Chapter Text
He doesn’t know how much time has passed by the time he stumbles to his feet. His limbs are cramped and painful from being tensed for so long, hands trembling from being caged around his face. He doesn’t have to touch his face to feel the stick of dried tears. His stomach churns.
His best friend is dead. Dead by choice; dead because of him, no less.
I love you.
Fuck.
His phone buzzes insistently on the floor from where he had thrown against the wall on its third ring. He picks it up, thumbing away a piece of broken glass. ‘Sam?’ His voice is a hoarse rasp and he clears his throat, scrubs a hand over his mouth.
‘Dean? I was worried. You alright?’
He isn’t sure he’ll ever be alright again. ‘I- where are you?’
‘We’re on our way back to the bunker, should be there in an hour or so. How did you and Cas-’
Dean feels bile rise in his throat and manages to choke out ‘Sure, I’ll see you then,’ hurriedly hanging up. He leans against the doorway and finds himself staring at the spot where Cas had been standing, face set in horrible peaceful acceptance.
I love you.
He doesn’t know what the fuck to do with that.
He’s heard the words come out of Cas’s mouth before, always in what he thought were his last moments. He’d told Dean and Sam that they were his family, that he loved them. Once he’d stared into Dean’s face as he said it, eyes fierce, and Dean wondered if … but this is different. It’s laying the quiet space between them bare, putting into words the thing that Dean had accepted was never going to be acknowledged. It feels like he’s broken an unspoken rule, pressed a reset button on everything they understood about each other.
And Dean is left here to deal with it, alone.
He isn’t under any particular illusion: he knows their relationship has never been quite…normal. He used to put it down to Castiel’s complete ignorance of human customs; at least that would explain the long stares that seemed to strip him down to his soul; the soft touches when Cas shared his grace; the sudden, inexplicable loyalty to Dean , a complete mess of a human being. What he couldn’t explain was his own reaction. His inability to move away, the weird energy that seemed to crackle between them when they were alone. He dealt with it by turning it into a joke, would roll his eyes and complain, ignoring the way that it sometimes made his heart flip and sent a flush down his neck. He knows that Cas isn’t this way with Sam. He has seen his brother’s little knowing looks, usually full of amusement, then sometimes something much worse; something soft and understanding, even sad, that makes Dean feel unsettled.
But Cas is… Cas. A literal angel, whose friendship is something that Dean still doesn’t understand, years and years on. He used to lie awake at night questioning it: why him . In some ways he would understand more if it was Sam that had been chosen, his gentle little brother, who had made plenty of mistakes but had always been a fundamentally good, selfless, kind person. Instead, Cas rebelled for Dean. An angry, messy alcoholic who was more comfortable pulling the trigger of a gun than being an actual human being. And in return for Castiel’s loyalty, Dean has done nothing but hurt him, cut him out of their lives, froze out his efforts to be close with him even though it made his chest ache each time. But it’s better this way, he’s always told himself. He and Sam are better off by themselves, unable to hurt anyone around them. And Castiel, for all his mess-ups, deserves better than whatever he has to offer.
Whatever it is that has somehow made Cas stick around, though, is something that Dean puts off examining too closely. He’s an ancient being who has been present for the earth’s history, has seen actual miracles and magic and wonders. Whatever his time with Dean and his brother means, it’s a blip in his life; one filled with blood and betrayals and loss. If he does love them—him—it has to be an incomprehensible, self-sacrificial sort of love, between an angel and the humans he has sworn to protect. Dean has spent enough time with angels to know that their concept of emotions is light years away from anything mortal. It certainly doesn’t extend to Dean’s scrambled idea of love; an image that is now far from his old dreams of a family and a white-picket fence, simplified to dinners and old movies and having the same person to come home to and wrap himself up with each night. How could a being that can turn off their need for food or sleep at will possibly be consumed by what humans call love, with all its messy feelings and misunderstandings?
Maybe this one can, now that you’ve messed him up past all point of recognition, his mind answers, unbidden. It’s true. He pictures Castiel on the night that they met, a terrifying figure who sparked with alien power and spun Dean’s world on its axis with his every word. That Castiel had no concept of love beyond the one inscribed into him by God’s word, had no thoughts beyond those he was directed to have. Now, while still technically an angel, Cas loves lots of things. Jack, coffee, books, burgers. (Dean?) Sometimes, it’s easy to forget that he’s still an otherworldly being; especially during late nights at the bunker, the remains of a pizza between them, his smiles tired but wide and crow’s feet crinkling at the corner of his eyes when he looks at Dean. As much as he prefers this Cas, the fact that he is responsible for this transformation sits uneasily in the pit of Dean’s stomach. They have dragged him down from Heaven and tore away at his angelic-ness bit by bit, until he bleeds and cries just like the rest of them.
