Chapter Text
Castiel appears at the top of the stairs, taking in the scene below. The bodies, the blood, Dean with a gun, you standing between him and a terrified kid. He comes down slowly, eyes never leaving Dean.
"Please," you whisper. "Don't make me watch you kill an innocent person. Don't make me watch you become the thing you've spent your whole life hunting."
Dean's jaw clenches. The gun lowers, just an inch.
"Dean."
Castiel's voice is gentle, concerned, but something about it makes Dean's shoulders tense.
You step to the side slightly, still shielding Cyrus but making room. Charlie moves closer too, a united front. Dean looks at Castiel, then at you and Charlie, and his expression changes, confusion mixing with the anger, like he's only just now registering that he's pointing a gun in a room with people he cares about. The gun lowers a few more inches. Not holstered, but not aimed at Cyrus anymore either.
Castiel reaches the bottom of the stairs. "Dean. What have you done?"
"You killed them. You were going to kill that boy." Castiel's looking at the bodies, Roscoe and Eldon, and his expression is pained.
"I took down some monsters. Because that's what I do."
"And I'll continue to do that until…" Dean doesn't finish.
"Until you become the monster." Castiel's voice is quiet but firm.
Dean's face hardens again.
"You can leave now, Cas."
"No. I can't. Because I'm your friend."
Something flashes in Dean's eyes. You see pain, or maybe anger at the word 'friend' when everything feels so broken.
"Really? Well let me ask you something. Do you screw over all your friends?"
Castiel's expression doesn't change, steady and resolute. "Sam and I were trying to cure you! We still are!"
You nod, adding quietly, "We all are, Dean. All of us."
"Like hell," Dean says.
"We can read the Book now," Castiel continues.
"Oh so what? So you MIGHT find a spell that MIGHT take this crap off my arm? But even if you do, what's it gonna cost? 'Cause magic like that does not come free. No, it comes with a price that you pay in blood. So thanks, but I'm good."
Dean turns to leave. Castiel reaches out, grabs his shoulder.
"No! You're not."
Dean shrugs off the hand, but Castiel steps in front of him, blocking his path.
"Maybe you could fight the Mark for years. Maybe centuries, like Cain did. But you cannot fight it forever. And when you finally turn, and you will turn… Sam, and everyone you know, everyone you love… they could be long dead. Everyone except me. I'm the one who will have to watch you murder the world. So if there's even a small chance that we can save you, I won't let you walk out of this room."
Dean's voice goes cold. “Oh you think you have a choice?”
"I think the Mark is changing you."
"You're wrong."
"Am I? Because the Dean Winchester I know would never have tried to murder that kid and you would have."
For a second, something cracks in Dean's expression. It's guilt, maybe, or the ghost of who he used to be. Then it's gone, replaced by something bitter and hard.
"Yeah well, that Dean's always been kind of a dick."
Dean tries to move past Castiel again, but the angel puts an arm on his shoulder to stop him and doesn't budge. “Dean. I don't wanna have to hurt you.”
"I don't think that's gonna be a problem."
Dean grabs Castiel's hand and wrenches it off of his shoulder, then punches him hard in the face with his other hand.
You want to move, you want to stop this, but Cyrus is still on the floor behind you and you can't leave him unprotected. You realize for the first time you're really afraid of Dean right now, in this state. “Dean! No! It's Cas. Please stop.”
Dean punches Castiel over and over, then throws him on the floor. Castiel, bloody, gets up, still trying to stop Dean from leaving. In a strong, commanding yet calm voice he says, “Dean. Stop.”
“Dean, No! Stop!” Charlie's voice is high with alarm.
Dean turns around halfway to the doorway and launches a new attack on Castiel, beating him up worse than before. As Castiel lies on the floor, half conscious and coughing up blood, Dean pulls the angel blade from his coat. He grabs Castiel's tie and prepares to stab him.
“No,” you whisper, horror freezing you in place.
Castiel pleads with him. “No, Dean. Please.” Then he coughs and blood comes up.
Dean stares coldly at Castiel, holding the angel blade. For a moment, an endless, terrible moment, you think he's actually going to do it. Dean strikes with the angel blade, and stands up. He has stabbed a book next to Castiel's face.
Walking away, he says, “All of you stay the hell away from me. Next time I won't miss.”
You all watch Dean leave in horror. He turns, walks past you and Charlie without looking at either of you, past Cyrus still huddled on the floor. His footsteps echo as he climbs the stairs. Then the bunker door closes, and he's gone.
The silence that follows is deafening.
You're moving before you can think, rushing to Castiel's side. Charlie's right there with you, both of you dropping to your knees next to the angel's broken body.
“Cas,” you breathe, hands hovering, not sure where to touch. “Oh God, Cas.”
He tries to smile, manages something closer to a grimace.
“I'm… I'm alright.”
