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I promised myself I wouldn't. I promised myself I wasn't stepping into this fandom, not properly. *shrugs helplessly* How was I supposed to know Castiel would be the one character to convince me to write SPN fic?
Title: Second Chances
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Supernatural
Continuity: Immediately post 5x04, spoilers for that ep
Characters/Pairings: Dean, future!Cas, Dean/Castiel
Summary: Future!Cas is dying, and his Father grants him one last request. Five years previously, back in the present, Dean is dreaming.
Wordcount: 3400
Warnings: Character death, future!Cas (who's a warning all his own), and more language than I think I've ever put in one fic. Um.
Disclaimer: Not mine
"Well," said a voice behind him, bright and wondering. "This wasn't quiet what I was hoping for, but beggars can't be choosers, I guess." Dean sucked in a breath, feeling his fists clench, and spun round, ready to let fly.
And stopped.
Castiel looked up at him from a couple of feet away on the jetty, head tilted, hands swinging idly by his side, grinning that faint, unmistakable grin beneath wide, blue eyes. Castiel. Unmistakably Castiel.
But not his Castiel.
"How about that," the future-angel said, his smile sliding around his face, shattered under drug-blown pupils. He was barefoot, covered in blood. There was a gouge missing from his side, just above one hip, and rents torn across his chest. He didn't seem to notice. "Guess even fallen angels get one last prayer. Huh. Who'd've thought?"
Dean stared, swallowed. "Cas ... Castiel?" he managed, backing away a little. Nightmare. This was a nightmare. Had to be. Forget Hell. Forget Alastair. This was a nightmare. "You ... how did you ..."
"Hmm?" Castiel looked around him idly, taking in the sights, like he hadn't been here in a while. Here. Inside Dean's fucking head. "Oh, God sent me." He stopped looking around long enough to flash Dean a smile, his whole face creasing, and damn it but Dean remembered that. He remembered that damned smile, that high-as-a-kite crinkle over black bitterness. He remembered seeing it that first time. He remembered wanting never to have to see it again.
"God sent you," he repeated, flatly. Blankly. Nightmare. This was so a nightmare. This had to be a nightmare.
"Yup," Cas grinned, stretching slightly, popping kinks out of his shoulders. The motion caused the wound in his side to gape wide, a bloody mouth leering at Dean, and suddenly he wanted to throw up. Badly.
"What do you mean, God sent you?" he asked, hard as diamonds, bearing down because if he softened, if he let anything slip, he might start screaming. He might start screaming, and never be able to stop. "Cas? What do you mean?"
Castiel blinked a bit, then grinned, prowling forward a couple of steps. His feet were bleeding, too. Someone had ripped off his boots. What the hell had happened, up there on that second floor with the Croats? What had they done to him?
What had Dean let them do?
"I'm dying," Cas said, out of nowhere, oddly gentle. He waved a hand vaguely. "Up there. Five years from now. Little less, maybe. I'm not sure how long it's been for you. But. I'm dying, I was dying, and I figured, what the hell, right? I've fallen as far as an angel can fall, Dean's dead, the end has come, the angels are gone ... what the hell can it hurt to try? I mean, five years, maybe I'll get lucky at the last minute." He grinned, the expression slick and loose on his face. "So I prayed. I asked my Father to come to me, nothing else, just come to me and give me one last answer. Give me one last chance. I was dying, and I prayed, and ..."
He stopped, frowning faintly, an expression that Dean had no handle on, that he'd never seen, except maybe once. When he and Bobby had summoned a creature named Castiel, and that creature had answered. I'm the one who gripped you tight and raised you from Perdition. Something like that. Some remnant of something powerful and bright and burning with faith, though it was broken now, and dimmed.
"And?" he whispered, almost afraid, and Cas turned back to him with a smile.
"And my Father answered, Dean," he said, quietly, gently, something nameless throbbing in his voice, in blue eyes veiled in blood, and Dean felt something break open inside his chest, break with a hot flood of hate and pain and despair, shattered beyond repair. Castiel smiled at him through his wounds like someone had reached down to him in Hell and pulled him free, and all Dean could feel was hate. Rich and virulent, for whatever fucking bastard, Divine or otherwise, who had waited until Cas was fucking ripped to pieces before helping him. Who had waited until Cas was dying before showing his fucking face.
