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Dean first meets him when he should be unconscious.
Or rather, dead.
Wants to be dead, blood in his eyes, head pressed against bent metal and broken glass. Somewhere, he can hear the sound of traffic stopping, people shouting, but his eyes are unfocused and blurry and he should not still be conscious but he is and there's a face above him moving its mouth like it's shouting but he can't hear a goddamn thing - and the face is just light with a mouth and blue eyes and all Dean can think is why did you save me?
The face looks at him and Dean realizes that he might have managed to somehow say that, blood seeping through his teeth, and he distantly feels fingers touch his cheek and then -
...
There's a beeping sound somewhere, tinny and quiet, but it rings in Dean's ears. The world is too bright and Dean's eyes can't open very far anyway, but he can see the plain tile above his head and he wonders if Hell is supposed to have this much light in it. The empty pit in his stomach is still there though and he figures he must still be alive.
His whole body hurts.
"Don't try to move," a man's voice says from beside him somewhere so, of course, he tries to turn his head.
He winces as his pain shoots across his shoulder, head, neck, everything.
The voice sighs, "Told you." and there's a flip of a magazine page and Dean closes his eyes again.
"It's going to be alright."
Dean wants to laugh, laugh and point at the man and ask when? because that's never been the case in his life and who is this fucking guy anyway, to sit at his bedside with a magazine and tell him everything is going to be alright when Dean never wanted it to be alright - just gone. Gone, gone, gone, and him with it and everything finished and -
...
"It's a miracle you're even alive."
The voice is back again and Dean wants to tell it to go away, but he can open his eyes a little further now and he supposes that's okay. He glaces out of the corner of his eye, trying to catch a glimpse of the man beside him.
Dark hair, hard jaw, blue eyes.
"I'm the guy who's car you landed on," he says even though Dean never asked the question.
Dean closes his eyes again.
Great.
"The car's alright though, just a broken windshield."
The man has a nice voice, Dean supposes. Deep and a little gruff. Too blunt maybe.
Dean wonders what he's doing here. Maybe he wants to make sure the doctors keep him alive, make sure the car gets fixed. He wonders if insurance covers A worthless idiot tried to kill himself by jumping off a bridge onto my car and didn't have the decency to actually die from it.
He would chuckle if it weren't so goddamn depressing.
"Looking at you, though, you'd think you'd just had a bad fall."
Dean wonders what he must look like to this man.
Can't even kill myself right.
Don't even have the ability to get properly injured. Just my luck.
"You're very lucky, Dean."
The voice is closer now, but whispering, and Dean wants to open his eyes again, see the man properly, but he can't because he's already drifting away and there's a clik-clak and the nurses are coming in and he just wishes -
...
He asks the doctor if they've heard anything from Sam, but the doctor just looks at him and Dean wonders if he actually said anything at all.
The doctor checks the I.V. and then walks out of the room. Clik-clak.
The man is still there, damn magazine in hand, and Dean wonders if it's the same one.
"The police are going to talk to you eventually, you know."
Dean attempts to nod but it's an aborted motion, half finished and painful and he grunts with the effort.
"My car was the only damage, though." A pause. "And, well, you - of course."
Dean manages a laugh here, and he looks at the man.
The man is not smiling.
But he's also not angry.
Or pitying.
Dean isn't sure what that look is.
He closes his eyes, tight.
He can't handle that look.
"It's only been two days."
Sun shining through the window, scattered by the blinds. Too bright.
"It's going to be alright."
...
Growing up had been hard.
That's the same for every kid, Dean knows, but there's a darkness that permeates all of his memories and his thoughts and his childhood is a string of not good enough's and should have done more's and for the life of him he cannot remember if anyone actually said those things or if it was his own mind tearing him down brick by brick.
His mother had died when he was young and he never understood why and his father disappeared and was replaced by a hollow and bitter man who breathed beer and cigarette smoke and forgot how to hug or tell bedtime stories.
Dean would cradle his younger brother in his arms and sing hey Jude, don't be afraid because that's what his mom sang.
