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Cas... Cas wake up.
Dean blinks, eyes sore from too many tears, too much crying.
Cas!
It doesn’t matter how many times he blinks, the world - his vision - is still blurry, still unfocused.
Sammy! Sammy help!
Maybe there is no world to focus on. Maybe it all disappeared and he’s no longer alive... he hopes he isn’t alive.
Cas... C-Cas... please...
Maybe the blackness that he saw, that was covering… maybe it took over the world, took over his body, killed him too.
Come back to me Cas, please...
He wants to be dead, maybe - hopefully he is.
I can’t - Cas... I can’t lose you again, please come back to me
His vision clears, focuses, for a second and he sees Sam, Jody, talking across the room. He’s not dead... dammit.
No... I... Sammy he... he’s not...
He’s not dead. But he might as well be. His life starts and ends with one person and that person is ...
Dead... he’s d-dead Sam... I... fuck... I don’t know what happened.
A noise. A muffled noise hits his ears and he looks around. Sam... he’s standing near now, looking at him.
I don’t know what happened Sammy.
Sam’s mouth is moving. He knows that much. But all that’s coming out is muffled noises.
He’s gone Sammy.
He feels like he’s underwater. Like all the noises are underwater. He knows the sounds are probably words but he can’t tell for sure - can’t separate the consonants from the vowels long enough to understand.
He hangs his head, stares at the ground, trying to get his senses working again. But it’s too damn hard.
Everything is too damn hard.
He even has to remind himself to breathe in, to breathe out.
“Dean,” A name... his name. Sammy’s voice, he thinks.
There’s a strong hand on his back, and he turns his head, lifts it slightly, meets Sam’s waiting gaze.
“Dean can you hear me?” Sam asks, all soft cautious words like he’s trying not to scare a wounded puppy.
Dean let’s his head hang again, let’s his gaze drift back to the floor.
He needs to answer Sam.
He can do that, it’s just three words. Three small words, he can do it. Not too hard, all he needs to do right now is speak, answer his brother.
“I can now,” his voice is hoarse - croaky and scratchy.
Hoarse from screaming, from crying, from shouting for Sammy, for...
“Good,” Sam’s certain tone cuts through Dean’s erratic thoughts, creating space for Dean to at least try to listen.
He can listen.
He can try to process the words, that’s not a difficult act, or at least, it shouldn’t be.
“Jody and the girls are here, so is Rowena,” Sam pauses, briefly. “They’re here to stay for a few days, and for the hunters funeral for...”
Dean doesn’t hear the last part. His brain clicks off at ‘hunters funeral’.
Instead of listening more, of processing, Dean’s brain panics, sends a thousand words, thoughts, memories through like crashing waves drowning him.
And then he’s struggling to breathe.
He’s almost sure he’s hyperventilating or maybe it’s a panic attack.
“Dean hey -“ he’s cut off by a harsh ragged breath that leaves Dean’s lungs.
“Okay, hey, just... breathe Dean, slowly,” Sam guides, rubbing a hand up and down his back like he’s a child. “In... and out...”
Dean, ignores the embarrassment, forgets the dignity for a moment and copies Sam’s slow breathing.
There’s that panic still in his throat, a sickness in his stomach, but his breathing eases, slows down to a more regular pace.
‘Can’t even breathe, how useless,’ he thinks, bitterly.
Sam sighs.
“Okay, uh... never-mind about that but I just have to head out, find some wood,” he clears his throat. “Jody will keep an eye on you, get you cleaned up.”
Cleaned up.
Dean looks at his shaking hands, at the dark red, dried blood covering the skin, all the way from his fingertips to his elbows.
There’s black stains too, from the weird goo.
So much blood. Not his blood but...
He can’t even think it, his brain cuts off every time, finding the end of the sentences - the thought trails - too painful, so it checks out, doesn’t finish.
“You’ll be okay Dean, I promise,” Sam says.
A lie.
It’s a stupid lie told for the benefit of his weak, broken soul.
He won’t be okay.
Not ever again. There’s no okay for him anymore.
Only pain, only shattered glass stuck in his heart.
And it will take him forever to pull the shards out, so maybe he’ll just live with them stuck there.
He can’t imagine letting himself heal. No, the shards can stay - stuck deep, buried in the muscle and blood of his pumping organ.
He doesn’t need it anymore - his heart.
It was only ever meant to beat for one person.
And that person is now gone.