Work Text:
I miss you since I've been away
Babe, it wasn't easy to leave you alone
It's getting harder each time that I go
If I had the choice, I would stay
The world is just gone. Nothing exists anymore, not colour, not sound, not anything. Dean isn’t sure he exists himself; he brings his hands up, in front of his face, but there is nothing there. There is a kind of tug inside his brain, the memory of the room he left behind - he knows that if he just focuses, he could feel it - the threadbare carpet under his knees, Cas’ cold fingers through his, Jesse’s light touch against his forehead - but he doesn’t want to, he’s afraid to lose this, right here: the inside of Cas’ mind, or his soul, perhaps, and Dean knows, without a doubt, that this is where he needs to be - he ignores that pull back to reality and breathes in the emptiness around him.
Cas, he thinks, because he has no mouth to form words with. Cas?
Nothing happens.
Cas, thinks Dean, one more time, and he makes his thought as complex as possible, he twists and turns Cas’ name until it includes all of it - every memory Dean has of Cas, every feeling he’s ever experienced at his side, from that first, terrified disbelief, to anger and exasperation, to an unwilling, hesitating fondness, to - Dean closes his eyes tight, and allows his heart to explode inside his chest, because there’s simply too much of Cas in there for it to keep beating. Because he’d known, hadn’t he, he’d known as soon as Cas had broken Sam’s wall and Dean’s deep, primal instinct to take revenge, to kill whoever hurt his little brother, had encountered that simple word, that but which had changed everything. I should really want you dead right now, but. Because Dean had not been able to (had not wanted to) hurt Cas, not even then. And when Cas had died in that crypt - those few seconds where all had been over, all of it (Cas, you child) - Dean had finally understood it. There is no way around it, and there is no way through it, not really, not if Raguel is right, but if Dean has one shot to bring Cas back he will bloody take it anyway. Whatever the price.
Cas, Dean thinks again, and he bares himself completely, allowing his need for Cas to guide him forward.
And when he opens his eyes again, he finds he is back to a sort of reality - he’s standing in a room, a small warehouse, perhaps - he can see, vaguely, through the gloom, a series of metal shelves piled with goods, and stacks of cartons and boxes with bold, coloured letters which look black in the half-darkness.
“What the hell,” he says, and as soon as he hears the words out loud he realized that he’s real as well, even if there’s something off about him -
He looks down at himself - he’s wearing his old jacket, and a shirt he hasn’t seen in three years - frowning, he passes his hands against his ribs, and finds there’s nothing wrong with them. So, great, whoever he is right now, he’s not himself, not really. Not that he’s going to complain about it, since his current self is bloody and beaten up and, well, dead, but still. Dean turns around and takes a step forward, trying to understand where the hell he is.
As he passes a stack of beer cartons, he sees that the room is, in fact, way smaller than he thought. He can see a door in front of him, perhaps ten feet away, and a sink next to it, and on the other side - Dean assumes it’s just a bunch of fabric, but then it shifts, and he realizes those are blankets, and that there is someone sleeping under them.
And everything suddenly makes sense.
“Son of a bitch,” he says, and he pushes and pushes against his guilt until it turns to anger, because he’d told the guy, hadn’t he - he’d goddamn told him (You’ll call, right? If you get into real trouble?) and in what fucking world is sleeping on the floor in some shitty stockroom not trouble - fuck it -
Dean moves to the door and passes his hand on the wall until he finds the light switch, and he flicks it on.
“Wake up,” he says, roughly, and yep, that is Cas alright, human Cas, turning in the blankets, looking up at him sleepily.
“I’m not doing anything wrong,” he says, before realizing whom he’s talking to; and then he recognises Dean and there is a kind of uncertainty forming in his (too fucking big) blue eyes. “Dean?”
“What the hell?” says Dean, taking a step forward. “I asked you if you needed money - I gave you one of our credit cards, Cas - what are you doing? Have you been living here the whole time?”
Cas passes a hand through his hair, and Dean is almost undone by the gesture, by how human it is, all of it, how fragile - the dishevelled hair, and Cas’ eyes, still puffy with sleep - and the guy hasn’t shaved, not for a few days, by the look of it -
“Goddammit,” he mutters under his breath as Cas sits up.
