These days guilt hangs over him like his own personal cloud. It's not something he can walk away from or tuck away for another day. It's a constant companion, a reminder of the mistakes that he's made, the choices that lead him to this specific point in time. Dean hates that he had to leave his brother behind so quickly. He hates the fact that he can't make any time to visit him. Demon activity has risen to a point where it's almost too much for Bobby and Dean to handle. In between cases, Dean's been hard at work trying to find some cure for Sammy, but he can't find anything concrete on Yellow Eyes. Not that he honestly expected to, the demon has had so many names it unclear which ones are the real Yellow Eyes and which ones are just evil motherfuckers.

With every new book he reads, the more hope he loses. He blames himself for the entire mess Sammy's currently in. If he had paid more attention, if he had spent less time being an ass and more time being the kind of person Sammy could lean on, this wouldn't have happened. He can't believe that he had been so blind, so unaware of the fact that his baby brother had been changing right before his very eyes.

He always thought it was a phase Sam was going through, the irritability and bursts of violence. Hell, Dean himself has gotten in so many fights over the years he couldn't keep count anymore. Given the way he and his brother grew up, Dean's a little surprised they aren't more messed up in the head. But this...this was worse than he could possibly imagine, he could take crazy any day over this 'demons tell me what to do' crap.

He was using it as an excuse...the whole "busy" thing. He knows that for his brother he would drop anything to go see him, no matter how many demonic bitches were on his ass. But he can't look Sam in the eye. Not only because of the guilt, but because he is afraid, more afraid then he has ever been in his life.

The day he dropped Sam off, the last time they saw each other. Sam had been quiet, withdrawn. That was understandable, after killing your father and having your brother drive you to a mental institute, he'd be on the quiet side too. He checked Sam in, and walked him to his new room, watching as his baby brother sadly took in his surroundings.

He could see the tears welling in his brother's eyes as he failed to keep it together, as the immensity of the moment finally hit him. And then he watched as the tears dried up, the sad eyes filled with hate, and those innocent hazel eyes, the eyes that used to look at him with so much love, change to cold and sickly yellow.

So yeah, Dean is scared shitless. He's afraid of what he might find in his brother's eyes the next time he sees him. He's afraid that Sam is too far gone to save, that his brother became the very thing he was taught to destroy.

But Bobby calls with a possible solution and he can't avoid his brother any longer. It's time he mans up, and faces the mistakes he's made. He owes that to Sam.

If he thought it would help, he would pray to God for it to actually work. But him and God weren't on speaking terms so he wasn't even going to bother. And even if they were, he had a few choice words for the man upstairs that that little to do with help.

What was the point anyway, it wasn't as if anyone up there was listening to him. It's not like anyone cared about Dean and his problems. But he can't help but to wonder about the possibility. His mother always promised he was protected by something larger than himself. She always seemed so sure, so certain, that he, Dean Winchester was worthy of someone's time. He couldn't possibly understand why. A high school dropout, with a self-medication problem wasn't worth the effort, human, angel, God or otherwise.

If his mother could see him now, would she still feel the same way? Would she still think that he was capable of greatness, of something more than himself? As much as he would love to believe, he highly doubts that.

He knows that if Mary could see her sons now, her heart would break from the disappointment and shame. He knows she wouldn't even be able to recognize the person he became. He tries to brush it off as fact of life. Everyone changes; no one stays adorable and innocent forever. But in the back of his mind it pains him that he couldn't do this one thing for the women who loved him, it hurts that he couldn't have been a better man.

As he nears the hospital he just knows thatsomething is wrong. Even before he sees the firemen and hears the cries of the patients, he has a feeling of unease in his stomach that he just can't shake. It's like he walked into a bad movie, there is panic and mayhem everywhere but Dean cannot hear any of it, he can't see any of it. Because right where he left his baby brother, his Sammy, was a black hole of charred remains.