"Yeah?" he snarled, hot and hateful. "And what did God have to say, Cas? Hope it was something along the lines of 'please fucking forgive me'?"
Cas tipped backwards a little, as if stunned by Dean's vehemence, bewildered. "Why would He say that?" he asked, and it was so Cas, so Castiel, so gravelled, innocent, Angel-of-the-Lord that Dean felt sick. He felt sick. But Cas was smiling again, and though it slid around his face like he didn't quite know how the expression was supposed to fit anymore, it was real, realer than the dazed, bitter smiles he remembered from five years into the future, realer than the smile he'd worn only a moment ago, and Dean had sent this Cas to fucking die, and he didn't have it in him to hurt him anymore. He didn't.
"No reason," he said, harsh and tired and just ... just empty. "No reason, Cas. Never mind me." He waved one tired hand. "So. What did Daddy have to say?" Castiel stared at him curiously, frowning faintly, that old what-is-this-bullshit expression that Dean knew so very, very well, but then the angel shrugged, accepting Dean at face value, and smiled again. Soft, this time. Loving. Dean tried not to cry.
"He gave me a chance," Cas said, softly, wonderingly. "He heard me, and He gave me a chance. He asked me what I wanted, and gave me one last chance." A laugh, stunned and amazed. "He gave me what I asked for, Dean. He really did. I didn't ... I wasn't sure, until I arrived here, and I saw you. You you, not my you. He really did it. He really gave me my chance."
Dean stared. He couldn't help it. Cas was dying, he was all but fucking dead, Dean could see the wounds from here, see fresh ones being torn into flinching flesh even as they stood, and Castiel was smiling like he'd been given a present, like he'd been given the best damn present in the world, and that fucking present was the chance to talk to him? To the man who'd betrayed him, used him, sent to his goddamned death? That was Castiel's idea of a last fucking request?
"I broke you," he said, fiercely, desperately, trying to make this man understand, this once-angel, this battered friend, trying to make him see. "I broke you, Cas! I took you and broke you and sold you down the fucking river and sent you to die. I fucking killed you, and you waste your last fucking wish on me? What the hell, Cas! What the hell?"
Castiel stared at him, bouncing idly on the balls of his feet, barefoot and skinny, blood trickling and oozing from open wounds. He was smiling, that wide, stoned, glittering grin, and there was bitterness there, and pain, and eyes like glass and fire, and such massive, impossible tenderness that Dean could feel himself cracking at the seams, crumbling, just from the sight of it. Just from knowing it was there.
"Yes, you did," Castiel mused, voice soft and gravelled and loose. Out of nowhere, something sliced open his cheek, an invisible brush of violence, spilling blood in a hot, stunned rush. Somewhere, five years in the future, five fucking years in the future, someone was killing this Cas, and it was all his fucking fault. And Castiel just didn't seem to care.
"Cas ..." he whispered, helplessly, brokenly. "Cas, what are you doing? Why are you here?"
The ex-angel tilted his head, like a broken bird, that same head-tilt, that same damn gesture, that first look of consideration and baffled confusion. You don't think you deserve to be saved. No. Hell no. Not now, not ever. Not after this. Not after fucking doing this, not to Cas. Not to Castiel. Damn straight, he didn't deserve to be saved. After this, he didn't deserve anything. Not anything, and certainly not Castiel's compassion. Not ever that.
"I wanted to tell you," Cas said suddenly, forcing blown-wide pupils to focus, forcing himself past the drugs and the pain and the fact that something somewhere was fucking killing him, forcing himself out of the future and into the present, into Dean's present, into his mind and his dreams and making them real. Making himself real. So damned real.
"Tell me what?" he asked, hoarsely, almost reaching out before he could stop himself, almost trying to touch, like he had a right, like he had any fucking right. "That you hate me? That I got it wrong? That I should have said yes? That you're fucking dying and it's all my fault?" He stopped, pulled in a shuddering breath, tried to stamp down the pain. "I know that, Cas. I know all that. I do."
Cas blinked at him, a bit, brows pulling down over wide eyes in bleary confusion, and god, he looked so out of it, so damaged and young and lost and stoned, so bitter and alive and dying. He shook his head, still staring at Dean, and his eye creased up into that bright, pained smile, humour rolling over his face like a bitter tide, and Dean wanted to be sick. He wanted to kill something, to hurt something, to tear something to shreds. Preferably himself. Oh God, Cas. Castiel.
