"To save Dean Winchester, that was your goal, right?
You drape yourself in the flag of Heaven,
but ultimately, it was all about saving one human."
Metatron to Castiel
The diffuse light of the bunker illuminated the spacious room. Sam held onto the tabletop, his knuckles standing out white. All he could have done was just wait. Just wait. Because he himself hadn't been able to do anything anymore, only Castiel had been and he had let the angel do it. Now the wait was over. And he didn't know which was worse. It was clear what he had done. Sam didn't have to hear the screams to know what the price of Dean's life was. (1)
Once, Dean had forced an angel on him to heal him, even though he had been ready to die. Now Sam had returned this favor. It had to be. They had done what was necessary. They had done the right thing. They had had no choice. Hadn't they?
Castiel exchanged a look with him out of empty eyes. "He's alive", they were seeming to say. Sam nodded, his lips pressed together in a thin line, somewhere between thanking, acknowledging, and dismayed certainty. Then the angel was gone.
A steppe area somewhere in Central Asia, far from any civilization. A place where he couldn't harm anyone. A dry wind swept through the arid grass, whirled up the dust of the barren ground and penetrated coldly through the thin fabric of the trench coat. Castiel did not feel it. His screams mingled with the thunder that rumbled up above him. Probably he was responsible for it.
What had he just done?! Dean had trusted him, he was his friend after all. And he... he had hurt Dean, so much. The human he had never wanted to hurt again. The human who meant so much to him. He had caused him suffering in a way that he did not wish to his worst enemy. He had not only abused the hunter's trust, but also himself, his body, his mind, his soul. If someone else had done something like this to Dean, the angel would have killed them on the spot.
Castiel did not know how long he had crouched in the tall grass with his eyes closed. As he opened them, an old nomad was sitting next to him on a rock. She said something to him. A dialect somewhere between Kazakh and Kyrgyz. The envoy of Heaven would have understood her, he understood every human being on earth, if he had listened. He considered just disappearing again, looking for a new place where he could be alone. But instead he let the petite woman lead him into her tent. He didn't know why himself. He watched her as she brewed tea.
What had he done? He felt sore, raw, torn. As if something had broken deep inside him. As if he had lost a part of himself irrevocably. He couldn't hurt Dean without injuring himself. It had always been like that. And it had often been like that, far too often. But this time... this time it was different. He had lost Dean.
She put a fur around his shoulders. If Castiel hadn't known better and had been human, perhaps he would have described her as an angel. Her soul shone warm, kind, and wise. Almost like the almond-shaped eyes in her wrinkled face, witnesses of times long past. She had led a long life, and soon she would die.
What had he done?! This one human had been more in all these years than his heavenly family ever could have been. And now he had sacrificed their friendship for Dean's life. But Dean hadn't wanted his life, no, he himself had wanted Dean's life. In his selfishness he had forced life on him. Didn't every sentient being have the right to its own death? The right to decide when it was enough?
Alone the nomad defrayed her meager life in this seemingly endless wasteland, but she was never lonely. This woman gave him her hospitality and her precious time, unsuspecting whom she had invited to her home. Or did she know though? She looked at him and smiled.
He had done it. He alone. Guilt weighed like chains that held him to the ground, dragging him down, cutting into his flesh and leaving gashes, gaping wounds, so that all the world could see what he had done. It was as if an infinitely heavy load was laying on his chest that was taking his breath away, little by little crushing him. By doing exactly what Dean regretted so much, he had put his guilt on himself. He had taken Dean's pain upon himself.
The shower faucet felt cold and smooth beneath his still trembling fingers, until drops fell from above, washing the salt from his face. Dean let them, stretched out towards them like a child to the warm summer rain, welcomed them like lungs the oxygen. He couldn't remember the last time he cried so hard. It had been liberating, for he hadn't been able to before. Not in front of Sam. And even more so not in front of himself. In their life he couldn't afford to be weak. His father's voice and the contempt in it still reverberated: You know who whines? Babies. (2)
But now it was too much. In front of the mirror it had broken out of him. He had given up the attempt to hold on to the sink when everything had struck him like a single devastating wave and had overwhelmed him. Shaken by fits of tears, he had sunk to the ground, writhing under the sobs that had fought their way up his throat. Melanie. Was that how it felt? The feeling of how Castiel had fucked him from behind against this wall. His best friend had taken him against his will, didn't he?
Castiel had left the choice up to him to either hurt the angel with his curse-driven actions or to endure what he did with him himself. Dean's decision had been manifest, and definite. Not for a second he had had to or had wanted to think about it. The very thought that Cas would have taken his place made his stomach convulse. He felt sick. He had to shore himself against the shower wall to keep from staggering again. Just the way he had shored himself while Cas...
To suppress it was pointless. His usual strategy would be of no use here. Castiel had touched him like no one had done before. It had hurt, a lot. But most of all it pained that it had been Cas who had hurt him. And yet Dean had to admit that the angel had touched him even before his hands and his body had done it. Years ago, Cas had enkindled something in him that he hadn't known was there at all. Something he tried to pay no attention to ever since. Something that would complicate everything. Something powerful. Something that had been more powerful than the curse, so that he had had enough strength not to harm Cas.
Then the moment when the angel had entered him... He had never felt more free. Nothing that Castiel had done, Dean had found to be wrong. His closeness never was. His actions hadn't been reprehensible, but justified. Penance. This had been his penance, his purgation, that freed him, that set him free from what he himself had done.
Exhausted from crying, Dean leaned his throbbing forehead against the cooling tiles and sensed the wet that fell on his back. Sheltered from the world out there, here in the shower with running water, shielded by a curtain of drops. The water ran and ran, rinsing all off, tears, sweat and blood, the fear, the despair and all the guilt. Everything was washed off, carried away in clear streams. Dean felt hollowed out. Where there had been pain before, there was now emptiness, not just in his body. Castiel was gone. The night stayed.
Dean had gotten out of the shower. He didn't know how long he had stood under the rain-like douche. Maybe just minutes. Maybe hours. Water steam pervaded the bathroom like a thick fog that could even veil time. Drops pearled over his skin and drew tortuous patterns on his body. The hunter looked down at himself, all over the scars and wounds his enemies and his friends had left on him, and himself. It was impossible to miss how broken he was. Damaged item. How many monsters had those hands killed already? How many humans? And did one outweigh the other?
Perhaps there was no difference, no black and white, just inscrutable gray that contained so many colors if one had the courage to take a closer look. Between monstrous humans and humane monsters. Dean and Dorothy.
He didn't notice he was being cold until he began to shiver. Damp, dark stains had formed on the terry mat under his feet. Hesitantly, he reached out a hand, took one of the towels out of the old oak cabinet, and dried his sore body. Castiel had left his marks on him, branded him again.
Taking your own life, strange expression. Who was he taking it from? Once it was over, it wasn't him who would miss it. His own death was something that happened to everybody else. His life was not his alone, Dean understood that now. (3)
Now he recognized the true meaning of the curse. Every month he had to decide to live, choose life anew. For him, living was no longer a state, but a decision, something he chose of his own free will and that was worth fighting for. Also with himself, with his past, his guilt and his inner demons. For the sake of those he loved. For Sam. And for Cas.
"I was lost until I took on your pain."
Castiel
- Sam: "What the hell happened to him?" Castiel: "Me." 5x18
- "You know who whines? Babies." Dean to Cas 6x19 - I bet John used to say that to Dean.
- source: "Taking your own life, interesting expression. Taking it from who? Once it's over, it's not you who'll miss it. Your own death is something that happens to everybody else. Your life is not your own, keep your hands off it." Sherlock 4x02 BBC
