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So Castiel beat him till he was bloody and bruised, over and over and over. It wasn’t the first time it had happened, either, but he’s sure this one hurts a lot more than last time.
Because last time, he was going to say Yes and end the world and everything Castiel had worked for.
And this time.
This time, he doesn’t know why Castiel can’t seem to stop, why every blow seems so vicious yet lacking in passion. He doesn’t know what else to say to appease the angel, his angel, other than you’re family. I need you.
And then Castiel stops, looks terrified. Takes hold of the tablet, heals Dean, leaves.
Leaves him alone, again. Abandoned when Dean is most vulnerable.
Again.
He screams in his sleep that night.
Why weren’t you there for me, Cas? Why are you never there?
And he never gets an answer. Maybe Cas is dead. Good riddance. No, it’s not. Come back to me, Cas. I miss you.
The days pass and Sam gets worse, and Dean thinks there is no hope left in the world. The trials take their toll on the two of them as Dean climbs into Sammy’s bed night after night, curls around his brother and holds him tight. Don’t you ever leave me, Sammy. Don’t ever think you can get away with that.
I won’t, Dean.
Metatron, the angel trials. Castiel thinks he’s doing the right thing. Closing heaven is the right thing.
Right thing. You keep telling yourself that, Cas. If it makes you sleep better at night.
Naomi is dead. Good riddance. No, it’s not. Come back, Naomi. You knew the truth.
Falling angels. Everywhere, wings charred and grace broken. Finding their way in the world.
Dean thinks Castiel is dead; he isn’t.
The bunker, dead of night. Prophet of the Lord sleeping in an extra bed far from the doorway. He still hears the knocking.
Shotguns and salt and bottles of holy water later, the door opens slowly: a tattered, bleeding angel. Melancholy eyes that were blue once, perhaps, now tainted red and battered beyond recognition.
He sleeps for days.
At the end of the first week, Dean pulls him off the couch and into his room, laying him on the bed beside pictures of a life long since over. “Just rest,” he’s told, though that’s the all the former angel has been doing.
Nightmares interrupt the serene set of his features, contort them into fearshameloneliness and twist them until all that’s left when he awakes is a hollow, broken creature who could have been called Divine, once.
Ashes and fire and burning, burning, burning.
Sometime after the second week Dean crawls into bed with him, wraps the angel – he will always be The Angel, to Dean – with his own limbs, and fights off sleep as he soothes the restless soul that whimpers sorrowfully beneath him, night after night.
Sometimes it is Dean who burns, in his dreams, but Cas never speaks those horrors aloud. He hardly speaks at all.
He is broken and useless, bloodied and beaten and bruised and utterly wasted.
Dean knows he’s about to give up. End the world. Everything they’ve worked for.
Instead of beating him to a pulp, he presses his lips gently to Castiel’s and murmurs that everything will be fine. Everything will be fine.