Blood rushes to his ears as he runs out his car and towards the still smoldering building. He can see people motioning at him, telling him to turn back, but he can't, he won't. He has his brother to go save, the only person left in his life who understood him like no other. It was like his world was ending and fast-forwarding at the same time. Who was going to eat his crappy cooking? Who was going to look at him disapprovingly as he took another swing of something brown and fiery? Who was going to make those ridiculous faces whenever he did something stupid?

He can't even remember the last time he told his brother he loved him. He can't remember the last time they actually had fun together. Between Dean being a jerk all the time and Sammy slowly regressing inside himself, their relationship stalled. Something Dean was always looking to fix, but never having the time for.

He runs into the crowd desperately searching for his brother, screams of "Sammy" filling his lungs. It takes him about twenty minutes to realize that his brother isn't at the scene, and it's still too chaotic to see if he is among the dead. He falls to his knees, his world falling apart around him. He can't breathe...can't...

Panic fills him again, weighing down his heart and his lungs. He feels as though he is drowning, as though he is fighting his way to the surface of this crushing emotion. His vision blurs as hot tears pour out of him, threatening to take him under. People pass but don't take notice, he isn't the only one who lost someone, isn't the only one who is hurting. Other than the fact that he is wearing street clothes, some might even think that he was a patient, the way he yells and cries out. So he stays there, alone and on his knees praying for a miracle. Praying for anything other than the hell he was feeling.

"Please." he manages to gasp. "Please, not him too. I-God, I need him. Please not him too."

He is so engrossed in his pain, so lost in his emotion that he almost doesn't hear her. It's a faint buzzing to his ears at first, but then it gets louder and more persistent, forcing him to take notice. Her words pierce him like an arrow, breaking him from his torment. She sits in the dirt, a few feet away, rocking back and forth, eyes flickering from person to person as if she doesn't want to miss a thing.

"Yelloweyesyelloweyesyelloweyesyelloweyes." she whispers almost religiously, rubbing her hands together as if she were trying to get them clean. Dean wipes away the tears from his eyes and slowly makes his way to her. Although he has managed to mostly pull himself together, his heart is still beating wildly; his hands are still shaking in fear.

Not wanting to startle her he carefully sits down beside her, taking in her appearance. She has wide hazel eyes, eyes that, as young as they were looked like they'd seen too much of the world. They remind him of someone else's eyes, not necessarily in color but in gravity. If she ever managed to focus on something, he has the feeling that she had the kind of eyes that could look into your heart and tell you who you are. He knows he's seen eyes like that before, eyes that pierced through your soul, leaving you vulnerable, and stripped down to your very essence. Her bright red hair was charred at its tips, slowly falling out whenever her head moved.

She continues rocking and whispering as if he wasn't even there. It can't be a coincidence that she is whispering yellow eyes at the very place he left his little brother, but she is starting to look like she's more crazy than helpful.

"What exactly happened here?" he says, hoping the sound of his voice will break her reverie. Her head snaps up, staring at him intently as if she was trying to place him. A flash of recognition flashes through her features and she suddenly grabs him by the hands.

"Yellow eyes," she says her eye wild. "The boy with the yellow eyes." He can't deny it anymore; it's a strong possibility that his brother is not a victim on this tragedy but the culprit. He didn't want to think about how there was more blood on Sam's hands, so he doesn't say anything, letting her continue.

"The boy with the yellow eyes." she says again. "He was so powerful, so destructive. So much fear and pain, so much guilt lies on those shoulders." She is speaking so quickly he can barely make out the words. He tries to ignore the pain but she's now wringing his hands in hers in panic. Her eyes that were once focused on him are jumping from place to place again as if she was afraid of being attacked.

"He has the ferocity of an avenging angel. There are things he can do that are unknown to Heaven and Hell. The things I saw him do." she stops, clearly unable to go on. Her breathing is steadily getting more erratic and she's looking a lot like Dean felt not too long ago. Dean has no idea how to help her, having never seen a person have a full-blown panic attack before. He still doesn't know what his brother did, or what this girl witnessed. He isn't sure what kind of powers Sam wielded on these people, but from the looks of it, it was bad - and not your run of the mill asshole demon bad. This was a whole new level of evil.

