So I watched Season Four all the way now by skipping parts I've already seen. It killed me not to watch anything that even mentioned Cas and I feel like I've now portrayed him a little OoC. Well, review please, it'll really help me out.

Disclaimer: Not mine, no profits. Warnings: may contain spoilers for post-end of the world, I haven't seen season five through yet and so also may be slightly AU. Some language. Mentions of past Dean/Castiel with brief details. Sad-eventual-happy!fic (character death).

Castiel flexed his fingers and sighed. He was beginning to suffer from humanization, starting with boredom, as he remained pinned to the cross. If he pulled himself off, it would be an act of Disobedience. If he remained, Anna would come for him and pluck his feathers out one by one. But, more importantly, he would not do God's Work nor get to see Dean if he did not Disobey.

Dean. Ever since he Sang about the human he began to feel more human himself, and in a way, more alive. But he still had no recollection of any of his times down on Earth. He could barely identify the feelings he was receiving.

He could not form a vision of Dean in his mind. He had tried that once.

Castiel sighed and closed his eyes, muttering different phrases and switching in and out of various languages while trying to capture the essence of Dean. He tried to picture his soul and give it a human skin. He saw strong hands, dirty and ashamed and full of guilt at his actions. Castiel's left eye twitched and the Dean he was forming blurred for a moment. He saw a body belonging to an average sized man with the strength and courage of two men. Castiel's head was pinned flat against the cross he hung upon, and he winced at a sudden intense flare that burned the back of his mind shortly. Dean vanished for a much longer moment.

Castiel grimaced but proceeded onwards. He launched a quick and final strike to see his mind. He managed to vividly see his eyes. Bright, glossy eyes as dark as the forest and so unique, so wounded, so-

Castiel screamed and writhed under his invisible, burning torment. His wings flapped desperately to free himself with a thick 'whoosh'. The nails pierced deeper into his palms. He felt like the fires of Hell were coming, licking at him and trying to drag him into the Pit. And it all seemed so familiar.

He gasped awake, drinking in the air like he had never breathed before, remnants of a fiery pain thumping inside his head. His eyes were wide, feeling gushes of blood run down his face from out his nose and mouth. He remembered eyes. Eyes of a green so dark they looked brown, near black.

"That was a very Human reflex, Castiel,"

His blue eyes looked out to see an angel of a Higher Power, one whom had Judged him before, calmly regarding him. "I do not...remember. Anything. I swear," he responded slowly, keeping his gaze steady on the other and swallowing the blood still in his mouth in order to get the words out. His jaw felt numb, his whole body did.

"I know you do, Castiel," the angel said, a whip appearing in his hands. "It is impossible for you to, we took them away. You do remember that, don't you?" Castiel frowned at his brother's condescending tone. Something was wrong in Heaven and he had to fix it. "Still, I am obligated to warn you. Do not attempt to access what cannot be accessed, brother." And the whip descended.

Castiel flexed his fingers again and moved his jaw around. His reviewing of memories always gave back the aches he had suffered but on a mildly uncomfortable level. Punishment, he supposed. But each time everything but the eyes started to fade and lose its details. Words went missing, movements blurred. That was abnormal behaviour for Heaven. It was clearer here. What was not said was heard, what was not done was seen.

"I apologize, Castiel." He was drawn out of his pondering by the appearance of Anna. "I forgot how broody you were, even before your Dean-existence."

"What do you want?" He asked gruffly, his throat still suffering from screaming for so long. He tucked his wings back inside of him though he knew it would not deter Anna if she so wished to make upon her unspoken threat.

She smiled at him, seeing that. "Forgiveness. Mercy. Isn't that what we angels are all about?" Her words rang bells in his head. "Actually, I came to give you Purpose, Castiel. You seem to be having trouble making a decision. It's quite simple, really." She strode towards him and he instinctively turned his head away. Her breath still swirled in his insides, uncomfortably. "This is what you, and the world, and Heaven, gets to look forward to. This is what you must stop." Her eyes flashed and she pressed two fingers to his forehead. A familiar surge went through him and he felt himself being pulled into the future inside a dream.

He was in a home filled with the elderly. No one noticed him standing in the middle of the room, but the electronics did. He turned and felt the urge to follow a man dressed in crisp white, no tie, striding quickly somewhere. He followed him to Room 15A and there Castiel was forced to stop. He tilted his head to the side and watched that man walk around the corner.

Lights flickered above him and the hallway felt chilled. The door opened by itself and Castiel stepped in. A very old man lay half-dead on his bed, a mask covering half of his face and sounds of random puffs over a constant vibrating drum. Wires were connected nearly everywhere on this human attached to machines with monitors, machines with bags, machines with many noises.

