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"WHY WOULD YOU SAY YES? CAS? WHAT THE HELL?!? I didn't think even YOU could be that STUPID. I mean SERIOUSLY, What The HELL?!!?"
The three hunters were in a field in West Virginia. Castiel was once again inhabiting his vessel, Lucifer safely ("safely") stored away in a woman named Marsha from Arizona until they needed him, and Dean had finally snapped. They had just been looking around, trying to find clues regarding what could possibly be a banshee in the area, and Dean had been stewing for approximately eight days. He rounded on Castiel, who was trailing quietly about fifteen feet behind him, and abruptly began laying into him.
Sam recognized this type of shouting. (It had been directed at him enough). This was the 'I've been having a conversation about this in my head for hours and am only now letting you in on it' shouting.
It was also 'How could you, I was so scared' shouting.
Sam recognized that kind too.
"Okaaaay, well. I think I'mm gonna go check out that, uh... woods. Over there. Meet you guys at the car!"
Cas nodded in acknowledgement of Sam's retreat, but Dean didn't even seem to register his brother's disappearance. He was walking around in a vague circle and alternatively grabbing his hair and gesturing wildly. Basically, working himself up into an epic snit-fit, if Sam had to describe it. He felt for Cas, he really did. The temptation in the cage had been intense to say the least. And with all the other crap the angel had been dealing with at the time...
Sam made a ninety-degree turn and booked it into a stand of trees. He'd circle back and wait at the car - there was no way he was sticking around for the ass-chewing his older brother was about to give their angel.
Cas didn't even look at Dean. That was possibly the hardest part of all of this. He just stared at the ground.
"I apologize, Dean. I didn't mean for you to-"
Dean interrupted with a harsh laugh. If he held on to the anger, he wouldn't curl up and start sobbing, so he defaulted to being as vicious as he needed to be. "Yeah. Great. You didn't mean, you didn't mean. You NEVER mean to, Cas! God, DamnIt!"
"I thought-"
"No, Cas. You obviously didn't." Dean stopped pacing and walked up, sticking a finger in the other man'd face. His tone dropped frighteningly fast. "He was walking around in you, Cas. And I just... LUCIFER! In THERE!" He jabbed angrily at Castiel's chest. A petulant part of him hoped it bruised. "God Damned Lucifer! Walking around, me talking to him like a fricking Idiot! Like he was YOU!"
Cas sighed and squeezed his eyes shut. "I'm sorry you feel I allowed you to be deceived, or that your personal safeguards have been compromised. He didn't allow me time to inform you of the decision."
"Personal safeguards, Cas?" Dean barked out. "You mean how we let Lucifer into the Bunker ? Is THAT what you think this is about?"
If possible, Cas tried to make himself smaller. "I understand loosing me as an asset has compromised your efficiency now, it's why I requested you leave me in Arizona."
Dean rolled his eyes with his entire head. "Leave you in Arizona," he mocked. "Yeah, okay. He ate up the rest of your GRACE. CAS. Yeah. We'll do that. Leave human-you alone with one of the most powerful, evil sons-of-bitches out there and just - what? Keep on keepin' on? What happens when he breaks the wards, Cas . You miss a check-in and we come back to find... find-" A sudden and visceral image of Cas lying, bloody and beaten on the library floor came to Dean like a punch to the gut.
Oh fuck, he was gonna cry.
The hunter turned, picked up a rock, and threw it as far as he could with a frustrated yell. Cas still wouldn't do more than glance at him, and Dean pretended he missed the involuntary flinch when he's turned and hurled the stone.
"I apologize for being such a burden, Dean. I wish you'd just let me..." Cas trailed off and squinted into the tree line, sighing sadly.
"WHAT, Cas," the hunter demanded, stalking towards the angel. "Let you do your own thing?"
"No, let..."
"Let you 'help' however you see fit?" He couldn't keep the mockery out of his tone and he knew it.
Cas glared for a moment. "No."
"What then?! Cas?!" Dean let out a disbelieving laugh and threw up his hands. "What, praaay tell, should I let you-"
"LET ME DIE, DEAN."
Suddenly Dean wasn't angry anymore.
But Castiel was.
They were both breathing very hard, like they had been running, but everything had gone very still. Castiel was finally looking at Dean, but the hunter wished with all his heart he would stop.
Dean swallowed audibly. "What."
Cas was steel and winter for a moment, righteous fury like Dean hadn't seen since the good ol' days burning behind his eyes. Then his eyebrows knit together and he melted back into the beleaguered, unhappy, world-worn Cas they were used to now. The difference, when Dean saw it like that, was jarring. Jesus, how had he missed this.