"Well, you haven't gotten any brighter, that's for certain," Cas grinned, reaching up to scratch one bloodied cheek. His fingernails tore into an open cut. "I wondered if it was just my you, if you'd got dumber with age and I just didn't notice. But nah. Still you. Thick as a brick."
Dean swallowed. Hard. "Yeah," he managed, thickly. "Thick as a brick, that's me. Cas ..."
"You're not getting it, are you?" Cas went on, right on over him, but it wasn't that he was ignoring Dean. His eyes were right there, lasered in on Dean's, that thousand-yard stare that looked right the hell through you and had done right from the start. From the first moment after pulling Dean out of hell, seeing him right down to his soul, and this Cas wasn't even an angel anymore, wasn't anything more than a broken-down, drugged-up dying man, wasn't more than a friend who'd been used and betrayed and tossed to the demons, wasn't powerful, wasn't holy, but his stare still went right through Dean, down to the bottom. Always would, maybe.
"Cas," he said again, helplessly, emptily, because there wasn't anything else. There wasn't anything he could say, wasn't anything he could do, because this Cas was dead, and he'd killed him, and there was nothing he could do to change that. Not now.
And then Castiel moved into him, stepped up to him, bouncing on bare feet, shaking and bleeding and human, raising hands gone sticky and stained with his own blood, and cupped Dean's face gently. Held him quietly while he shook himself to pieces, and five years distant breathed his last.
"I came to tell you," he whispered softly, torn lips almost brushing Dean's. "I came to tell you, Dean. You don't get it. You never did. Not all the while we were fighting, all the while we were dying, all the while the world was going to Hell around us. You never got it." That flashing grin, like he was pulling twisted shards of his own heart up for display. "I came to tell you, because you'd never get it otherwise." He stopped, convulsing, falling against Dean with a rush of air and blood, letting his head fall with a thump onto Dean's shoulder. Without even thinking about it, Dean wrapped his arms around him, around his crumbling form, and one hand reached up to cradle the fragile curve of Castiel's skull.
"Tell me, Cas," he whispered, gently, roughly. "Tell me so you can let go. Tell me so you can go home." God, please, I've never prayed for anything in my whole damned life, but when this is done you'd fucking better take Cas home. You'd fucking better. "C'mon, Cas. Just a little longer, and you can go."
Cas chuffed gently against Dean's collar, leaning in to idly mouth the skin, like he was curiously to see how it tasted, and it hit Dean, all over again, just how damn far his angel had had to fall. Just how damned broken he was.
"I wasn't wrong, Dean," Castiel whispered firmly, stained fingers tangling in Dean's shirt. "That's what I had to tell you. I wasn't wrong. I wasn't ever wrong." He smiled, so fucking gentle. Good things do happen, Dean. "We made mistakes. We made so many mistakes. But that's alright. It's alright, Dean. Because it was part of the Plan, and I was always supposed to choose you, and I don't regret it. I don't."
Dean crumpled. Right down on his knees, and dream or no dream, the impact juddered up through him, shaking Cas in his arms, wringing a choked gasp from his broken angel. "How can you ... how can you say that, Cas? How can you say that?" This wasn't part of the plan. This wasn't part of any damn plan, and if it was, then the God who planned it was one sick fuck, and should never have been allowed near angels. Never have been allowed near this angel. Like Dean. Dean should never have been allowed near Cas. Never.
Then a finger slipped gently over his lips, a faint wisp of admonition, and the look in Cas' eyes was so damn familiar, tired and exasperated and two inches from smiting his ass, and Dean wanted to cry. He wanted to cry. Why wasn't he crying, already?
"I'm an angel, Dean," he said, firmly. Growled, really, and it was so like his Cas, so like the Castiel who waited out there somewhere in the waking world, all angelic and serious and baffled and whole. "Even now, even after everything. I'm an angel, and I might be broken and mortal and drugged up to my eyeballs, but God came to me, and he let me have this, and you are damn well going to listen to me, Dean Winchester! I was fighting for aeons before you were ever born, I was fighting all my damn life. I'm a goddamned soldier, Dean. I know how to die. I've always known how to die. And yes, it hurts. It really hurts. And yes, you killed me, and didn't even have the decency to kill Lucifer afterwards, but that's not the point. That's not the mistake. You made a mistake, but that wasn't it."