“You're not alright,” Charlie says, voice shaking. “Jesus, Cas, your face…” Blood is everywhere. It's streaming from his nose, dripping from cuts on his face. His left eye is swelling shut, and when he tries to move, he makes a sound of pain that cuts straight through you.
“Can you heal yourself?” you ask urgently.
“No,” he says, defeat heavy in the word. “My grace… it's still not fully restored. I can't.”
“Okay.” You force yourself to think clearly, to push past the shock. “Okay, we'll do it the human way. Charlie, first aid kit?”
“I know where it is.” Charlie's already up, already moving toward the infirmary.
Behind you, there's movement. Cyrus is getting shakily to his feet, still looking shell-shocked, staring at the bodies of his family dead on the floor.
“Is he…” Cyrus's voice is barely a whisper. “Is he going to be okay?”
“I don't know,” you admit. Then, because the kid looks like he's about to shatter: “But we're going to help him. You… you should probably go. Get out of here before…"
“Before he comes back?” Cyrus's laugh is bitter, broken. “Yeah. Yeah, I should.” He moves toward the stairs, then pauses. “I'm sorry. For what they did. For all of it. I'm sorry.” You nod, not trusting yourself to speak. “Thank you,” Cyrus says suddenly, looking at you. “For… for stopping him. For seeing that I wasn't…” His voice breaks. “Thank you.” Then he's gone, footsteps fading as he runs up the stairs and out into the night.
Charlie returns with the first aid kit, her face pale but determined. She kneels on Castiel's other side, opening the kit with practiced efficiency. “Okay. Let's see what we're dealing with.”
The next hour is a blur of gauze and antiseptic and trying to patch together an angel who can't heal himself. Castiel's nose is broken. You have to set it while he bites down on a leather strap to keep from crying out. His lip is split and needs butterfly bandages. Cuts above both eyebrows. Bruised ribs, possibly cracked. A concussion, almost certainly. Charlie works with quiet competence, hands steady even though you can see the fear in her eyes. You help where you can, holding pressure, passing supplies, keeping Castiel as still as possible.
He bears it all with stoic endurance, but you can see the pain in his eyes. And underneath the physical pain, the devastation of being beaten nearly to death by someone he loves.
“I should have let him go,” Castiel says at one point, voice slurred from the swelling. “When he wanted to leave, I should have just… let him.”
“No,” you say firmly. “You were trying to help him. That's not wrong.”
“It nearly got me killed.”
“But it didn't.” Charlie's voice is gentle. “You're alive, Cas. That's what matters.”
Castiel's tone is bitter. “Am I? Because I feel pretty close to dead at the moment.”
You want to offer comfort, but what can you say? Dean beat him. Dean, who Castiel has died for, who he's rebelled against Heaven for, who he's sacrificed everything to protect.
“He'll come back,” you say quietly, because you have to believe it. “The real Dean. He'll come back, and he'll hate himself for this, but we'll all get through it together.”
Castiel looks at you, and there's such profound sadness in his gaze. “Will we? Because I'm beginning to wonder if there's anything left of Dean to come back to.” The question hangs in the air, unanswerable.
“Cas, I’ve seen it. Not the whole thing yet, but I know, I mean I can feel that we will get him back. I know it.”
Charlie finishes with the last bandage, sits back on her heels. “Okay. That's all I can do. You need rest, probably actual medical attention, but…”
“But we can't take him to a hospital,” you finish. Charlie nods grimly.
You look around the war room. There's blood on the floor, bodies that need to be dealt with, destruction everywhere. The Stynes came to burn the bunker. They failed, but only because Dean got here first. Only because he became exactly the kind of monster they were.
“We need to call Sam,” Charlie says. “He needs to know what happened.” You nod, pulling out your phone. Your hands are shaking. Probably from the adrenaline crash.
The phone rings once, twice. Sam picks up on the third ring, his voice urgent.
“Where are you? I got your message about the Stynes, are you…"
“We're at the bunker,” you interrupt. “Sam, you need to come back. Now. It's… it's bad.”
There's a pause, heavy with dread. “How bad?”
You look at Castiel, battered and bloody on the floor. At Charlie, pale and shaken. At the bodies, at the blood.
“Dean was here. He killed them. The Stynes. And then he…” Your voice breaks. “He almost killed Cas, Sam. He beat him half to death.”
“I'm on my way,” Sam says immediately. “Is Cas okay? Are you…”
“We're ok. Cas is… he's alive. But Sam, Dean's gone. He left. And I don't…”
You can't finish. “I know,” Sam says quietly. “I know. Just stay there. I'm on my way.” He hangs up.
“Sam's coming,” you tell Charlie and Castiel. Castiel nods weakly.
The three of you sit in the war room, surrounded by the aftermath of violence, waiting. Charlie reaches over, takes your hand, squeezes it. You squeeze back, and tears start streaming down your face.
Somewhere out there, Dean is driving, becoming more monster and less man with every passing moment. And here, in the blood-stained war room, all you can do is wait, and hope, and pray that there's still enough of Dean Winchester left to save.