He cautiously raises a hand to her back, figuring if it were him, he'd also need some kind of human contact. The simple act of his touch seems to calm her down. Her breath slows and she stops holding on to his hands for dear life. They fall to the dirt where they begin to draw the same pattern over and over.

"He is death. He is sickness. He is war. And he is starvation. He is the end and the beginning." She says tiredly. "But he is still in here, deep inside, buried under darkness but still here. He was crying out, to me. He wants so badly to be saved. Save him, Dean Winchester, save your brother. They depend on it, we all do."

"How-how do you know my name? Who are you?" Dean sputters, still rattled by the whole situation.

The girl looks at him confused, how could she not know his name? He is all they ever talk about...all she ever hears. "They are all aware of your name Dean, they talk about you constantly. Especially, the odd one, the one who lost you. He talks about you the most."

"Who's they? What odd one? What are you talking about?" he says, grabbing her by the shoulders. He still doesn't get any of this, this girl, as insane as she looks, knows more then she lets on. But he never gets an answer to his question. An EMT comes over and takes her away, stating she needs to be transferred to a different hospital. As the girl walks away she looks over her shoulders and gives Dean a sad smile.

"I'll be seeing you, Dean." she says. "And so will he."

"He?" Dean calls after her. But by then she is gone, lost among the still anguished victims of Sammy's wrath. Dean is left with more questions than answers, the only thing he knows for sure is that his brother was still alive, if he is still human remains to be seen.

He looks down at the at the girl's drawing. It's the same thing over and over. Four circles, one in the center and three surrounding, it making a triangle of sorts. He wonders what it could possibly mean and if it was even important, but this girl seems to know things others don't. So he commits the pattern to memory, saving it for a later date.

One thought rings clear in his mind as he gazes down on the girl's drawing. He's alive...Sammy is alive. But it's hard to feel relief now that he knows what his brother has been up to. Even though he only knows the bits and pieces, it's not hard to imagine an enraged Sammy hurting all these people, leaving destruction and pain in his wake. It's a truth that hurts him more then anything he has ever felt in his life, even harder then when he thought his brother was dead. Because this...whatever is going on with his brother, this isn't Sam...this isn't even the shell of Sam. But if the girl's words were to be trusted Sam was still in there, still waiting for his big brother to save him.

The only issue was that the blood of all these people was on his hands now. The blood of everyone Sam has and will hurt is his responsibility, his cross to bear. If he hadn't been so concerned about saving his own neck...maybe...

It's a thought he has been trying to avoid since the night of his fathers death...it was a choice, a decision he wasn't sure he was strong enough to make. But he knows better now, he knows what road lies ahead of him. Before this is over, if he can't save Sammy...if he can't pull him back.

The thought stills his heart. He can't even put it into words. The dorky kid that he practically raised with his own hands. The boy whose short life has been shrouded with such bullshit, it was surprising he was able to make it this far. How was he supposed to end the life of his brother...his best friend...the only one who saw past the crap and into the gushy insides? Why was it that he needed to fight for the greater good? What has the world done for him so far that he had to sacrifice the only thing left in this world that he loves?

It's not fair - he shouldn't have to. Dean may act like he is all grown up and bad but he is still a kid, he still has a lot of growing to do himself. So why should he be the world's savior? Dean knows he has come to an impasse, he knows that up until this point he has been avoiding the issue, trying to find his answers in the world of books.

He can either save his brother, or kill the only family he has left. A single tear rolls down his cheek, the only bit of emotion he can handle at this point. He is so tired, so confused, and now he has the weight of the world on his shoulders. As he turns his back on the damaged building he can't help but feel as though he is heading off to war, a war that will define the relationship he has with his brother for the rest of their lives. A war that he feels like he's already lost before he's even begun to fight.