Dean swallowed around what felt like half a ton of broken glass. "Yeah?" he croaked, and tried to pull up the smile this dying angel seemed to want. "And what was it then, oh all-knowing one?" And it hurt, it hurt like a bitch, but Cas gave a little chuckle as a reward, a shaking little thing Dean could feel to his bones.
"It was thinking you had to lie to make me do it," the angel whispered softly, pressed against his lips. "That was the mistake, Dean. I knew. I knew the whole time. Thousands of years fighting, you think I don't know a decoy when I see one? You think you're the only one who knows when you're lying?" He chuffed out another laugh, a horrible, wet sound, and raised his hands to Dean's cheeks again, thumbing away his tears. "Thick as a brick," he wondered, almost lovingly. "Thick as a damn brick, Dean. It's worth it, you moron. Even if you make all the same mistakes all over again. Even if five years down the line again, you send me right back in to die. Even if there's no way out, and all this is is my Father giving me the chance to say goodbye. Even if I can't stop it. It's still worth it."
He stopped, fading, slipping down in Dean's arms, and Dean followed him helplessly, still cradling his head, still holding on as best he could. Cas' hands fell away, weak and worn and still twitching from the damn drugs, from the pain, from dying. Cas fell, and Dean followed him down. There was nothing else he could do.
"You don't have to lie, Dean," he whispered again, so soft it could barely be heard, and this from the creature who had once blown out all the windows in a gas station just by talking. This from Cas. From Castiel. "You just have to ask. If you need me to die for you. You just have to ask."
"I don't want to," Dean cried out, finding voice at last, and it was ragged and torn and sounded for all the world like it was his chest that'd been ripped to shreds, like he was the one dying, but he wasn't. He wasn't. Cas was. "I don't fucking want you to die, you idiot! Please!" He stopped, broke, and pulled air in desperately to continue. "Please, Cas. Please don't die on me. Please don't die."
Castiel's eyes widened, stunned, amazed, for one long, endless moment, and then ... he changed. He changed. Healed. Right before Dean's eyes, five years of pain and mortality and drugs and bitterness and death, all slipping away, all smoothed out like he was a rumpled sheet some vast someone had smoothed a hand over, and no man or angel had ever looked so damned beautiful than Cas did in that moment. Dean sucked in a stunned breath, shocked and almost terrified, and Castiel looked past him at something, at someone, someone Dean could feel against his back like a wildfire, a fierce, terrible presence, the most gentle he'd ever known.
"Oh," Cas whispered, softly, meeting Dean's eyes again. He looked ... awed. Not at whatever waited over Dean's shoulder, but at Dean. At him. At the stupid, worthless human who'd killed him over and over again. He looked at Dean, and there was something in his eyes that crushed Dean's heart to a pulp, shaking him, unmaking him, and putting him back together all in the same instant. Something Dean had never thought was possible, not in anyone, not for him. Cas looked at him, faded and wondering, and smiled. "Oh."
And then he was gone. Then he was gone, and five years distant a broken angel surrendered himself once more to his Father's grasp, and somewhere out in the night, Dean's own angel searched on oblivious, not knowing what his future self had seen, not knowing what he had known, just for one brief moment before the end. Not knowing that he was loved. Not knowing his sacrifices meant a damn thing. Not knowing Dean didn't want him to die. Not knowing that God, bastard son of a bitch that He was, apparently gave second fucking chances. Not just to broken angels, but to the humans that broke them, too.
Castiel was out there. Right now. Castiel was out there, and in some future world he had cared enough to ask God for one more chance for Dean, and like fuck Dean was going to let that go. Like fuck he was going to let that slide.
He was going to wake up. He was going to wake up right now, and he was going to get on the phone and summon himself an angel, and they were going to have themselves a talk.
Five years in the future, a broken angel had walked into death at Dean's command, and given his last breath to help Dean understand why. And right now, if Dean had any say in his damned life at all, that angel was going to pop into a motel room, and listen while Dean explained to him why he was never, ever allowed to do it again. Twice. Fucking twice now, Cas had died for him. No more. No damned more.
He fumbled his eyes open, reaching out blindly for the phone.
"Castiel? Yeah, man, sorry. Hey. What are the chances of you appearing beside me in the next two minutes? I got something needs saying."
And damn, but he hoped it wasn't too late to say it.
