((OMG I'm so sorry for taking so long, but it has been hectic as all heck. Please enjoy. Dean and Cas finally reunite, but it's far from a storybook.))

My chest hurts. Just seeing the blue of his eyes, hit me like a lead weight. I thought that in the end, when that awful stillness finally left his limbs, that I would feel relief.

He looks so wan, his skin white and stretched taut across his face, making it look all the more severe. He reminds me of the first time we met, back when I feared him. The circumstances were very different, then and now, but the feeling is the same. I can't help but feel powerless when our eyes meet, like this being before me holds all the cards.

Sam looks between the two of us, confused, waiting for one of us to speak. It would only be natural, I have hardly left his side after all. Sam is waiting for me to say something—to bring some sort of resolution to this whole mess. But there is a problem.

I don't know what in the hell to say.

Dammit, I don't even understand the feelings that are gripping my chest. But seeing him there, propped up against the wall, the only feeling that I could put a name to was rage. Pure unrelenting rage. The worst part… I'm not even sure who I am angry with.

"Dean."

My breath catches in my chest. I feel like a damned child, I never thought that I would hear that same familiarity color his voice, to hear him pronounce my name like it was something significant. It used to make me feel secure, knowing that he had my back. But now, all it does is fuel the fiery pit currently ignited in my gut.

I think he senses my anger, for his eyes are resigned, staring at me like I'm his executioner. As always, there is a strange depth of his gaze, like there is more going on than I can possibly fathom. He is waiting.

"So… was it worth it?" I bite out.

Dammit. I promised that I wouldn't do this. After years of having brotherly fall-outs, I swore that this would be different, that I wouldn't rub salt in the wound that had nearly killed him. But here I go, once again making things worse. I can tell by the way Sam blanches, that he was not expecting this turn of events, that he expected better of me.

Cas, for his part takes the barb like a pro. Of course by now he would be, considering all of the crap I've slung at him over the years. But I saw something flicker in his eyes, slam shut. He doesn't reply, he just keeps staring, still waiting.

It's infuriating.

The packet of rage in my chest explodes, filling me to the brim. It has been brewing for such a long damned time, and I'm not even sure who I want to direct it at. There's Sam, who's standing at the foot of the bed, eyeing me warily, like a protector, like he wasn't the one who drove an angel blade into Cas' spinal column. He should be pissed; he should be looking for revenge. I should be comforted, by the fact that, despite everything, Sam is still loyal to his friends. But, instead, the fact that he's in front of me, standing guard for his betrayer only makes things worse.

And Cas… oh, how I want everything to be directed at Cas. I wanted to take the angel, propped up so carefully on our bed, and beat the holy hell out of him. To repay him for the ass-kicking he gave me so long ago, to use the physical force to drive home the point that words could never express. Most of all I wanted to do something, anything, to erase that stupid look that I have never figured out—there's just something about it that rattles me to the bone. God, I wish I could hate him.

But deep down, I know that all of this rage was because of me. That it—all of it—could be traced back to me. I taught the angel free-will and then left him alone to drift.

We are still silent; Cas and I are staring at eachother, like we are trying to communicate without words (because that's worked so well in the past.) It's then that the realization hits me with such force that I actually stumble backwards. That look in his eyes, the one that had perplexed and pestered me from the beginning, suddenly made sense.

All this time, he was calling out to me to rescue him. Even in the beginning, he turned to me. And yet, I let him walk right into that ocean and drown himself, all in the name of good intentions…

Some "Righteous Man" I turned out to be.