Dean, and he was looking away before he registered that he owed them his attention as some form of preemptive penance.
They were gone by the time he looked up again, and silence reigned in their stead.
"So," he managed eventually. "This is it, huh?"
Cas looked regretful, but he nodded anyway. "This is indeed 'it'."
He knew what that answer was going to be, but he asked it anyway. "No other way?"
Cas shook his head. "No other way."
Dean nodded. "Right."
"I'm sorry," Cas said.
"I know." Dean reached over. Trailed his fingers along the hilt of the blade. Picked it up and settled it into his hand. (It felt sickeningly natural resting there, and the alien smoothness of it set his skin crawling.) "Me too."
"I wish there were another way." Cas looked at the blade and, ridiculously, smiled. It was sad, but real. "But there's not."
"Yeah." Dean nodded. "Sounds familiar." He let out a breath, willing it not to leave him nauseous again, inanely, darkly amused when it did. "You ready?"
"Yes." Cas straightened, standing at attention. "I do believe I am."
Dean nodded, shifted. Steeled himself. Flexed his hand around the hilt because, if he didn't, he damn well might drop it. Might throw it as far away from himself as possible. (It would be selfish, though. He'd condemn Cas - Cas - to torturous nothingness for longer than Dean could imagine. And he couldn't do that. Not to Cas. Yeah, it'd destroy him to kill Cas, but doing nothing would be to destroy Cas, and that would be even worse.) "Right."
"Wait!" Dean would be lying if he said he wasn't relieved at the excuse to delay. "I… I wasn't going to say anything, but I… I can't not."
Dean wasn't sure he had the strength for more revelations, especially not when they'd been bad news after bad news for years on end. He nodded anyway. "Sure, Cas. What's up?"
"What I said before…" Cas nodded. "It's important to me that you know I meant it."
Dean had resigned himself to destroying one of the few good things he had left after years and years of bad , but he didn't have to sit there and listen to such ridiculous, ludicrous-ass shit as that. Not again. "Don't make this your goodbye, Cas. Please."
"It's important to me…" Cas continued on, heedless. "That you know, every word is true."
"Cas-"
"And it's important to me, too, that you know something else."
Dean didn't speak that time - wasn't sure he could - but he dropped his eyes and nodded, waiting for whatever axe was hovering over them to finally freaking fall.
"Dean Winchester," Cas said. "I love you."
He smiled, beatific.
Dean shattered.
"Huh," Cas said eventually. "I figured that would be it, if anything was. Maybe it would've been, in other circumstances. Things have changed, though, haven't they?" It wasn't really a question.
Which was good, because Dean couldn't answer. Wasn't sure he had an answer, and couldn't put it together even if he did. Couldn't make it past the words I love you caught on loop in his head. Couldn't make it past the way those same words had flickered in his head so many times over the years, and the way he'd never said them. Couldn't say them. I need you, he said instead. You're family, he said instead. We, he said instead.
He couldn't say them because it was Cas, and he couldn't lose Cas. Couldn't run the risk that three words, eight letters would send him running for the hills the way he always seemed to do. Couldn't afford the guy to just disappear, all because Dean couldn't keep his damn mouth shut on the things that really mattered.
But he was losing Cas anyway. Three words or no three words, the outcome wouldn't change.
His knuckles were white against the blade. Pins and needles prickled there, but he didn't let it go - couldn't let it go - tried to tighten them instead. He'd made a promise, after all. And he didn't break those if he could help it.
"Don't make me do this," he tried. His voice broke somewhere in there, but it wasn't like his barriers had survived the first half of the conversation anyway. They were in the liminal space where nothing mattered and everything mattered all at once. "Please."
"Goodbye, Dean," Cas said.
Dean nodded. "In that case…" He closed his eyes. Took a breath. Put his hand on Cas' shoulder and pretended he didn't notice the way it felt so familiar and yet so backwards. "Castiel, angel of the Lord…" Another breath. A blink to try and clear his eyes that only resulted in making things worse. "I love you, too."
The words slid home. The blade did, too.