Title: Second Chances
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Supernatural
Continuity: Immediately post 5x04, spoilers for that ep
Characters/Pairings: Dean, future!Cas, Dean/Castiel
Summary: Future!Cas is dying, and his Father grants him one last request. Five years previously, back in the present, Dean is dreaming.
Wordcount: 3400
Warnings: Character death, future!Cas (who's a warning all his own), and more language than I think I've ever put in one fic. Um.
Disclaimer: Not mine
Second Chances
Dean looked around, at the lake, at the sky, at the freaking fishing rod. He was dreaming. He wasn't sure how he knew it, but he was. He was dreaming, and awake, and damn it, he'd thought he and Cas had talked about this! No poking fallen-angel fingers into Dean's head, dammit!"Well," said a voice behind him, bright and wondering. "This wasn't quiet what I was hoping for, but beggars can't be choosers, I guess." Dean sucked in a breath, feeling his fists clench, and spun round, ready to let fly.
And stopped.
Castiel looked up at him from a couple of feet away on the jetty, head tilted, hands swinging idly by his side, grinning that faint, unmistakable grin beneath wide, blue eyes. Castiel. Unmistakably Castiel.
But not his Castiel.
"How about that," the future-angel said, his smile sliding around his face, shattered under drug-blown pupils. He was barefoot, covered in blood. There was a gouge missing from his side, just above one hip, and rents torn across his chest. He didn't seem to notice. "Guess even fallen angels get one last prayer. Huh. Who'd've thought?"
Dean stared, swallowed. "Cas ... Castiel?" he managed, backing away a little. Nightmare. This was a nightmare. Had to be. Forget Hell. Forget Alastair. This was a nightmare. "You ... how did you ..."
"Hmm?" Castiel looked around him idly, taking in the sights, like he hadn't been here in a while. Here. Inside Dean's fucking head. "Oh, God sent me." He stopped looking around long enough to flash Dean a smile, his whole face creasing, and damn it but Dean remembered that. He remembered that damned smile, that high-as-a-kite crinkle over black bitterness. He remembered seeing it that first time. He remembered wanting never to have to see it again.
"God sent you," he repeated, flatly. Blankly. Nightmare. This was so a nightmare. This had to be a nightmare.
"Yup," Cas grinned, stretching slightly, popping kinks out of his shoulders. The motion caused the wound in his side to gape wide, a bloody mouth leering at Dean, and suddenly he wanted to throw up. Badly.
"What do you mean, God sent you?" he asked, hard as diamonds, bearing down because if he softened, if he let anything slip, he might start screaming. He might start screaming, and never be able to stop. "Cas? What do you mean?"
Castiel blinked a bit, then grinned, prowling forward a couple of steps. His feet were bleeding, too. Someone had ripped off his boots. What the hell had happened, up there on that second floor with the Croats? What had they done to him?
What had Dean let them do?
"I'm dying," Cas said, out of nowhere, oddly gentle. He waved a hand vaguely. "Up there. Five years from now. Little less, maybe. I'm not sure how long it's been for you. But. I'm dying, I was dying, and I figured, what the hell, right? I've fallen as far as an angel can fall, Dean's dead, the end has come, the angels are gone ... what the hell can it hurt to try? I mean, five years, maybe I'll get lucky at the last minute." He grinned, the expression slick and loose on his face. "So I prayed. I asked my Father to come to me, nothing else, just come to me and give me one last answer. Give me one last chance. I was dying, and I prayed, and ..."
He stopped, frowning faintly, an expression that Dean had no handle on, that he'd never seen, except maybe once. When he and Bobby had summoned a creature named Castiel, and that creature had answered. I'm the one who gripped you tight and raised you from Perdition. Something like that. Some remnant of something powerful and bright and burning with faith, though it was broken now, and dimmed.
"And?" he whispered, almost afraid, and Cas turned back to him with a smile.
"And my Father answered, Dean," he said, quietly, gently, something nameless throbbing in his voice, in blue eyes veiled in blood, and Dean felt something break open inside his chest, break with a hot flood of hate and pain and despair, shattered beyond repair. Castiel smiled at him through his wounds like someone had reached down to him in Hell and pulled him free, and all Dean could feel was hate. Rich and virulent, for whatever fucking bastard, Divine or otherwise, who had waited until Cas was fucking ripped to pieces before helping him. Who had waited until Cas was dying before showing his fucking face.