His hair was grey, missing in certain areas, but still thick. Castiel ran a hand through it, still soft. His forehead was lined with creases and Castiel attempted to smooth them in place. The human frowned and began to mutter in his sleep. His cheeks were gaunt, his skin pale and sickly, his lips cracked beyond repair. His face seemed to have been stretched too much over his skin, dotted with dark spots and bruises.

Castiel looked down at his hands. They were wrinkled and dotted even darker. They had once been strong and capable. They were still very ashamed, almost painfully so. He turned them over and traced a finger over the thick, permanently raw scar there. This was done by ropes.

The hand he held gripped him tightly and Castiel and tried to pull out of it. This was a dream, he was not corporeal. He could not be Seen.

"I have you now, Reaper," the man wheezed. Castiel looked deep into his eyes. Dark eyes, almost black eyes. Once green eyes.

"Dean." He whispered, feeling his eyes widen.

"How. Dare. You." Machines beeped angrily along with him, his words harsh enough to make the angel duck his head. But his hand loosened. "You are worse than demons, worse than the dicks Upstairs, all of you Reapers. You take the one form I cannot die without seeing first."

Dean sighed and released his hand fully. "Well, go on. Give me your false promises so I can go back to Hell."

Castiel blinked. "I would never send you to Hell, Dean."

He laughed bitterly. "Good to see that you guys do your homework. Thought you were above granting a man's Dying Wish,"

Castiel swallowed resistance. A sick feeling was pooling in his middle as he dared to ask, "What is your Dying Wish?"

Dean lazily glanced back at the angel from staring pointlessly at the wall. "Please forgive me, Cas."

He stared at this very old Dean for a long time, unsure of many things. Why was he asking for his forgiveness instead of God's? Why did he shorten his name? How did he know his name? What was he to be Forgiven for? Could he grant Forgiveness? He decided he didn't care if he could or not, the pleading in his voice was enough to stab him in the chest painfully many times.

"I have always Forgiven you," he chose to say, elated once Dean broke out into a true smile.

He sighed happily this time and turned over. "All of these years, I tried so hard...all I had to do was die." Castiel saw the knife by his untouched tray of food the same time Dean did.

"No, Dean!" he reached for it, fingers sliding over the smooth utensil but unable to grab it. He felt his body shake with a sick feeling as he realized he could only watch. "I could not escape, I could not reach you-" he shut his eyes and heard a grunt and a squish. Blood splattered on his cheek closest to the violence. He had never Regretted anything in this magnitude, he had never felt like he had told such a lie when it was the truth.

He was glad when he felt himself being pulled away into another scene. Earth looked normal, the way he had left it. Standing in the same field littered with dead bodies. He frowned and peered closer at one. Fresh, dead bodies. He glanced back around him and saw a group of three humans carrying a limp body between them all. He journeyed closer to them.

"We should kill him now," a male growled. A woman with long dark hair slapped him.

"Are you crazy? Then we will never find the Colt, you idiot!" she screeched.

"We need it to break the last seal," another female with shorter blonde hair answered smoothly. "And then, some fun can begin." She turned and grabbed the cheeks of a woman gagged and bound to a stake. "Isn't that right, sweetheart?" The woman whimpered and tried to pull away, tears in her eyes.

"Quiet!" the blonde woman hissed. Her partners stilled as well and a low groan was heard. "He's waking,"

Their limp body slowly opened his eyes and immediately glared around him. "Mary? Oh, god, Mary!" He struggled with his bonds. "I'm going to fucking kill you all!"

"Now, now, Sammy. Let's not say anything you can't take back," the darker woman responded. Castiel cocked his head. These two seemed very familiar to him.

"Ruby, you bitch. I thought I killed you," he tried to lunge at her but the man held him back from behind.

Ruby narrowed her eyes. "You tried."

"Don't sell yourself short, Sam. You did kill us," the blonde said and Castiel watched Sam's eyes widen.

"Meg. Hendrickson. This-this is impossible!"

"No, honey, impossible is Hell. Impossible is breaking the remaining 534 seals. It took quite some time to conquer, but I assure you, they will all be very real soon." Sam's eyes flashed to Mary.

"What do you want from me?" he asked brokenly.

"We want the Colt," Hendrickson said in his cool voice.

"Will you let my daughter go?"

"The prices we demons have to pay," Ruby sighed, eyes turning black and back. "Fine. We'll let your precious daughter go." Sam hung his head and nodded.

"It's in the trunk," he said.

"Go with him and make sure he doesn't do any funny business," Ruby commanded. Hendrickson and Sam returned a moment later and Sam grudgingly handed the Colt over.

"My daughter?" he said, gesturing to the woman on the stake.