The angel sighed mightily. "I'm no real use to anyone without grace, Dean. I'm an outcast of Heaven, a pariah amongst my own brethren. To you and Sam I'm only a burden. Extra weight, extra worry, and while I appreciate your admirable loyalty in exchange for services previously rendered, I have finally reached the end of my usefulness." He leveled a detached gaze at Dean and was suddenly as much a stranger as he had been as Lucifer's vessel. "I understand my time with you and Sam will end, likely soon, and I'm at peace with that. I'm expendable, which is why I agreed to be Lucifer's vessel. You need Sam, Amara needs you, and I am..." Castiel lifted his chin defiantly, "as always, a weapon."
Dean felt like he couldn't move. It was like that night after purgatory; he'd been so happy to get Cas back and then the angel had talked about killing himself... But this was different. Castiel - his best friend Castiel - was so utterly convinced that Sam and Dean only kept him around for, what, healing broken bones? How could he even... Cas was everything. Cas was going to keep Dean from burning the world after everyone else had abandoned him or died. He'd said so. He promised. They were going to be immortal together. And it was possible that, at his lowest, a tiny part of him had thought if he got to hang out with Cas until he inevitably turned into a world-ending killing machine, maybe having The Mark wasn't the worst thing. Maybe he could fight it for years, for centuries, for Cas. Course, The Mark wanted to snuff out everything good in him, so of course he'd hulked out and beaten the shit out of the brightest light in his frickin' life. Besides maybe Sammy or Charlie.
Oh, yeah. Cas had adored Charlie.
And then the attack-dog curse.
He never talked about Hannah anymore.
Hadn't he said something about being tortured?
And... whatever had happened with Metatron.
And Amara.
Jesus, had he been so wrapped up in his own issues with the Mark of Cain he'd missed this completely? Blind, blind, and now he's yelling, calling him stupid...
Nothing but a weapon. Well, didn't that just make them a pair of spades.
Dean swallowed around the marbles in his throat and stepped towards Cas, raising his hand to rest on the angel's shoulder. Cas flinched at the hunter's movement towards him and Dean felt that unmistakable hot-water feeling behind his eyes. He pushed through and gently lay his hand on one trenchcoated shoulder. When he spoke again, it was much softer.
"Cas. I'm so... You're not..." unwanted, a burden, a weapon, useless, sorry, forgive me, none of it would come out. All of the words tried to get spoken at once and they got jammed at the back of his throat. He could see his silence cementing Castiel's opinions, validating all of his fears, and Dean... well, Dean had always been a man of action. He took a deep breath and grabbed Castiel's face in both hands, forcing icy blue eyes to meet his, and mashed his face into the angel's.
He kissed him hard, was pretty sure he'd taste blood when they pulled apart, but he needed to convey what he meant - what Castiel meant to him - and this had seemed the most efficient way. Cas didn't kiss back, but that didn't stop him. Dean sucked in a breath through his nose, squished against Cas' cheek and his own hand, and squeezed his eyes shut. He lost the battle against the prickles behind his eyes and tried really hard to ignore the hot feeling of water tracking down the back of his hand. The hunter pulled back as abruptly as he'd dived in, opening his eyes extra wide to hide his current brink-of-tears-ness, and took the smallest of steps back.
Cas and Dean stared at each other. The angel's head tilted and he studied Dean intensely. For a few seconds, it felt like back in the day when Cas would try to read Dean's mind and Dean would take the time to simply study his angel's face. Finally, Dean broke eye contact and cleared his throat. When he spoke, he hated how thick his voice sounded.
"So... okay?"
He sniffed and looked at the tops of the trees for a moment. "I can't, uh... do this without you." He paused. "Like... I can but..." he looked at the angel, whose quiet unresponsiveness was beginning to unnerve him. A little desperation leaked into his expression. "Listen man, I need you. I-I want her, The Darkness, Amara, whatever, it's..." His hand drifted unconsciously to rub the inside of his forearm and Cas tracked the motion. Dean swallowed audibly. "But I need you, okay? And I think, maybe... we need each other? So don't... don't-" his voice gave out like the pansy he was, but he just couldn't get the words 'die on me' out. He'd been so angry, but as the anger burned itself out, all that remained was fear, and the fear was deep. Maybe deeper than he'd realized. "... okay?" Please understand.
Cas stood quietly for a moment more, then closed the distance to Dean slowly. He studied the hunter's face closely with each movement. Ever so carefully, the angel wrapped his arms around the hunter's midsection and laid his forehead against the flannel at his chest. Cas closed his eyes and nodded against the material.
"Okay."
All of Dean's breath left him in a whoosh and he bundled the angel to him like they were safe if they just got close enough.
"Okay."
They stood like that until it started to get dark.