"Yeah?" he snarled, hot and hateful. "And what did God have to say, Cas? Hope it was something along the lines of 'please fucking forgive me'?"
Cas tipped backwards a little, as if stunned by Dean's vehemence, bewildered. "Why would He say that?" he asked, and it was so Cas, so Castiel, so gravelled, innocent, Angel-of-the-Lord that Dean felt sick. He felt sick. But Cas was smiling again, and though it slid around his face like he didn't quite know how the expression was supposed to fit anymore, it was real, realer than the dazed, bitter smiles he remembered from five years into the future, realer than the smile he'd worn only a moment ago, and Dean had sent this Cas to fucking die, and he didn't have it in him to hurt him anymore. He didn't.
"No reason," he said, harsh and tired and just ... just empty. "No reason, Cas. Never mind me." He waved one tired hand. "So. What did Daddy have to say?" Castiel stared at him curiously, frowning faintly, that old what-is-this-bullshit expression that Dean knew so very, very well, but then the angel shrugged, accepting Dean at face value, and smiled again. Soft, this time. Loving. Dean tried not to cry.
"He gave me a chance," Cas said, softly, wonderingly. "He heard me, and He gave me a chance. He asked me what I wanted, and gave me one last chance." A laugh, stunned and amazed. "He gave me what I asked for, Dean. He really did. I didn't ... I wasn't sure, until I arrived here, and I saw you. You you, not my you. He really did it. He really gave me my chance."
Dean stared. He couldn't help it. Cas was dying, he was all but fucking dead, Dean could see the wounds from here, see fresh ones being torn into flinching flesh even as they stood, and Castiel was smiling like he'd been given a present, like he'd been given the best damn present in the world, and that fucking present was the chance to talk to him? To the man who'd betrayed him, used him, sent to his goddamned death? That was Castiel's idea of a last fucking request?
"I broke you," he said, fiercely, desperately, trying to make this man understand, this once-angel, this battered friend, trying to make him see. "I broke you, Cas! I took you and broke you and sold you down the fucking river and sent you to die. I fucking killed you, and you waste your last fucking wish on me? What the hell, Cas! What the hell?"
Castiel stared at him, bouncing idly on the balls of his feet, barefoot and skinny, blood trickling and oozing from open wounds. He was smiling, that wide, stoned, glittering grin, and there was bitterness there, and pain, and eyes like glass and fire, and such massive, impossible tenderness that Dean could feel himself cracking at the seams, crumbling, just from the sight of it. Just from knowing it was there.
"Yes, you did," Castiel mused, voice soft and gravelled and loose. Out of nowhere, something sliced open his cheek, an invisible brush of violence, spilling blood in a hot, stunned rush. Somewhere, five years in the future, five fucking years in the future, someone was killing this Cas, and it was all his fucking fault. And Castiel just didn't seem to care.
"Cas ..." he whispered, helplessly, brokenly. "Cas, what are you doing? Why are you here?"
The ex-angel tilted his head, like a broken bird, that same head-tilt, that same damn gesture, that first look of consideration and baffled confusion. You don't think you deserve to be saved. No. Hell no. Not now, not ever. Not after this. Not after fucking doing this, not to Cas. Not to Castiel. Damn straight, he didn't deserve to be saved. After this, he didn't deserve anything. Not anything, and certainly not Castiel's compassion. Not ever that.
"I wanted to tell you," Cas said suddenly, forcing blown-wide pupils to focus, forcing himself past the drugs and the pain and the fact that something somewhere was fucking killing him, forcing himself out of the future and into the present, into Dean's present, into his mind and his dreams and making them real. Making himself real. So damned real.
"Tell me what?" he asked, hoarsely, almost reaching out before he could stop himself, almost trying to touch, like he had a right, like he had any fucking right. "That you hate me? That I got it wrong? That I should have said yes? That you're fucking dying and it's all my fault?" He stopped, pulled in a shuddering breath, tried to stamp down the pain. "I know that, Cas. I know all that. I do."
Cas blinked at him, a bit, brows pulling down over wide eyes in bleary confusion, and god, he looked so out of it, so damaged and young and lost and stoned, so bitter and alive and dying. He shook his head, still staring at Dean, and his eye creased up into that bright, pained smile, humour rolling over his face like a bitter tide, and Dean wanted to be sick. He wanted to kill something, to hurt something, to tear something to shreds. Preferably himself. Oh God, Cas. Castiel.
