Chapter Text
The gun sounded, and the young Styne boy was dead before he fell to the floor. Dean didn't feel anything. Not that this was new, he was accustomed to apathy when killing. It was how he didn't lose it.
"Dean!" Cas called from around the corner. Dean turned. Cas spied the boy, blood pooling around his head as he lay in the thick of it, face-down. He glared accusingly at Dean. "What have you done?" He growled. Dean didn't shy away from the angel's angry stare, however. He held his own, and glared right back. Cas examined the boy. "You killed him." He answered, though no one needed to.
"I took down a monster." Dean replied, stuffing his gun back down his pants. "Because that's what I do. And I will continue to do that until-" Cas stood and faced the hunter that was once his Dean. He had changed, just like their daughter, but slower, and more subtlety.
"Until you become the monster." Cas finished for him.
"You can leave now, Cas." Dean dismissed, and turned his back on the angel that was no longer his own. They had grown apart, and their love wasn't as it used to be. It was broken, and beginning to become very one-sided.
"No!" Cas spat. "I can't. Because I'm your friend." Dean turned on Cas.
"Really? Well let me ask you something: You screw over all your friends?!" Dean yelled in Cas' face.
"Sam and I were trying to cure you!" Cas yelled back. "We still are!"
"Like hell!"
"We can read the book now."
"Oh, so what? So you might find a spell that might take this crap off my arm? Look, 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 turned away again, but Cas caught him with a hand on Dean's shoulder.
"No." Cas stated again. He stood in front of Dean and looked the hunter in the eyes. "You're not. Maybe you could fight the Mark for years. Maybe even 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 am 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." Cas explained, his heart breaking inside. This was it- the break-up he'd known was coming, but had ignored out of stubborn will. And now it was here. He knew Dean would resist, and this couldn't end well, no matter what either of them did. He wished he could tell Dean how much he loved him before everything went wrong. But he won't. He can't.
"Oh, you think you have a choice." Dean snapped.
"I think the Mark is changing you." Which was a lie, because Cas didn't think this, he knew.
"You're wrong." Dean denied.
"Am I? Because the Dean Winchester I know would never have murdered that kid." Cas argued. Dean looked at the dead boy and back at Cas.
"Yeah, well...that Dean's always been kind of a dick." Dean answered, trying once again to get past the angel. Cas stopped him again with a hand on Dean's solid chest. The chest that Cas had spent so many nights laying on. His comfort, his protection.
And now...his doom.
Goodbye, Dean.
"Dean! I don't want to have to hurt you." Cas said slowly. Dean looked back at Cas, and the angel knew Dean was gone from the moment the next few words left the hunter's mouth:
"I don't think that's gonna be a problem."
Goodbye, Cas.
Dean grabbed Cas' hand on him, twisted it, probably breaking it, and swung his arm to hit the angel in the face. Cas put his other hand on Dean.
"Dean."
Dean hit and kneed Cas in the face, and sent the angel toward the pile of books on the floor.
"Dean." Cas repeated, getting up off the floor. "Stop." He called through his bloody lips. Dean stormed towards Cas, and punched him again. Dean swung his head into Cas, kneed him again, and kicked him into the table. Then he slammed Cas' head down on the hard wooden table again and again. Then he threw the helpless angel to the floor. Grabbing Cas' angel blade, he straddled the angel and held the blade high, ready to kill. Dean grabbed Cas' tie, and Cas grabbed Dean's hand weakly. "Dean." Cas called softly, voice gravelly and fighting to emerge through the blood he was coughing up. He looked into the eyes of the hunter that was once his, but was no more. Cas didn't care about the blade, or the Mark, or the fact that Dean was surely about to kill him. "Please." He whispered, begging Dean to hear the I love you in his word.
Dean stared down with a certain coldness that only few people would know. But as Dean stared down at Cas, the love with the angel that had once touched him in a way nothing else could, his gaze softened, for if only a moment, but it still was a moment. His hand with the blade shook, and Cas closed his eyes. Dean remembered a time from a few years ago, when a certain brain-washed angel with blue eyes in a trench coat had beaten Dean to a pulp and dropped the blade after Dean pleaded with him not to. Dean realized what he had to do. The blade soared down by Dean's hand, stabbing the book next to Castiel's head. Dean stood, still staring down at the angel who very slowly opened his eyes. Dean walked away, but on his way out, he called over his shoulder:
"You and Sam stay the hell away from me." He said with as much authority as he could. "Next time I won't miss." His voice broke, and he slammed the door behind him on his way out.
Cas didn't move. He couldn't. His body was broken and so was his heart. He wanted to chase after Dean and tell him just how much he needed help, but the angel didn't go after Dean. Whatever they once had, whatever love Dean had felt for Cas...was now gone. A sob bubbled out of his burning throat, and tears flowed from his eyes.
"Dean..." Cas called weakly, voiced cracked. "Dean, please come back..." The angel closed his eyes and let his crying consume him. "Please... I need you." He pleaded in broken sobs. "I loved you..."
And deep down, Castiel knew the Dean he loved was long dead.
~fin~