"A deal is a deal," Ruby said, cocking the gun and turning it on Mary, whose muffled screams Castiel turned away at.

"No!" Sam roared.

"But you never said alive," she finished right before the gun blast and another squish.

He opened his eyes and found himself back in Heaven, in one final dream. This didn't take long. He could tell by the silence around him and he closed his eyes in pain. No angels.

He stared back at Anna, awake now. "Did you find your Purpose?" she asked simply of him.

"Yes, I have."

Dean hummed a random Led Zeppelin song to himself and slammed another dusty, old book in front of Sam. His smile didn't reach up to his eyes when he saw his little bro jump awake and his short laugh sounded a little too forced to be normal. "Heh, Sammy, glad you could make it."

Sam just sighed and skimmed the page it was opened to. Ingredients and directions for some type of potion or spell as far as he read. "What is this, Dean?" he asked, not awake enough to be happy about researching or his brother's attempted good mood.

"This, my friend," he said, pointing to the page a few times and hovering over Sam's right shoulder. "Is the real thing. Me and Bobby both agree."

"Okay, great. What is the 'real thing'?" he snapped.

"Woah, dude, you need to lighten up and have some coffee."

"Yeah, thanks," Sam sighed and rubbed his face clear of the stress from having so little sleep with so little results. Even college wasn't this bad. He took the freshly poured cup from his brother's hands and heard him pull a chair closer to him and plop down in it.

"Don't mention it. Really, Sam," Sam looked at Dean's somber eyes watching him. "You've done a lot for me these past weeks, hell, you and Bobby had to put up with me for that entire year and I know I wasn't a slice of Heaven. I still can't even look at myself in the mirror..." Dean broke off and focused on his cup, his hands playing on the sides. He didn't have to look to know that Sam was watching him with his wet puppy eyes, swallowing a lump in his throat and blinking back tears because it was the first time in months that he was acting like his usual self. After Castiel left, he really didn't feel like he had anything left. He knew he made Bobby worried sick and changed his brother into a scared dog willing to do anything to keep his brother alive and save him from himself. He knew that they were constantly afraid of him killing himself slowly or trying to make another deal to get Castiel back at the risk of his soul, again.

He coughed away his guilt, for now. "And, uh, I just wanted to say...no matter what I tell you, I- you're still my little brother. Always."

Sam smiled at him and squeezed his shoulder. "You couldn't push me away if you tried, Dean." The implied hung awkwardly between them for a moment. He turned around and gestured back to the open book. "So, uh, you gonna tell me what this 'real thing' is?"

"Yeah, yeah, of course. Remember that case we took long ago with the kid who killed in people's dreams?" Dean began, eager for the change in conversation.

"Well, yeah," he said in his best 'duh' voice.

"Turns out that the dream stuff also had another use, in a ritual. Says here, 'The Lover's Ritual was originally created to be used before consummation so that both could develop bonds that would enable them to always feel the other.'" His finger trailed the sentence on the yellowed page.

"So why did it fall out of usage? I mean, I haven't even heard a mention of it in any religion anywhere." Sam furrowed his eyebrows.

Dean pointed to another section farther down. "It killed people, slowly. The bonds that were created fed off of their life to be sustained; the more the bonds were used, the quicker they died. These bonds also made people suffer from hallucinations, amnesia, transfer of pain, madness."

"Transfer of pain?" Sam asked incredulously.

"Yeah, like if one of them found a way to control the bonds, they could be shot point-blank and the other would suffer the wounds." He explained, nonchalantly.

"I can't-" he scoffed. "I don't believe this. Is there anything...positive about the ritual?"

"We believe that it can help me find Castiel."

"That's rich, De-" Sam stopped and looked at Dean's very somber face. "You really serious about this, aren't you?"

Dean leaned forward with his hands folded in front of him like he was trying to threaten his brother. "It's about Cas, Sammy."

"Right, and you would go to Hell and back for him." He squeezed the bridge of his forehead. He sometimes forgot how serious his brother took to his angel, Castiel was practically part of the family. "Alright, but I'm going to need something stronger than coffee-"

"I'll go get us some beers," Dean said almost cheerfully, like normal, rising up to go into the kitchen. He hummed that song again as the refrigerator door opened with a slight squeak. The two bottles clanged together as he reached down inside to pull them out. He could have sworn that a faint, light bell rang along with them. Dean closed the door, making the machine shudder on itself and slowly straightened up. He didn't hear anything else out of place. He shrugged and turned around.

"Jesus!" He shouted, the bottles dropping to the floor in a sticky puddle and staring at the tan trench-coat bearing, slightly loose tie wearing, holy tax accountant angel sitting contently on the counter by the sink.

He cocked his head to the side. "Hello, Dean Winchester."