It isn't a grand moment. There is no flash of light or clap of thunder. There are no spectators, no witnesses. An angel is on the verge of losing his wings, and there is no one around to notice, let alone care.

And he feels nothing.

No pain, no fear. In fact, the only thing he does feel is a pang in his chest for the brothers and sisters he'll be leaving behind and the only home he's ever known. It's then he realizes what the fall really means. It's being alone, and being forgotten. It's being cast out and cast away. The fact that he did it for the love of two humans, the fact that he did it for what he thought was right, it didn't matter. Right now, in this moment, it didn't matter. And that was the whole point.

His fall from grace wasn't going to be sudden, or all at once. It was going to be slow and painful. Every day would come with come with a new challenge, a new hill to cross over. Every morning he will come to find himself more human, powers that he once used without thought will suddenly be gone or weakened. They want him to suffer for his choice, suffer for the love he chooses to embrace. They want him regret it, to resent the humans he is slowly becoming. But he can't do that, at this point picking between his wings and Dean wasn't a hard decision. He'd pick Dean every day for as long as time would allow him.

He doesn't know where he is, doesn't even know where to begin his journey. He suspects however that it's going to take time, even though he was still at full strength someone (he suspects Zachariah) is shielding both boys from him. If this was going to be his life now, doing things the human way, then he can't fail. He has to prove that he is more than his destiny. He has to prove that he is more than a simple foot soldier, a yes man. He has to be the kind of person worthy of being by Dean's side, someone who is worthy of his forgiveness.

So he has to hunt them down, follow their trail and make it up to them. And if by that point he's no longer an angel, if there is nothing left for him to offer, hopefully they...hopefully Dean is willing to take him as he is.

Three weeks in and he hasn't found anything. Just as he is beginning to lose hope, he happens to find her. He isn't sure who she is, or rather what she is, but he knows that she has come into contact with Dean over the last few months and that's the best he has.

He finds her in some sort of mental institution, somewhere in the wilds of America. He doesn't know who Dean would have known there, but a lead is a lead and he is going to follow it to the end.

He bypasses all the medical staff, slipping into her room in the middle of the night, his powers still allowing him the privacy and covertness he needs to pull this off. As soon as he walks into the door he can feel it, whoever this girl is, she speaks of home. There is an energy around her that is like nothing he has never seen before. Below the wisdom lies so much sadness with her, more sadness that he has ever seen in a person. She is no longer an angel and something a little more than human. Her name is on the tip of his tongue, trying to worm its way out.

Her back is towards him and she is staring out the barred window. "It's you," she whispers, still turned away from him. "I've been waiting for you. You have to make a choice now, you can't straddle the line anymore. Either you are all in, or you're not, but from what I can see, it looks like you are in this fight for the long haul."

"But I don't understand," he says, walking towards her. "I know there is something happening, something involving Sam and Dean, but I don't know what that is."

She finally turns to face him. "It's so much more then you can possibly imagine."

It isn't her face that clues him in, in fact he doesn't even recognize it. Because of constantly changing vessels, faces mean close to nothing to the angels. It's her eyes. Humans weren't half off when they said that eyes were the windows to the soul. Right there in front of him, was someone he thought he lost for good.

"Anael?" he whispers, taking a tentative step closer.

"Hello Castiel." She says, emotion thick in her voice. "It's good to see you again."

"But what-what are you doing here? I haven't seen you in so long. Why did you leave us, Anna?"

She smiles sadly and sits on her narrow bed, motioning him to sit beside her. "For the very same reasons you did, Castiel. I felt as though it was the right choice...and it didn't help that I had fallen in love."

Cas is still shocked to see her, after all these years he had assumed she had either fallen or died. But to find her here, to find her among the humans, it was still jarring.

"But why a mental hospital? Of all the places you could have ended up, why here?"