“I didn’t really need that money,” Cas says, after a moment, his voice even more sandpapery than usual, heavy with sleep. “I gave it away. This is perfectly adequate.”
“This is not - what the hell?” Dean asks again, and now he’s starting to get seriously angry.
“You and Sam are my home, Dean. I don’t need another.”
Cas is perfectly earnest, as he always is, and how can he even say this shit with a straight face, how can he say it at all -
“Jesus, man.”
“I’m glad you’re here.”
Dean clenches his jaw so tightly it hurts, and then he sees, fleetingly, the golden light of the chandelier glowing around him, he remembers (how could he ever forget?) that none of this is real; that this is the inside of Cas’ mind, or his soul, or whatever angels are made of.
“I’m not really here,” he says.
“I know. I know this is not reality; or a current reality, anyway. I know I’m dying, Dean. I remember.”
Dean wants to think that his only reason to sit down next to Cas on the half-deflated camping mattress is to make the conversation easier, because he doesn’t want to loom over Cas like a goddamn Occupational Safety officer, but the truth is, he has no choice in the matter. That matter of fact statement - he literally can’t stand up for a second longer.
“Don’t say that,” he growls, when he can speak again. “We’ll fix it. We always do.”
“Not this time,” says Cas, gently.
“Why? Why not this time?”
This was the last of Dean’s anger, the very last drop of aggression and Give ‘em hell attitude left in his body; and when he hears Cas’ next words - a quiet, serene Because I don’t want to - Dean lowers his head into his hands and just fucking tries to breathe.
There is, again, a faint tug against his conscience; Dean keeps his eyes closed, and yet he sees the stupid pattern of Cas’ stupid tie - he hadn’t been able to look at Cas’ face, not when it looked - not when Cas was -
“Dean, it’s okay,” Cas said, and that other Cas disappears again; now they are, again, alone in a badly-lit stockroom.
“You don’t get to decide that,” says Dean, and when he feels Cas’ hand between his shoulder blades, he turns around and seizes his wrist. “You stop this bullshit, and you come back with me, right now.”
Cas smiles again, a sad little smile.
“I can’t, Dean.”
“You - you fucking promised me,” Dean says, and, without noticing it, he closes his hand on Cas’ wrist so tight that it must hurt.
Cas lowers his eyes, then, and Dean wonders if he even remembers - because, what did Jesse say, this is not Cas, not really, it’s just a - a heap of who he is and what he’s done - what is most important and essential about him - and the fact that these things should resolve themselves around a dingy room in the back of a fucking Gas-n-Sip is just too much - Dean can’t take it, because he remembers, he remembers alright, remembers how quickly his fury had deflated into panic when he’d seen that bitch plunging a silver blade into Cas’ chest - he remembers, even if Cas won’t, how he’d fucking asked Cas to never die again, and now -
“Dean, if there was any other way,” Cas says, and now he’s looking at Dean again, and this is not the puzzled look he used to have, or the cold indifference Dean has had to grit his teeth through for the last week - this is just Cas, and there is such affection - such love in his eyes that Dean can’t take it - with a quick, unplanned movement he turns around on the narrow bed and closes the distance between them, moving Cas’ other arm out of the way, pinning both of Cas’ wrists on the peeling wall behind him - and before Cas can say anything, Dean is kissing him, hurriedly and messily -
“Don’t do this,” he says into Cas’ mouth. “You promised, you -”
Dean is so desperate to make Cas understand - to make Cas stay - that he doesn’t notice, not at first, and not for a while, that Cas is not kissing him back. And when he does, he lets go of Cas’ wrists and sits back, his legs still on either side of Cas’ and then -
“I can’t, Dean. I’m sorry.”
Dean has never felt like such an idiot and a douche in his life; or not, perhaps, since a bloody fifteen-year-old wearing a pastel cardigan - a girl he’d been happily cheating on - had told him it wasn’t his fault, that he just needed to be loved.
As if it were that simple.
As if Dean was even worth it.
“Cas, I -”
“Don’t say it.”
“Cas -”
“I know about it already. Please, don’t say it.”
