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It’s one fist to the face after another. Skin breaks, blood trickles down his nose and sprays out of his mouth and Dean thinks it’s to a point where bones are cracking and cartilage is dislodging. The left side of his face is so splintered with pain Dean can’t even feel it to begin with.
Castiel’s eyes are lifeless. He isn’t seeing Dean, he’s seeing the man getting in the way of the angel tablet. It isn’t right. It isn’t Cas.
“Cas, this isn’t you,” Dean says through gritted teeth, blood trailing out of his mouth. “This isn’t you!”
It does nothing to break whatever spell the angels have over Cas. If anything, it brings down the myriad of Castiel’s punches harder and faster than before. Dean can’t shrink away, can’t bend any further to Castiel’s will.
“Cas.”
It’s nothing like Dean has ever felt before. It’s nothing like the alley, with Cas shoving him up against the brick and leaving no room for breath between them. The angel blade in Castiel’s hand is no match to human sinew and muscle, and it destroys every bit of Dean it touches. There’s no room for negotiation, no chance to come out of this alive. Castiel will do anything to get the angel tablet, Dean means nothing to him. Castiel’s hand raises above Dean, the angel blade aimed directly at his chest. Castiel is going to kill him.
“Cas.”
Dean’s jaw is swelling, and he can only guess it’s shattered too, with the numb of adrenaline coursing through his veins.
He needs Cas to see him, Dean needs Cas to look at him and see what he really has in his grip. He fighting his friend, he’s killing –
Dean’s going to die. He’s going to die by Castiel’s hand, and there’s nothing to be done. But this isn’t about him, it’s about what the angels want. Because Dean . . . he’s had his issues with Cas’ methods in the past, but in the end he’d do anything Cas wanted. He would follow that god damned angel to the ends of the earth if it meant giving him what he wanted. He’s hurt him once before, and he doesn’t know if he can do it again. Cas already blames himself for so much, he won’t let the angels add to that burden.
But what the angels want is nothing that Cas wants. Cas isn’t here, Cas wouldn’t do this. Dean knows him. He –
“I know you’re in there,” Dean says, his mouth shooting with pain. He can barely lower his jaw to open his mouth. He doesn’t know where he’s meant to keep his tongue. He keeps going, “I know you can hear me.”
Dean sucks a breath in through his teeth, nearly strangling himself from the pain. He’s gasping for breath, but he has to remain diligent. It’s the only thing he can think of to get Castiel to look at him, to get Cas back. “Cas, it’s me. I know you’re in there. I know you are.”
Dean’s head feels light to one side, his vision swims. He can’t see Castiel clearly through the swelling and the blood and the blurring. He doesn’t know how much longer he can hold on, how much time before –
God, he hopes Cas can hear him.
“I forgive you, Cas,” he says, every syllable muffled and malformed, “We’re family. We need you.”
Dean knows how he feels, and maybe it’s foolish, to fall this fast, foolish to rush in like this when he’s on the brink begging for his friend to come back, to see him. He doesn’t know what it is or why he feels this way, but they’re already this deep. It’s all he’s got left.
“I need you, I love you.”
He doesn’t know if he can spit it out. He can’t feel his face, his mouth. His head is about to roll off his neck, he’s about to die. But he tried, he did everything he could. If these were his last moments to live, he didn’t want to hold anything back. If Cas is in there, somewhere, then at least he knew, at the very end. He’s the one. He’s never been so sure of anything in all his life.
“Cas,” he says. It’s all he knows, it’s all he can hope for.
I'm sorry I let you down.
Black spots dance across Dean’s vision, and he almost thinks the look in Castiel’s eyes change, that the tension in the shoulder with the angel blade loses tension. But Dean can barely tell what’s up and what’s down.
Then the angel blade clatters against the stone on the ground.
Dean’s heart skips a beat. He lets his head fall, his hands scrape against the stone floor, gasping for breath. He can’t get enough air into his lungs, the back of his throat swollen and broken.
Whatever look is in Castiel’s eyes, it still isn’t Cas. Dean watches Castiel bend down to the angel tablet, grabbing it from the floor. The second the tablet touches Castiel’s hand, it glows, filling the catacomb with bright golden light. Dean squints at the light, and then grits his teeth at the pain of his muscles and bones grinding together from the expression. It steals the air from his lungs.
Castiel has both hands wrapped around the angel tablet now, staring at it with a curiosity that should only belong to Cas. Castiel looks up from the tablet, and down at Dean. His brow furrows.
Dean watches, swallowing roughly. Saliva and mucus and blood scrape against the raw lining of his throat.
Castiel removes a hand from the angel tablet, and tentatively reaches towards Dean.
Dean’s breathing picks up in pace, and he waits for whatever death has in store for him this go around. He can’t even bring himself to scramble away, to try and avoid Castiel’s fatal touch. Dean has known for a long time that in the end, he’d do anything for Cas. Anything he wanted. All for him.
Dean lets his eyes slip shut as Castiel brings the hand to cup his face. He claws at Castiel’s wrist, digging his nails into the fabric of the trench coat. One small reassurance before he goes. He inhales sharply.
Then he exhales.
Dean lets his hand fall away from Cas’ wrist. His throat doesn’t scratch and scream in agony with each intake of breath, he can rotate his jaw with ease, and he can’t feel the warm trickle of blood down his face.
Dean looks up at Cas, resting back on his knees. All this time with him, all these feelings he’d had hidden away for being silly, for being foolish, and he still finds himself falling further with each and every look.
Cas gives his head one shake to the left before saying, “I’m so sorry, Dean.”
It's not Cas' fault. Of course Dean forgives him. Anger holds no such place in his heart when Cas already fills every crevice.
If only he could bring himself to say it now.
*