"Well, you haven't gotten any brighter, that's for certain," Cas grinned, reaching up to scratch one bloodied cheek. His fingernails tore into an open cut. "I wondered if it was just my you, if you'd got dumber with age and I just didn't notice. But nah. Still you. Thick as a brick."
Dean swallowed. Hard. "Yeah," he managed, thickly. "Thick as a brick, that's me. Cas ..."
"You're not getting it, are you?" Cas went on, right on over him, but it wasn't that he was ignoring Dean. His eyes were right there, lasered in on Dean's, that thousand-yard stare that looked right the hell through you and had done right from the start. From the first moment after pulling Dean out of hell, seeing him right down to his soul, and this Cas wasn't even an angel anymore, wasn't anything more than a broken-down, drugged-up dying man, wasn't more than a friend who'd been used and betrayed and tossed to the demons, wasn't powerful, wasn't holy, but his stare still went right through Dean, down to the bottom. Always would, maybe.
"Cas," he said again, helplessly, emptily, because there wasn't anything else. There wasn't anything he could say, wasn't anything he could do, because this Cas was dead, and he'd killed him, and there was nothing he could do to change that. Not now.
And then Castiel moved into him, stepped up to him, bouncing on bare feet, shaking and bleeding and human, raising hands gone sticky and stained with his own blood, and cupped Dean's face gently. Held him quietly while he shook himself to pieces, and five years distant breathed his last.
"I came to tell you," he whispered softly, torn lips almost brushing Dean's. "I came to tell you, Dean. You don't get it. You never did. Not all the while we were fighting, all the while we were dying, all the while the world was going to Hell around us. You never got it." That flashing grin, like he was pulling twisted shards of his own heart up for display. "I came to tell you, because you'd never get it otherwise." He stopped, convulsing, falling against Dean with a rush of air and blood, letting his head fall with a thump onto Dean's shoulder. Without even thinking about it, Dean wrapped his arms around him, around his crumbling form, and one hand reached up to cradle the fragile curve of Castiel's skull.
"Tell me, Cas," he whispered, gently, roughly. "Tell me so you can let go. Tell me so you can go home." God, please, I've never prayed for anything in my whole damned life, but when this is done you'd fucking better take Cas home. You'd fucking better. "C'mon, Cas. Just a little longer, and you can go."
Cas chuffed gently against Dean's collar, leaning in to idly mouth the skin, like he was curiously to see how it tasted, and it hit Dean, all over again, just how damn far his angel had had to fall. Just how damned broken he was.
"I wasn't wrong, Dean," Castiel whispered firmly, stained fingers tangling in Dean's shirt. "That's what I had to tell you. I wasn't wrong. I wasn't ever wrong." He smiled, so fucking gentle. Good things do happen, Dean. "We made mistakes. We made so many mistakes. But that's alright. It's alright, Dean. Because it was part of the Plan, and I was always supposed to choose you, and I don't regret it. I don't."
Dean crumpled. Right down on his knees, and dream or no dream, the impact juddered up through him, shaking Cas in his arms, wringing a choked gasp from his broken angel. "How can you ... how can you say that, Cas? How can you say that?" This wasn't part of the plan. This wasn't part of any damn plan, and if it was, then the God who planned it was one sick fuck, and should never have been allowed near angels. Never have been allowed near this angel. Like Dean. Dean should never have been allowed near Cas. Never.
Then a finger slipped gently over his lips, a faint wisp of admonition, and the look in Cas' eyes was so damn familiar, tired and exasperated and two inches from smiting his ass, and Dean wanted to cry. He wanted to cry. Why wasn't he crying, already?
"I'm an angel, Dean," he said, firmly. Growled, really, and it was so like his Cas, so like the Castiel who waited out there somewhere in the waking world, all angelic and serious and baffled and whole. "Even now, even after everything. I'm an angel, and I might be broken and mortal and drugged up to my eyeballs, but God came to me, and he let me have this, and you are damn well going to listen to me, Dean Winchester! I was fighting for aeons before you were ever born, I was fighting all my damn life. I'm a goddamned soldier, Dean. I know how to die. I've always known how to die. And yes, it hurts. It really hurts. And yes, you killed me, and didn't even have the decency to kill Lucifer afterwards, but that's not the point. That's not the mistake. You made a mistake, but that wasn't it."