He misses his mother.
Their father never hit them or hurt them with anything other than words and, even then, it wasn't what he said but what he didn't say and eventually what he didn't say to Dean. Dean was never bitter or angry, just sad and alone and rocking Sam to sleep and then cleaning blood off his father's lips and telling everyone it's going to be alright until the words were etched in his brain and -
Nothing was ever going to be alright because Sam grew up with a temper and mind and a this is not right, Dean, he shouldn't treat you like this that made their father angry and sad.
And Dean tried, he tried so hard, to stitch their family back together with what little strands he could grasp because -
It's the only family he ever knew and that had to be important right? Had to mean something somehow even if -
Sam left one day.
Not out of the blue, but it still felt like a punch to the gut and Dean never recovered.
Sam was smart, brilliant, charming, head strong, and he got good grades and into a good college and Dean beamed at him because he had dropped out of school to work and still hadn't gotten his GED - no time, no time - and Sam was the greatest thing in the world.
And Sam moved away and called every night but Dean was still working and cleaning up after his father and going to bed and staring at the ceiling and feeling so alone. And Sam got wrapped up in school and Dean would go weeks without hearing from him and Sorry, I had all these finals and - and Dean would just smile and say that it was okay that he understood that -
He should have called Sam.
But he buried their father alone and sat in that empty house alone and got up and went to work and ate and slept and drank -
Alone.
At some point he yelled at Sam over the phone - don't call me anymore - because Sam had heard about John's death and was angry that Dean hadn't told him, crying and yelling and Dean couldn't handle it - couldn't stop the feeling, the empty pit in his chest spreading and twisting and gnawing at him. It'd been months since they'd spoken and Dean sat in the house and stared at the ceiling and went to work and forgot to eat and slept and slept and slept and -
...
"They've called your brother, Dean."
The man is still there. He won't leave and the doctors keep telling Dean that he's lucky that this is a miracle that blah blah blah blah blah.
Dean prefers to hear things from the man.
The doctors know about the man and Dean hears them talking sometimes, discussing Dean and Dean wonders how the man is allowed to sit at his bedside at all hours considering they are complete strangers.
He then remembers what the man had just said. "Sam?" he manages and it's a squeak, raspy voiced because he can't get the effort to talk.
The man nods, blue eyes closing.
Dean can sit up a little now - it's been five days, according to the man - and his body isn't protesting to things as much. He's healing fast, which is a laugh, and the only thing really wrong is that he had a horrible concussion and is now sporting a broken leg and arm.
Considering he jumped off a bridge, Dean thinks he should feel lucky.
He just feels pathetic.
"They wanted to make sure of your status beforehand and..." the man trails off and looks to the said awkwardly. "I told them I thought you would want to wait."
This man knows him somehow, knows his mind and his thoughts and it should bother Dean but it really doesn't. "How?" did you know is the full question but he leaves it at that.
The man just smiles.
"It can be hard to show your weaknesses, Dean."
...
It hadn't been something he was planning, really.
It was Thursday, it was sunny and bright and Dean was walking across the bridge from work to go back to his apartment and he decided to kill himself.
That was it.
It was a thought in his head and it made sense at the time - after all, he was alone and he had shoved away all the people who cared about him, failed them and everyone and everything - and why not?
At the time, it didn't matter how because it never really did.
If he had ignored the feeling and gone home, he might have turned on Dr. Sexy instead and fell asleep with a beer in hand and -
Point was, he didn't ignore it.
He was walking and looked down and let it take him.
As he was falling he remembered thinking
Of course, I'm going to ruin everyone's day now - good fucking job, Dean Winchester.
...
Sam isn't angry, but he's crying.
"I...had no idea, I I I I" and he's stuttering through tears and gripping at Dean's blanket and Dean is pretending to be asleep.
He knows it's wrong.
But he can't see Sam's face now.