Dean remains still for another second, and then he suddenly realizes the position they’re in, and how awkward it all is, and he sort of raises his hands, because he can’t say what he’s thinking, because he’s not thinking much of anything, he just can’t, and so he raises his hands instead, in acceptance and defeat, and he inches back, he moves away from Cas and he doesn’t stop until he feels the hard, uneven line of the metal shelves behind his back, at which point it’s safe to look at Cas again, even it’s still too much, and so Dean can only glance at the familiar (beloved) face, can only have a glimpse of the humanity on Cas’ features (and, oh God, his ravaged mouth) before letting his head fall again.
“I thought you didn’t know,” he mutters, as a kind of apology.
“I know here,” says Cas, and then he stops, tries again. “This is my truest self, Dean, and it was shaped by my Father and created with his Love. And this is why - right here, right now, I know. As for outside -”
Cas’s voice hesitates, then trails away completely.
“It was never important, Dean,” he adds, very gently, after a stretch of silence. “How you felt about me.”
Dean is still looking at the wall to his right; he is absently reading and re-reading a large green label which says, Keep refrigerated, and he’s sort of wondering why the box is here instead, in this definitely not frozen stockroom; if whatever is inside it won’t spoil. He brings his hand up to his face, and finds it wet.
“Wow,” he says, after a second. “Don’t hold back.”
He hears Cas shift on the bed, throw the covers off.
“Dean,” Cas says, but Dean brings his hand up.
“I don’t want to hear it. So you don’t care, so I had it all wrong - what’s new? Now stop dicking around and come out there with me. The world is ending, man. We need you.”
As he moves his eyes to Cas again, Dean can see, very clearly, that Cas knows exactly there was a missing sentence there - that he’s heard, loud and clear, that I need you that Dean will never, ever say again, because he still has some pride left, so fuck it.
“What we are,” Cas says, instead of giving him an actual answer, “has been corrupted. We are bent and broken to suit the needs of the Host, Dean, and in a way, the process is just as brutal, and as necessary, as its polar opposite - what you endured in Hell, the torture which was meant to turn you into a demon.”
Dean, Jesse says, inside Dean’s head, but Dean ignores him.
“Our orders, our mission - they burn through us and consume us, and we can’t feel - we forget - this, right here, is who I really am, Dean. Who I used to be, back when I could understand love without having to try.”
Cas stands up, and he looks even wronger like this, in these crumpled clothes, this shirt he’s slept in, the stupid name tag still hanging from the pocket.
“So I don’t need you to tell me. I held your soul in my hands, and now I can finally see it again, all of it - everything you are.”
Dean is unable to move, or to look away, as Cas walks up to him and raises his hand to Dean’s chest, splays his fingers open over Dean’s heart; the warmth of his skin seems to burn through Dean’s tee-shirt, but Dean can’t move away, can’t even breathe -
“I don’t need you to tell me,” says Cas, “because I know already. And my love for you is enough, now and forever - enough for the both of us. Whatever you can give - that is what I’ll have.”
And then Cas closes the distance between them, dips his head in the crook of Dean’s neck, as if breathing him in.
“And since I’m not coming back,” he adds, very softly, “you can have me if you want me, Dean.”
For a very long second, time ceases to exists. Dean reaches back, grips his hands around the cold edge of the shelves, because this is not making sense, and so he closes his fingers on the metal until it fucking hurts to stop himself from touching Cas, from bloody putting his hands on Cas and -
“What the hell,” Dean finally manages to rasp, because, really, what the actual fuck - Cas is not moving, he’s not doing anything; he’s just there, his hand still on Dean’s chest, his lips a breath away from Dean’s skin, and Dean can’t -
Of course I want you, is what he wants to say, and he also wants to say, You and your fucking angelic love - if you think I don’t love you as much as you love me, then you’re a goddamn idiot - if you don’t think I will give you everything I have, everything I am -
But Dean has never learned to say any of these things; for all the times he’s made fun of his brother, of Sam’s unwillingness, his inability, even, to pick up waitresses for a night of fun, Dean has been watching Sam, has been trying to figure out how come this is so easy for him - because Sam has words, Sam can say how he feels, and Dean doesn’t even know how he feels most of the time, can’t get past his anger and his guilt long enough to see what’s on the other side, and even when he’s allowed himself to feel all those other things, even when he’s really wanted to just put them in words (looking at Cassie as she walked back to the house, unhappy and upset; breathing against the soft skin of Lisa’s back and wondering if things would ever be alright again; watching Cas come back to life, utter confusion in his eyes, confusion turning to relief as he’d seen Dean standing in front of him) - Dean doesn’t have any words. He never did. There is that one word, of course, the one everyone knows, and he really, really wants to force it out, to finally tell Cas, because Cas is dying, and Cas should know, fully and completely, because this is not something Cas should simply read on Dean’s face; this is something Cas should hear out loud.