Dean swallowed around what felt like half a ton of broken glass. "Yeah?" he croaked, and tried to pull up the smile this dying angel seemed to want. "And what was it then, oh all-knowing one?" And it hurt, it hurt like a bitch, but Cas gave a little chuckle as a reward, a shaking little thing Dean could feel to his bones.
"It was thinking you had to lie to make me do it," the angel whispered softly, pressed against his lips. "That was the mistake, Dean. I knew. I knew the whole time. Thousands of years fighting, you think I don't know a decoy when I see one? You think you're the only one who knows when you're lying?" He chuffed out another laugh, a horrible, wet sound, and raised his hands to Dean's cheeks again, thumbing away his tears. "Thick as a brick," he wondered, almost lovingly. "Thick as a damn brick, Dean. It's worth it, you moron. Even if you make all the same mistakes all over again. Even if five years down the line again, you send me right back in to die. Even if there's no way out, and all this is is my Father giving me the chance to say goodbye. Even if I can't stop it. It's still worth it."
He stopped, fading, slipping down in Dean's arms, and Dean followed him helplessly, still cradling his head, still holding on as best he could. Cas' hands fell away, weak and worn and still twitching from the damn drugs, from the pain, from dying. Cas fell, and Dean followed him down. There was nothing else he could do.
"You don't have to lie, Dean," he whispered again, so soft it could barely be heard, and this from the creature who had once blown out all the windows in a gas station just by talking. This from Cas. From Castiel. "You just have to ask. If you need me to die for you. You just have to ask."
"I don't want to," Dean cried out, finding voice at last, and it was ragged and torn and sounded for all the world like it was his chest that'd been ripped to shreds, like he was the one dying, but he wasn't. He wasn't. Cas was. "I don't fucking want you to die, you idiot! Please!" He stopped, broke, and pulled air in desperately to continue. "Please, Cas. Please don't die on me. Please don't die."
Castiel's eyes widened, stunned, amazed, for one long, endless moment, and then ... he changed. He changed. Healed. Right before Dean's eyes, five years of pain and mortality and drugs and bitterness and death, all slipping away, all smoothed out like he was a rumpled sheet some vast someone had smoothed a hand over, and no man or angel had ever looked so damned beautiful than Cas did in that moment. Dean sucked in a stunned breath, shocked and almost terrified, and Castiel looked past him at something, at someone, someone Dean could feel against his back like a wildfire, a fierce, terrible presence, the most gentle he'd ever known.
"Oh," Cas whispered, softly, meeting Dean's eyes again. He looked ... awed. Not at whatever waited over Dean's shoulder, but at Dean. At him. At the stupid, worthless human who'd killed him over and over again. He looked at Dean, and there was something in his eyes that crushed Dean's heart to a pulp, shaking him, unmaking him, and putting him back together all in the same instant. Something Dean had never thought was possible, not in anyone, not for him. Cas looked at him, faded and wondering, and smiled. "Oh."
And then he was gone. Then he was gone, and five years distant a broken angel surrendered himself once more to his Father's grasp, and somewhere out in the night, Dean's own angel searched on oblivious, not knowing what his future self had seen, not knowing what he had known, just for one brief moment before the end. Not knowing that he was loved. Not knowing his sacrifices meant a damn thing. Not knowing Dean didn't want him to die. Not knowing that God, bastard son of a bitch that He was, apparently gave second fucking chances. Not just to broken angels, but to the humans that broke them, too.
Castiel was out there. Right now. Castiel was out there, and in some future world he had cared enough to ask God for one more chance for Dean, and like fuck Dean was going to let that go. Like fuck he was going to let that slide.
He was going to wake up. He was going to wake up right now, and he was going to get on the phone and summon himself an angel, and they were going to have themselves a talk.
Five years in the future, a broken angel had walked into death at Dean's command, and given his last breath to help Dean understand why. And right now, if Dean had any say in his damned life at all, that angel was going to pop into a motel room, and listen while Dean explained to him why he was never, ever allowed to do it again. Twice. Fucking twice now, Cas had died for him. No more. No damned more.
He fumbled his eyes open, reaching out blindly for the phone.
"Castiel? Yeah, man, sorry. Hey. What are the chances of you appearing beside me in the next two minutes? I got something needs saying."
And damn, but he hoped it wasn't too late to say it.
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