She looks upward, tears slowing drift down her cheek, her voice so thick and raw she can barely speak. "I didn't fall gracefully, Castiel." she says, smiling briefly at her choice of words. "It nearly drove me insane, knowing I was trapped with the mistake I made. I-" she stops, not able to go on. She places a hand on Castiel's, looking at him much like a mother would look at her young. "Choosing your own course of action...it's terrifying and it gets worse. I just want you to know that. It'll get worse, but you have what I never had, Castiel. You have a future."

Taking her words to heart, he gives her hand a gentle squeeze. He doesn't know why she fell or who she fell for, but he knows that she hasn't been the same since, and it breaks his heart.

She wipes away a tear and puts on a warm smile to reassure him that she is okay, but they both know she is far from it.

"Do you know about the Hunters, Castiel?" She doesn't give the angel time to answer before she continues. "There was a time when humans and angels worked together as one. Fighting against all those who wished ill upon Heaven and Earth. But the angels got too cocky. They felt as though they could protect both realms on their own without having to confide in their weaker counterparts."

She stands up and walks towards the drawings that Cas hadn't noticed are littering the walls. Pictures of great battles, and of fearsome angels taking flight. There were symbols he's never seen and names he's never heard of. It was like the present, past and future collided on her walls in bursts of lines and color.

"The humans felt as though they could no longer trust their partners." she continues. "It became a dying breed, these angel/human pairs, to the point where there would only be one every few centuries. The last one ended violently, when her angel abandoned her after her family was killed by a demon. After that the humans who still remembered the old ways wanted nothing to do with angels, and the angels felt like they were above it all. So the practice was stopped and both species went on pretending the other didn't exist. The last human to form this kind of bond with an angel just so happened to be Dean's mother, Mary Campbell, and her angel was Gabriel."

Castiel tries to process all the information he just got. He knows Gabriel, or at least he did. Much like Anna, several decades ago Gabriel left Heaven, never to be heard from again. Everyone had painted him as a traitor and a deserter, a fool who turned his back on the will of God to get lost among the humans. But Castiel never thought so. Gabriel was the only one who had ever treated him with the slightest bit of decency. He never made Cas feel different or unwanted. Sure he would make jokes at Cas' expense, but Cas never minded it because he knew the other angel meant no real ill-will.

"So Mary was a Hunter. What about her children? What do they have to do with anything?" he asks.

"There have been potential hunters since the fall of Mary's and Gabriel's partnership, kids who had what it took to be greater than the storybooks said they would, but there is something about the two of you - something that has never and will never be seen again. Didn't you feel it when you first met? He is your truth, just like you are his."

She pauses slightly, a small smile on her lips. "Don't you see, Castiel? Your connection with Dean is special. You're the first Angel and hunter pair since Mary and Gabriel. Castiel, you have a choice to make," she whispers before turning around quickly. "But first you have to find the boy with yellow eyes. You have to find Sam, Castiel."

"Sam? Yellow eyes? But why?" Cas asks, tilting his head again. He can feel something shifting, changing. Anna's eyes start to flick around the room and her body begins to shake.

"Sam, you have to find Sam. You have to find him, Castiel. You have to!" she cries. Castiel quickly stands up, but stays back, unsure of what to do.

"Yelloweyesyelloweyesyelloweyes," she begins to chant, rocking on her heels.

"Anna? Anna!?" She was beginning to scare him, shrieking at the top of her lungs. He didn't fully understand what was happening to her, or what traumas she has had to endure, but while he still had his powers, he wanted to do all he could for her. As he got closer to her she started swinging at him. At first he let her, but she was starting to get in the way of what he wanted to do. He catches her hands with his and swifty presses two fingers into her forehead. He has to do this quickly and go before anyone discovers him. From the way she is yelling, someone is bound to come looking.

She collapses in his arms and he carries her to her bed, gently pushing the hair from her face when he lays her down. She looks so peaceful, it's almost as if nothing is wrong. He wishes he could do more to help her, anything to help ease her pain, but this is the most he can do, the most he can offer her right now.