But Dean is a broken mess, and even this one simple word simply won’t come out.
“What do you mean, you’re not coming back?” he says instead, and hopes Cas will stay where he is, and he hopes Cas will move away, because Dean can’t think straight, and he really needs to.
He feels Cas breathing quietly against his skin; actually feels the words forming as Cas says, softly, “I told you. I’m dying.”
“You died before, and you came back.”
“It’s different now.”
“Why?”
“This time it won’t change anything, Dean,” says Cas, still standing so incredibly close to him, as if this is normal, in any way. “All roads lead to the same destination, remember?”
Dean relaxes his fingers and then places his hands, lightly, because he could literally get burned here, he could literally die from this, on Cas’ hips; and he pushes Cas away, only just, and then he lets his hands fall again, closes them into fists.
“I get enough of this crap from Gabriel,” he says, and he has to clear his throat a little, because, goddammit, Cas is still way too close. “Just - just talk to me, okay?”
Cas looks up at him.
“If I stay here, I’ll die,” he says, earnestly. “And if I walk out of this room, I will probably - I will take Michael’s place, Dean. I - accepted his sword, and used it against him. Therefore, I am now worthy.”
“Wait, what? How does that even work?”
“Thy sword is with me to cut asunder my bonds, and there shall be no fear left for me in the world,” Cas replies, and this makes even less sense, so Dean shakes his head in disbelief and ignores it.
“So they’re giving you a promotion? How the hell is that a problem?”
Cas drops his eyes, then, from Dean’s face down to his chest, to where his own hand is still open against Dean’s heart.
“I am not sure becoming an archangel would be a promotion,” he says. “Archangels, they don’t - their mission is everything.”
“Gabriel got away.”
“And as a result, the world was out of balance for thousands of years. Why do you think all of this is happening? Because Gabriel was unable to love his brothers as he should have.”
“Yeah, if that’s what they teach you in Sunday school, it’s a lot of crap,” says Dean, because he remembers the look on Gabriel’s face after Michael died, he recognized that look, and he knows full well where Gabriel is and what he’s doing right now (alone in some room, drinking himself to sleep).
“It’s more complicated than that, yes,” agrees Cas. “It started with Lucifer, probably. And with you. The naked ape. You don’t understand balance. You never have.”
There is no accusation is Cas’ soft voice. If anything, he sounds fond, as if this imperfection of theirs is precisely the reason behind his affection for humanity, and perhaps it is, because, after all, there is this saying about sick people and doctors, isn’t there -
(Cas beaten and bloody, looking up at him from the floor - I will not let you walk out of this room - still looking up at him despite the two bloodied bodies Dean had forced on either side of him.)
- and Cas has been nothing if not righteous, from the very beginning. And to think they call him, Dean, the Righteous Man. What a joke.
“And if I accept this, Dean, I will be made anew. It will be as if I’d died.”
This is still not making any sense in Dean’s brain; because of Cas’ voice, perhaps (salty water on wet sand), or because of the heat of his hand on Dean's chest, or possibly simply because Dean is too limited to understand - because Cas is old and vast and very likely insane, because how can he just -
“You mean - you mean they’ll reboot you? Like they did last time?”
“They will take everything I am and burn it, and then they will reshape me from the ashes,” says Cas, and Dean knows the angel can’t feel Dean’s heart beating under his fingers, because Dean’s heart's not beating, not anymore, but Cas still cocks his head to one side, only just, as if he’s listening to it anyway. “I will not remember you. I will not remember anything.”
“Cas,” says Dean, because, really, how can Cas not understand this? “It doesn’t matter. We’ll fix it later, and if we can’t -”
Dean reaches for Cas’ hand, because it’s fucking distracting him, and he really, honestly wanted to just get it the hell off his chest, and finds himself holding it instead, lacing their fingers together like a couple of middle-schoolers, and the worst thing is, he doesn’t mind, not at all.