Did, Dean remembers, the reminder a cold stab to his stomach. He did bleed and cry, emptied out his heart through a sheen of tears that made Dean freeze in panic, and then he was gone, forever.
And Dean said nothing in return.
-
Of course, he can’t put off telling Sam and Jack forever.
All too soon, he hears the door of the bunker open, his brother shouting his name. Dean leaves the door to the room open for some reason, as if Cas might just re-appear moments later and come striding through, expression grim, with some wild explanation for his return. It had happened before. But not this time. It will take me, forever, he had said.
The vice that had formed around his chest and the hot spike of tears have faded, leaving something hollow and empty. He wonders if it will ever go away.
Sam knows the moment that he sees him, stops dead when Dean appears in the doorway. He wonders what he looks like, if his face is as wrecked as he feels.
‘Dean?’
There is a long pause, and Dean feels sick again as he sees both men peer behind him, waiting for a second figure.
‘Where’s Cas?’ Jack’s voice wavers.
‘He’s gone.’ Dean wonders at how level his voice is. He sounds gruff and angry, which he supposes is better than choked with useless emotion.
‘Gone? How?’ Sam stares at him, shaking his head as if he doesn’t believe him. ‘What happened?’
‘Billie. She trapped us, down in the basement. We had no way out, and Cas, he—’ Dean feels his chest contract and takes a long breath, jaw set. ‘He saved me. And now he’s gone. The Empty took him.’
‘He’s dead?’ Jack’s face crumples. ‘The deal he made, it must—’
‘You knew about this?’ Dean demands, startled. He feels a flicker of fear at the thought of having to talk about Castiel’s confession, which he has locked deep inside him, something that he can’t yet make sense of in words or feeling.
‘It was to save me.’ Jack says, frowning at his feet. ‘His life for mine, when…she said when he gave himself permission to be happy. That’s when she’d take him.’ He looks up, and Dean feels his gaze go straight through him. ‘But…why now-’
‘It doesn’t matter.’ Dean cuts in, his heart jumping. ‘He’s gone. It took him, because of me. He said it would be forever.’ He hears his voice falter on the last word and grimaces
Sam is staring at him, trying to work it out. Dean isn’t sure he’s ready for when he does. ‘We’ll get him back.’ He promises finally, crossing over to grasp Dean’s shoulder tightly. ‘We always do, we always find a way.’
Dean nods, can do nothing else, but his heart sinks. He thinks of the awful certainty on Castiel’s face, the clarity in his words. Maybe not this time.
-
It’s not until later that night, when the three of them have retreated into their rooms and Dean is drinking himself into oblivion on his bedroom floor, that Sam confronts him.
He knocks softly at the door, and Dean knows what is about to happen even before it does. He grunts in an affirming sort of way, knocking back another mouthful of whisky, and tries not to think about the last time that he drank from it; clinking glasses with Cas while he smiled warmly at him. His stomach twists again.
Sam edges cautiously around the door like an overgrown deer, his expression so nervous that it would be comical at any other time. ‘Dean? Can we-’ he pauses as he takes in the almost-empty bottle, and frowns disapprovingly. ‘Can we talk?’
Dean winces at the words but waves a hand to the chair in the corner; the one that Cas has sat in so many times as they went through their endless cycle of fighting and grudgingly apologising.
Sam walks towards it, then appears to think better of it and folds himself up on the floor beside Dean instead, face set in a rather determined way. Dean feels a sense of foreboding, but barely has time to prepare himself before Sam launches into it.
‘Dean, I- what happened with Cas earlier? Why did he give himself up like that?’
The sympathy in his face even before receiving an answer makes Dean grit his teeth. He’s most of the way through the bottle and still isn’t drunk enough for this shit. ‘I told you, it was to save me. It was the only way either of us would get out.’ He feels that age-old guilt and self-hatred creeping up in his chest and knows that he’ll have nightmares later that night.
‘But what was the deal? What did Jack mean about letting himself be happy?’ Sam probed, his face pinched in that annoying nosy-little-brother way. ‘There’s something you’re not telling me.’
Dean bites back a retort about all the times that Sam has kept important information to himself, stamping down on the anger that is rearing its head in order to disguise how he’s actually feeling. ‘Look, I don’t wanna talk about it. I can’t do this right now.’ He takes another swig of drink, relishing the way it burns his throat on the way down, and hopes that Sam will leave.
He doesn’t. ‘He said something to you, didn’t he?’ he says, peering into Dean’s face. ‘Before he was taken. That’s what’s bothering you.’