The man is still in the room and Dean can hear him pat Sam on the back - Sam always was a hugger - "It's okay, Sam." Dean wishes this man would get a life. Who sits in the hospital room of the stranger who tried to kill himself by falling on their car?
"Wh-wh-what's going to happen to him?"
It's not the movies. Things like this happen and there are procedures and consequences and Dean thinks that he wouldn't have to deal with all this if he didn't suck so hard but then he imagines Sam.
Seven foot tall, gangly, sasquatch Sam.
Alone.
Dammit.
"He'll probably have to spend some time in an institution, get on medication..." The man is frank but not cold and Dean wonders how he's so calm.
Why he cares.
"It's going to be alright, Sam."
...
They have their heart-t0-heart and Dean cries.
He grips onto Sam's shoulders and cries, heart breaking, throat dry and stretched too thin.
None of it makes sense, not now, not anymore. He just feels pathetic and weak and stupid and he sputters about all the problems he's caused now and how Sam will never forgive him and Sam holds him.
Holds him and -
take a sad song, and make it better
...
Recovery is hard and therapy is worse because Dean hates being told what he's thinking or why he's thinking it.
But he gets to call Sam every night and he does it.
Even when he doesn't want to, he does it.
Sam is sometimes angry and sometimes sad and sometimes happy, and Dean still feels like shit a lot of the time but he also smiles every now and again. And Sam doesn't let him close himself off, doesn't let him hide, and Dean lashes out - yells and cries and falls silent - but they work it out.
There's a rift there with a bridge hastily built over it and the building materials get stronger and stronger with each conversation.
And sometimes Dean stares at the ceiling and feels alone and hates himself but then he remembers -
...
The man is at the sandwhich shop.
It's a year since the accident and Dean is awkward and hates being in crowds but he's doing better. He's in California and Sam lives in his building and he doesn't stare at the ceiling as much anymore and -
The man is at the sandwhich shop.
Hundreds of miles from the hospital and the bridge and the -
"You," Dean says, stupidly.
Once Sam arrived, the man disappeared. Said not to worry about the car.
"I was glad to give him company..."
And then he was gone and Sam couldn't remember his name by the time Dean remembered to ask about him - months and months later.
The man turns and tilts his head slightly and then -
"Dean."
Because of course he remembers his name, why wouldn't -
There's a hint of a smile on his face.
Why is he smiling?
At the institution, Dean would sometimes fall asleep and that pit in his stomach would open up and twist and knot and he'd grip the covers and shut his eyes tight and do everything in his power to will it away to keep from lashing out on himself and then he'd hear a voice - "
It's all going to be alright, Dean" and his breathing would calm and the feeling would lessen.
He never thanked the man.
"I," he starts again, "never..."
"It's okay, Dean," the man says and he's standing closer than Dean thinks he should allow him to but he doesn't care, not really.
"How are you here?" Dean finally asks.
The man laughs, a low sound that is more like a breath than anything else. "I live here. I was in Kansas on business."
...
They eat together, in silence mostly until
"Why did you sit in my room all that time?" Dean is staring at his fingernails, finally more than bloody, grease-caked stubs. "I mean, there wasn't anyone asking you to -"
The man - Castiel, my name is Castiel Engel - sighs. "I don't know why, really." He looks out the window of the shop. "When you...fell...I jumped out of my car and you looked at me and asked me why I saved you and I decided that I didn't want you to have to go through whatever it was alone anymore."
Dean purses his lips.
"I guess I wanted you to know that you deserved to live but I didn't know how to say it." He sighs, hand carding through his hair. "But I knew that I couldn't let you go to the hospital alone. So. I went with you, telling the doctors that you were a friend of mine and...when I found out there was no one immediately headed to see you...I stayed."
Dean breathes unsteady, shaking.
"I won't ask you why you did it, but..." A hand reaches across the table, lightly touching Dean's fingers, scratchy and a little rough but warm and -
"I was alone," Dean says softly, "and I didn't want to be anymore. But I had forgotten how to reach out and -"
Castiel wraps his fingers around Dean's.
...