“Look, what matters is that you’ll live, okay?”
“Is living really all that important?” says Cas, his head bowed. It’s hard to say if he’s looking at their intertwined fingers, or down at the floor. “What good am I to you if I am just some - some high and distant power? If I won’t come when you call me, if I won’t help you when you need it?”
“God, you are an idiot,” says Dean, a bit angrily, a bit unsteadily, and then he pulls, lightly, and Cas stumbles into his arms again; he raises his face up to Dean’s on instinct, as if they’ve done this a thousand times, and Dean kisses him again, and this time he feels Cas kissing him back, and there is nothing else like it in the world.
Dean lets go of Cas’ hand and threads his fingers through Cas’ hair instead; he bites down on Cas’ lower lip, and when he hears Cas’ breath catch, he licks Cas’ lips, the curve of his teeth. Cas sighs, moves his hands to Dean’s hips, laces his fingers through Dean’s belt and drags him even closer.
“I will always - don’t you ever think -” growls Dean, but Cas reaches up again, swallows the rest of Dean’s sentence.
“This is not goodbye,” says Dean, trying as best he can to build an actual sentence, because now he can feel Cas’ arousal against his own, and it’s becoming downright impossible to be rational about it, to remember that this is not even reality, but a kind of fever dream, that they are both dying, that the world is ending, and that if Dean can’t be convincing enough he may never see Cas again.
“It is not,” he insists, lowering his hands down Cas’ back, over the curve of his ass, and pulling him sharply against his own body.
Cas shivers and thrusts against him, his breath rapid and unsteady against Dean’s neck.
“You promised me,” says Dean, and here, in this room, he is still the guy who walked into that barn five years ago, because that’s the person Cas first fell in love with; he’s young and fit and strong, and therefore it is not that difficult to pick Cas up and slam him against the wall to their right; not difficult at all to hold his weight until Cas figures out where his legs should go, until he simply allows Dean to take the lead on this.
“You said you would never die again.”
Dean pushes himself against Cas, he bites down on Cas’ jaw, on the shell of his ear; he knows Cas never had this, not like this, not the beautiful chaos that explodes in your chest when you’re being held and touched by someone who loves you more than anything in this world, and so he’s not surprised to see Cas’ eyes glaze over, he’s not surprised that Cas is there already, because this, right here, is what matters the most, is what makes you stop breathing and thinking and makes you see colours for the very first time; makes you hear music where there is none.
“I got you,” Dean whispers, kissing Cas again, and when he pushes against Cas one more time he feels it happening - feels Cas gasp in his mouth, feels Cas’ arms twitching around him, bringing him closer, even if it’s not possible, even if they’re already as close as it’s possible to be -
“Dean,” breathes Cas inside his mouth, “Dean.”
“I need you, Cas. I need you to live. I don’t care what comes out of that room - just do it, okay? For me?”
“That’s unfair,” whispers Cas, and his head falls back against the wall as the angel tries, and fails, to catch his breath.
Dean buries his face in the crook of his neck.
“When is anything ever fair?” he says, and then he feels it again, and this time it’s stronger - this time he actually feels the rough texture of the old carpet under his left hand, and he closes his fingers more firmly against Cas’ cheap cotton slacks, because he can’t - because it’s too soon -
“And what are you even doing here? How is this what you truly are?” he whispers, half to himself, remembering what Cas really is - not this human form Dean hates (too weak, too fragile, Dean had spent months with his heart in his mouth, waking up at night in a breathless panic, because when you’re human there are a million different ways you can die, and what if -) - but that other form, his true angelic self, that beautiful living cloud of blue fire and broken wings -
Cas breathes in again, deeply, and when Dean hears the smile in his voice, he looks up, and finds Cas looking back at him.
“Humans can love,” he says, as if that explains anything at all, and before Dean can find an answer to that, the room swirls and fades around him, and everything turns to gray and black and darkness.
“Cas?” Dean calls. “CAS!”
And then he lands on his kness, hard and fast, and he is himself again - he feels it again, all at once - his broken cheekbone, his sprained ribs, that dull, persistent ache where his heart used to beat, and, most of all, that crushing, can’t breathe feeling of the abyss staring back at him, because Cas is gone and there is nothing he can do about it.