‘Cas was taken because of me, that’s what’s bothering me.’ Dean snaps at him, but he knows the truth is plastered over his face. He finds himself looking at the discarded jacket on his bed, at the corner of the red handprint still imprinted there. He swallows.
Sam follows his gaze and some sort of comprehension comes over his face, though there’s no way for him to have guessed all of it. ‘Look, you don’t have to tell me what it was, but… I know how special Cas is to you. How special you are to him. I know how much you must be hurting. You don’t have to pretend you aren’t.’
‘I’m fine. I just need to get him back.’ Dean finds himself saying, except instead of the firm statement that he intended his voice comes out embarrassingly plaintive, even wobbly. He goes to take another drink to cover up the slip, but Sam is already pulling him into a hug with one arm, patting his back comfortingly. Dean remembers doing the same thing whenever Sam had burst into tears when they were kids, and is slightly perturbed by the role reversal as his face is smushed into his brother’s shoulder.
‘We will.’ Sam says, with a confidence that Dean wishes he shared. ‘Cas always finds his way home.’ The to you is left unsaid, but Dean feels it hit its mark all the same.
‘He, uh, he said-’ He stops. Somehow the admission had stumbled out by itself, made easier looking at the blankness of the wall behind them instead of into Sam’s face. Yet his whole body seems to fight against saying it, as if by saying it aloud, it will set the words loose into the world, making it real. Making it something that he has to confront. He closes his eyes, forces the words out. ‘He said he loved me, Sammy.’
Everything in him recoils at the statement, as if he has cut a part of himself open, but he sets his jaw. If Cas was able to say it so easily to his face, the very least he can do is acknowledge that it happened.
Sam doesn’t say anything for a moment, and Dean can sense him working through his words in his head. He feels oddly nervous, considering he hasn’t really admitted anything himself.
Eventually his brother pulls back to look at him, keeping one hand on his shoulder. ‘Wow.’ He doesn’t look nearly surprised enough. More like relieved, Dean thinks suspiciously. ‘Dean, that’s… how do you feel about it?’
Dean clams up immediately, not liking where this is going. ‘I dunno man, it’s Cas, I—he just said it and it took him and—well, it’s not like he hasn’t said it to us before-’
‘Not like this he hasn’t.’ Sam refutes him, with rather unjustified certainty for someone who wasn’t actually in the room at the time. ‘Wait, that means…’ He frowns, then understanding floods his face. ‘Permission to be happy, that’s what Jack said. And he let himself be happy by…’
Dean refuses to meet his eyes, but he can sense his brother’s face crumpling. ‘ Dean.’
‘Sounds about right.’ Dean says with false bravado, biting out anything that will stop him descending into panic again. ‘That l- caring about me is a one-way ticket to emptiness. Makes perfect fucking sense, actually. He never did learn.’
‘Dean, that’s … this was his choice.’ Sam’s voice is unexpectedly heated, and Dean looks up in surprise. ‘After everything we’ve been through with Chuck, don’t you see what this means? How important it is? Cas used his free will, out of love for you.’ Dean winces slightly at the words, spoken so casually. ‘Just like he always has, from the beginning.’
‘Well, he shouldn’t have.’ Dean doesn’t know why he sounds angry, again, when he just wants to curl up in the corner. ‘I’ve never asked him to. I’d rather be dead than keep having him—having anyone die for me.’
‘Dean…’ Sam’s face is full of pity, which only annoys him more. ‘You may not think that you’re worth that, but Cas does. He always has. I don’t think he’s ever believed anything more.’
‘Well, good for him. Now he’s dead—forever, apparently—and I didn’t get a choice in any of it. Didn’t even get a chance to say anything.’ He didn’t mean to let the last part slip out, but slams his mouth shut too late. He braces himself, takes another swig of whiskey.
Sam’s eyes brighten. ‘Well, what would you have said?’
There’s a long pause and Dean glares at him, having reached his emotional limit. ‘I’m gonna go to bed.’
His brother knows him well enough to know when he’s fighting a lost cause (sometimes), and clambers inelegantly to his feet, confiscating the rest of the whiskey bottle as he goes. He pauses at the door, face contemplative. ‘It might not feel like it right now, Dean, but you’re lucky. Lucky to be loved like that by someone.’ He smiled sadly. ‘We both are. Now we just need to fight to get them back.’
Dean feels a flash of guilt for having been too absorbed in his own grief to even ask his brother about Eileen. ‘I- Yeah. Yeah, we will, Sammy.’
‘Night, Dean.’
Dean listens to his soft footsteps down the hall and, despite himself, finds himself mulling over his brother’s words. He doesn’t think he’s often thought of himself as lucky before.