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“There you are.” Cas’s voice is a tether that pulls Dean closer to him, across the scattered hay of the barn behind the farmhouse where they found it.
“Oh, Cas,” Dean sighs softly. “You scared me.”
Cas looks down and back up at Dean. “Sorry.”
“’It’s okay. Just needed a minute.” They’re close together now. Just a few steps between them, steps Dean hates, steps he wishes didn’t exist at all.
His gaze is drawn to something white and glowing in the creased palm of Cas’s hand. Dean reaches out to touch, but his fingers know better and stop before they entirely close the distance. “What’s in your hand?” he asks quietly.
Cas swallows and Dean observes closely the rise and fall of his Adam’s apple. It’s been awhile since Dean has just really let himself look at Cas. He has trouble maintaining eye contact with him anymore, after everything Dean has done. “It’s my grace,” comes Cas’s whispered answer.
Of course it is.
Of course.
Dean stares at the glass vial, like a million stars, like galaxies and creation all trapped together into this undeniably beautiful celestial light. It makes Dean shiver down to the very core of what is left of his soul and yet all he manages to say is, “It seems so small.”
Cas huffs and wrinkles his forehead. For some reason, Dean loves the signs of age on the angel. They make him seem so real, so human and touchable. Touchable. If only.
“Despite its size, I assure you it still contains enormous power.”
Dean chuckles a sound he rarely hears from himself anymore. “All right man. I believe you.”
Suddenly, Cas’s hand is on Dean’s wrist and all the nerves in his whole body concentrate in that one spot where Cas’s skin meets Dean’s skin. “So you ready?”
Dean’s head spins. His heart pounds. Panic that’s what this is. It feels like panic. Dean wants to run as fast as he can and never, ever stop running.
“How’s Claire?” Dean blurts.
Cas steps back a bit, his hand falling away from Dean. “She’s fine. She’s inside looking at something called Tumblr.”
“Sam mentioned that. What is that?”
Stall, Dean. You have to keep stalling.
Cas shrugs and his eyes narrow. “I have no idea, Dean.” Cas holds the small vial between his thumb and pointer finger and brings it close to Dean’s face. The light is too much. Dean freezes. “We should go ahead do this. Open your mouth. That should be the easiest way.”
“Cas, wait.”
“What?”
He has to ask. The thought burns in his head and he knows what is happening, knows what this means and with the grace that close to him. Dean didn’t think Cas would need to use all of it, but he does, he does and - “What happens to you when…after I…without your grace?”
Cas has never looked so somber, so composed, so certain and yet so terrified. “Dean.”
Dean runs his hand through his hair. He wants to pull it out from the roots. He wants to rip his skin off because this isn’t happening. Anything but this. “You can’t!” Dean shouts. “Why would you do this? You’ll die, Cas. I’m…” his voice lowers to a shaky whisper. “I’m not worth it.” Dean turns his back. He can’t possibly look at Cas right now.
Cas mumbles something and Dean is pretty certain it’s “You don’t think you deserve to be saved.”
Dean slowly turns back around to face Cas. He forgot how close they were. Easy enough to reach out and touch. “What did you say?”
“Of course you’re worth it, Dean.”
Cas is an angel. He has heaven, a whole world beyond Dean to think about. He’s got Claire. He deserves a life full of the things Dean can never give him. He won’t let anyone die for him. Certainly not Cas. And why would Cas want to die for someone something as broken as Dean Winchester?
“How can you possibly think…why? Why would you do this?” Dean screams loud enough to make his throat burn.
“Because dammit Dean,” Cas shouts back with the same force. “I’m in love with you!”
Cas cups the back of Dean’s neck and kisses him. Hard. Dean responds immediately, opening his mouth for Cas who threads a tongue softly into Dean’s mouth.
Cas is kissing him. He’s kissing Cas. And it’s damn good. He’s waited, waited for so goddamn long-
“No.” Dean shoves Cas off him. Hard.
Dean pants for breath, still feeling the ghost of Cas’s lips on his. Cas’s lips are wet and swollen. His hair is a mess from where Dean must’ve tugged on it. He is breathtaking.
“Dean.”
Dean’s dying. Dean’s died before and he knows what this feels like, and hell, he’d take the hellhounds over this, but Dean knows, knows in the bottom of his heart what the right thing to do is.
Let go. Let Cas go.
It’s both the hardest and the easiest lie Dean has ever told.
“I… I don’t feel that way about you. I’m sorry.”
His face falls, his shoulders weaken. Cas looks on the outside the way Dean feels on the inside. Cas breaks. That’s the only way to describe it.
Dean breaks Cas.
“It’s okay,” Cas says softly and holds out his grace in his hands like it’s a baby bird. Dean should’ve known. Always selfless. “I understand, Dean. Please, please take it anyway.”
“I don’t want it,” Dean snarls, “and I don’t want you. Take Claire and go.”
“Dean,” Cas is shaking his head as he backs up. Tears are pooling in his eyes and Dean never wanted to see those perfect eyes gloss over with tears he had caused.
He has to do this. He has to drive the blade the rest of the way into that angel’s heart. The heart he’d given to Dean.
“You can’t stay, Castiel.” He spits Cas’s real name like it’s poison and looks away so he never has to watch Cas walk out of his life the same way he walked into it, through barn doors. He wouldn’t come back from that.
When he’s sure Cas is gone, Dean sinks to his knees, covers his face and feels one single tear fall onto his palms.
Cain’s voice repeats in his head,
“Now that one. That I suspect will hurt something awful.”