One more mournful look in her direction and he is lost in the wind. He never actually got any closer to Dean, he is as lost to Cas as he ever was. All he has is a story and a mission, to save Sam. Officially, Sam was never his charge but he feels as connected to him as he does to Dean and he will do everything is his power to save the boy.

Castiel isn't sure what to do next. He needs time to think, to plan out how to find Sam. And to top it off, he is tired, so incredibly tired. He has never known weariness like this, he can feel it deep in his bones. He knows that humans go through this often but it's still frightening, still alien, and he knows he doesn't like the way it feels. He slips undetected into a motel room, having no money to actually pay for it. Cas just needs a quiet space, somewhere to recharge then he'll be off again.

He lays on the bed for what seems like hours, as tired as he is, he can't will himself sleep so he turns on the T.V, hoping the soft lights will lull him. He gets lost in glimpses of cooking shows, sex scandals, murders and riots, never really taking much interest in anything he sees. Until he sees one news report that chills him to his tired bones.

The news reporter can't help but to have fear leak from his voice as he speaks. Images of burning buildings and screaming people pass behind him like some sort of surreal movie.

You join us now in Birmingham, Michigan, the latest city hit in the rash of terrorist attacks that have been plaguing the nation for the past few weeks. Reports are still unclear but it seems like thousands of been injured and killed in today's attack. In a statement given by the US government this morning, they urge citizens to stay calm and stay inside. If you have information, please call the 1-800 number at the bottom of the screen.

Castiel is stunned, being around for as long as he has, he has seen war and pain so this is nothing new. He has seen nations go down in flames and single individuals committing such heinous acts that it was sickening. But this...these were his people now...these humans, they were his family and the fact that they could do such a thing to each other...it was saddening.

However, in almost every attack, there are reports of a young boy, between the ages of 13 and 15. No one knows who he is, but it's been reported that he just stands there watching the cities burn around him, ignoring officials who advise him to get out the way. Several witnesses have come forward with claims of seeing his eyes flash bright yellow.

A rough sketch of the child's face pops up next to the reporter's head, and Castiel can't help but to feel his heart ache once more.

If anyone knows the whereabouts of this child, who he is, or who he might be affiliated with please call the 1-800 number at the bottom of the screen...wait...this just in! Witnesses say that the yellow eyed boy has been spotted in Lawrence, Kansas. If you see him do not approach him, leave him for officials to take care of. Please folks, stay close to home, stay close to your families and stay safe. This is reporter Benjamin Cantwell. Goodnight America.

Castiel stares at the TV screen in shock. Even though it's been a while he would know that face anywhere. He doesn't understand. What happened to that innocent little face? The bouncing baby boy that cooed in happiness when Mary sang to him. How did fourteen years turn him into this...this killer? Thousands of them, Sam has killed thousands of people.

He has to stop him, no matter what the cost. Cas barely thinks before he zapping himself to Lawrence. And what he finds there affects him more than he could have even thought possible. The quiet town is in ruins. Other than the occasional shriek, it seems like the place is abandoned.

"Please, please help me." He whips his head around looking for the source of the voice. Several feet away lies a girl in the dirt. She is covered in so much blood that it's almost impossible to know where it is all coming from. In her hand is a blood soaked teddy bear that she is holding onto for dear life.

"Please, it hurts so much...please."

He runs to her, and gently strokes her hair before healing her. "What is your name?" he whispers.

At first she looks at him with fear, she had been in so much pain, there was so much fear gripping her heart, than all of a sudden it was gone as if it had never been there to begin with. She's suspicious, but also very grateful.

"Claire, my name is Claire. Are you an angel?"

Castiel smiles sadly at her. "I used to be, Claire. Where are your parents?"

Tears roll down her face as she recalls what must be a painful memory for her. "My dad...my dad is dead. That boy...I saw that boy kill my dad without even touching him. And I don't know where my mom is...I can't find her."

