Author's Note:

VioletIsInPain - you really made me laugh with that one. Evil laugh right back at you my friend ;)

And again thanks for reading guys, something a lot of you have been waiting for happens in this chapter :D

"Look at me."

Castiel shuddered, his eyes were closed again and he could hear the sweet voice beside him.

"Cas. What are you doing? He isn't me. Why are you doing this? Look at me, Cas."

"No." Castiel choked out the word with a bitter sound, he could feel the tears burning behind his eyes and he didn't want them. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"You're in love with another man?"

"You're dead."

"You love someone who isn't me?"

Cas rolled over and shoved him backward, opening his eyes enough to see the pale and lifeless face his nightmares loved to show him. "Get away from me. You aren't the memory of him that I wanted to keep."

"You'd love anyone that looks like me, wouldn't you? You whore."

"Shut up!"

"Cheater. Unfaithful liar! They're all going to leave you. They're all going to die. You're going to kill them."

"I said SHUT UP!" Cas shrieked as energy boiled up in him and blasted out from his hands, sending the corpse of his husband flying. There was nothing left but a mark on the wall. Cas sobbed and writhed on the bed, curling in on himself.

"Cas!"

That voice again. He could still hear Dean's voice.

"Cas! Cas! CAS!"

On repeat like an alarm. "Stop it! Leave me alone!" Cas cried and thrashed out at what felt like arms on his shoulders, shaking him. "Stop it!"

"Cas it's me, wake up!"

Wake up? Castiel opened his eyes again and looked up, seeing the corpse again looming over him, a hand on his arm and leaning down. Cas felt frozen for a few seconds as the hands wrapped around his neck again, that familiar pressure of dying. He screamed and screamed until his airway was blocked, arms flying up, about to incinerate him again when he heard a voice he wasn't used to hearing in this place anymore.

"Cas! That's enough, calm down!"

Sam. And then another hand pulled him away and down to the bed, an entirely different person than the Winchesters.

"C'mon man, you got this. Just cool it."

Jet. Jet wasn't supposed to be there. Cas struggled but soon relaxed into the bed, the mattress was so hard and uncomfortable and the vision of his husband altered to a living man with worried green eyes.

"Dean?" He rasped out the name as tears slipped from his eyes and tickled their way down to his ears. "I… I…" he didn't have words to say, instead he let it all unravel again. Despite having let it out before he always had more to release. The pain piled on him like a mountain of rubble just crushing him until he could find a way to stop it. "It never stopped hurting, waking up alone, cold and distant." Cas babbled out the words as his friends closed in, dropping their holds on him. Dean immediately propped him up in his arms and held on, cradling his partner close to him. Cas sobbed into his shoulder, trying to curl in on himself further. "It never stopped hurting, I'm so tired."

"Shhh," Dean pet through Castiel's hair gently, not making any sudden movements or asking any stupid questions for the moment. "Try to relax, Cas. You're okay now, you're safe."

"It hurts." Cas whined, ignoring Dean's words or possibly not even hearing them. "It hurts to think, it hurts to move. I'm so scared, Dean."

"What's scaring you?" Dean wished the heartbroken sound of Castiel's voice didn't make him feel that way but it did. He was angry that he didn't know what was causing it, that he couldn't do anything about it.

"This… whole thing. Everything that's happening. I thought I knew how it all worked, I thought it was so simple and easy to keep going to different worlds but it isn't. It isn't. I don't hear the celestials anymore; they should be back by now. I don't know what they are, how much of this is real or how much is twisted in a timeline. I thought I knew it but I don't know anything. I'm so helpless!" Castiel's hand grasped at Dean's shirt, pulling at it.

"We all are, Cas." Sam tried to be calm as well, wondering where the hell this had all come from. "There's no reason to panic."

"That's entirely why we should be panicking, Sam! These stupid holy beings can get into our heads and control us from wherever they are. They activate magic inside us that shouldn't be possible, that we shouldn't be able to do. As soon as they touch our minds we can use magic, Dean… Dean you can't do it that well, can you?" Cas looked up at Dean again, his eyes wide and frantic.

"No… but Cas you just woke up, you're really out of it. Try to calm down." Dean partially wished Cas would just go back to sleep, he was babbling and crying and jumping between emotions too fast to be good for him.