"Well, if it isn't Castiel the angel. Long time no see, Cas."

Castiel grips the girl by the shoulders and forces her to look at him. "You need to run, now. Whatever happens don't look back, don't hesitate just run." The girl nods once and jumps to her feet, running as fast as her newly healed legs will take her. 'Goodbye, Claire.' he thinks as he slowly turns to face the newcomer. "Sam," he says.

"So we meet again, Castiel. It's been...fourteen years since we last saw each other? Looks like we both did a little growing up." he laughs, a sick, cold laugh that has no business coming out of the mouth of someone so young.

"Why are you doing this, Sam?" Cas says hesitantly. Sam is being cordial for now, but who knows how long that is going to last. The look in the boy's eyes says that any moment could be his last.

"Why not? That's the thing about humanity, CA's. Its very foundation is misery and suffering. They are all just sheep waiting for the slaughter. They just want to be told what to do, how to feel. Who am I to deny the people what they want, Castiel...what they deserve?" Sam laughs again, his yellow eyes flickering with the flames he was still staring at.

"Did you come here to kill me?" he says quietly. "Come here to put an end to all this pain I've caused? Are you trying to play the hero? Make up for being such a complete failure of an angel?" With every word his voice grows louder, unadulterated rage slowly streaming in.

"You are weak! You all are! So try and stop me Cas! Put an end to this. Save the world, get the girl, the whole nine yards, I dare you. In fact..." he holds his arms out wide as if inviting Castiel in for a hug. "I would love nothing better. Show me what you've got, Castiel, show me what you have hidden underneath that trenchcoat. Show me that you are worth the breath I'm wasting speaking to you."

Cas isn't sure how much he can do. As of now he is still at full power, but given his lack of energy as if late, who knows when his powers might fail him. He fears the worst, but he hasn't backed away from anything to this point, and he wasn't about to begin now. He can feel the cold reassurance as his angel blade slides into his hand.

"You must stop this, Sam, I don't want to hurt you."

Sam howls with laughter. "You? Hurt me? Do you know who you're speaking to? I'm the Demon Prince. I'm Death. I'm your worst nightmare and every dark thought brought to life. You could never hurt me, Castiel...but I'm still waiting for you to try."

Cas hesitates for a beat before charging, angel blade flipping in his hand. They struggle against each other for a while before Sam throws him against a wall. He clutches his side as blood gushes through his fingers. He looks up and gives Cas a smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes. "You got me angel...congrats, that won't happen again."

Sam pins him to the wall with a flick of a hand. "I could kill you, you know," he whispers. "I could make you suffer more than you ever imagined possible. I could make your worst dreams seem so life like you'll never be able to tell what's real again. I could destroy you with nothing more than a finger." He grabs the angel blade from Castiel's hands and slowly sticks it in his side. The smile he was wearing before grows wider as he watches Cas struggle with not screaming. "Not giving me the satisfaction of a scream, Cas?" he says mockingly. "We'll see about that."

He digs it in further, twisting it, taking complete pleasure in the look of pain Cas was now showing.

"Please..." Castiel manages to mumble.

Sam brings a hand to his ear, acting as though he didn't hear what the angel said. "What? Didn't hear you there, Cas...say that again."

"Please. Your mother-Mary wouldn't want this for you."

The cold smile now slips from the young boy's face. "Mary? You really want to talk about my mother right now? You know, I blamed myself for this. I thought I was unclean, I thought I was being punished for her wrongful death. But then I realized something; this is your fault! If you had just done your job right, if you and your kind had protected her like you promised you would, none of this would be happening. Yellow Eyes wouldn't have gotten into my head, I wouldn't have killed my own father, Dean wouldn't have left me in that hellhole to rot. I wouldn't have become a fucking freak!"

Sam raises his fist, lifting Castiel's body into the air along with it. "You should have tried harder!" he screams. "You should have known better! You call yourselves the keepers of God's will, the warriors of the weak. But you're not! You are just a bunch of liars and cowards!"