"You can't feel it like I can, you can't do the things I do. I don't know how I know what I'm doing, I don't know what the spells are that come out of me. They hurt me." The tears still dripped down his face as he looked directly into Dean's eyes, "It hurts me in ways I didn't know I could feel pain. Ever since we started running into other versions of ourselves, ever since we met I can't… I can't control it like I used to. It burns. Everything. Everything hurts, Dean. It hurts. It hurts. I want it to be over. I'm so tired. I wanna go home. It hurts."

"Cas!" Dean grabbed his shoulders and shook him a little, "Calm down, just stop okay?"

Castiel's lower lip quivered as he nodded his head, just nodding and then shaking it, bringing his hands to his face trying to wipe the tears away. "They won't stop…" he whispered, "I can't… Dean I'm scared. Don't go. Please. Don't leave me, don't go. I can't stop crying."

Dean cradled Cas again, holding as tightly as he could, "I'm not going to leave you, not ever."

Castiel sobbed violently into his chest for a few moments before passing out again, dropping limp in his arms. Dean stared down at him for a second before looking up at Sam and Jet who were as shocked as he was.

"Okay, I think he needs to stop with the magic for a while." Jet pointed vaguely in Cas' direction. "It really messes with him."

"I'm kind of worried…" Sam reached over and pet Castiel's hair a little. "He's usually so pulled together, whatever nightmare that was it didn't make anything any better."

"Cas has had a rough time," Dean said softly, "But I think we should give him a break. Don't bug him about this; don't ask him unless he wants to talk about it. Just show him we're here, alright? He's really stressed out and that kind of magic puts a huge strain on him."

"He said you can't do it like he can, that true?" Jet raised an eyebrow, wincing a bit because his face still kind of hurt.

"He and I don't have the same skill sets, we're similar but each one of us has better qualities in one thing than the other and so on. Cas is more magical than I am in most cases, except I can exorcise demoni where he can't. It's stuff like that, we're a team and we're meant to take things on together." Dean gently laid Castiel to rest and sat down beside the bed, keeping his hand close and touching something so that Cas knew he wasn't alone.

"Makes sense…" Sam nodded and sat next to Jet's bed again, looking back at the journal. "Guess we'll be here for a bit longer then."

"Looks that way." Dean shrugged, not really caring too much about it.

It took a few hours but soon Castiel was up again, acting like nothing had really changed though maybe a bit tired. Like other times he was healed up and Dean sat at his side, his mouth pulled tight in a worried expression as Castiel readied himself to leave. Sam and Jet had gone out for a quick walk so it was just them in there now. "Cas," He started and paused, watching how Castiel shook his head.

"Don't… I don't know, so don't ask me."

"You don't know what I was going to ask."

"Doesn't matter, I don't know the answer." Cas didn't look at him and all Dean could do was wonder why.

"How are you feeling?"

"I don't know." Castiel looked over at him, his eyes a little puffy from crying earlier and Dean could see it all in the stormy blue. Cas knew what had happened, if even just a little. "Dean… I'm sorry. I don't know why I said all that."

"Don't worry about it," Dean stood up and went behind Cas, wrapping his arms around the other priest and resting there for a moment. It felt nice; to have Castiel in his arms this way. "We just want you to know we're here with you, always."

"I know you are…" Cas sighed and rested back against Dean, a smile coming to his lips. "I'm just stressed out…"

"A lot of things have changed for you too, I understand that you'd be a bit out of it. Like I said, don't worry about it."

Cas turned his head a little and looked at Dean, really looked and for a second Dean thought they could speak to one another without actually saying a word. He knew it was impossible for that but it still felt like they were actually that close.

"You know I really care about you." Dean whispered, his arms around Castiel's middle tightening just enough to let Cas know they were still there.

"I do." Castiel licked his lips briefly; he looked as though he were considering so many things at once. Things he could say or do, but none of it really mattered, all that mattered was that little moment they shared. Just the closeness and the feeling that he wasn't alone in the universe. Cas closed his eyes and let himself forget for few seconds, forget all the things that led him there, all the pain and the anguish and insanity. It was just them, just that room.

"Dean…" He whispered the name so softly he wasn't even sure it was actually out loud and not in his head. But Dean replied with an equally soft sound, just a little groan from his throat to indicate he'd heard. Castiel smiled and folded his hands over Dean's, feeling so much more at ease and safer than he'd ever felt before.

"I love you."

There was another soft sound from Dean's throat, the same 'hm' as before but mixed in with a chuckle.

"What's funny?" Cas asked, not really taking offense, just smiling, glad to be where he was.

Dean squeezed him gently and buried his face in the crook of Cas' neck. "You stole my line."

Castiel laughed.