It finally dawns on Castiel that this runs much deeper than a small town boy with demonic tendencies. The world was falling apart around their ears and no one, not God, not the Hosts of Heaven, no one was doing a damn thing to stop it.

Sam is screaming into the wind now, tears falling as uncontrollable anger courses through his tiny body like a flash flood. He slams his fist down, throwing Castiel's body into the ground. "Fine! Let's talk about my mother then, Cas. Let's talk about how I can't even remember her face." He rips the angel blade from Cas' side and shoves it in his thigh. He doesn't want to kill the falling angel yet, but ripping his vessel to shreds was a start.

"Let's talk about how my own father wasn't capable of giving two shits about my brother and I. Let's talk about how when the first bullet ripped through his drunkard body he didn't even give me a look of surprise, or disappointment. He looked at me like he was expecting this to happen eventually."

Sam waves his hands wildly and slashes appear on Cas' body, blood spilling out, with no sign of stopping.

"Let's talk about how everything I have ever loved, either died, or walked out on me! Let's talk about Dean! Dean was my family, my brother, and he betrayed me. He thought it would be better to send me away than to help me fight this together like we should have. I have been with him through everything, and he didn't find me worthy of saving. He threw me away like yesterday's trash and he didn't give me a second thought."

His hands wrap around the angels throat now, perfectly content in strangling the life out of him if he had to. Rage is now a permanent feature in his eyes. No more flashes or flickers. What was once cold and calculated was now white hot and wild. This was the boy who could stroll into a town and watch it burn around him. This was the boy who could listen to thousands scream and cry and feel nothing. This was the boy who could kill his father in cold blood and never lose a day of sleep.

This is the secret of Sam's power. Yellow Eyes did nothing more than personify every emotion the boy was already feeling a hundred fold. So what started as guilt, and pain changed into hate and fury in a blink of an eye. And the longer Sam continued to tap into those feelings, the longer he would continue down the path of his own destruction.

Cas can barely breathe, let alone speak as Sam continues to attempt at crushing his throat, but he has to try, he has to get through to the boy.

"Sam...Sam," he manages to gasp. "All this time he has been trying to help you, he loves you more than anything."

Sam is too far gone to really focus on Castiel's words. He pulls the blade out of Cas' leg and dangles it over his heart. "Goodbye, Cas." He plunges the blade in without a second thought and Castiel screams in pain as his being is ripped apart cell by cell. What is left of his angelic properties tries to repair him at the same time. It's like poison killing everything in sight while his powers rush to put it all back together. The battle between destruction and repair is a losing one. All he can see is white blinding lights, burning his eyes and taking all sights of Sam with it.

'This is what dying must feel like.' Cas thinks to himself. And for the first time since he left Heaven he isn't afraid. In his long existence he has done exactly what was expected of him time and time again. This was the first time he has ever done something because he thought it was right. Tabris was right. Free will was a poisonous rose, beautiful to behold, but destructive and damning in the long run. He is just glad he got the chance to know what it felt like, what it meant to be free.

His grace is being ripped to ribbons as if it were nothing, the very last thing he regrets before succumbing to the darkness is that he never saw Dean again. That he never saw those great green eyes flash in excitement and joy again. That he will never get to say sorry for that night, and for all the pain he caused. That he never gets the chance to say that he...that he...

He wonders about the state of his wings, and how they will be forever imprinted on the ground beneath him. The final resting place of the fallen angel who gave his life for humanity.

'Funny,' he thinks. Death feels warm and soft, like the blanket Dean used to carry around when he was scared.

Dean.

The name of his old charge brings him peace. Cas figures it's kind of poetic that way. Dean was the one who helped him live, it was only fitting he would help him die. Wrapped in warmth indicative of a mother's love, Castiel the angel breaths his very last, thinking only of wings, and the boy he lost.