Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Making a phone call to Heaven is surprisingly easy.

The streets are dark, but still busy with people walking by and heading out to bars. On another night, maybe that would be him, nursing a beer on a sticky counter-top and trying to forget about the mess they're in. But he's done running away. He finds the first fanatic standing on the corner with a Bible in hand, preaching about angels and the End Times, and crosses the road to get to him.

All it takes is a few words— namely 'Dean Winchester' — for the man to stop mid-sermon.

The bar they're standing in front of is plastered with neon signs advertising beer in blues and reds, luminous in the night. Its window shutters cast a striped light over Dean's face, alternating lines of shadow and a warm golden glow coming from inside. He stands and waits, a sick hollowness resting heavy in his gut, as the preacher drops to his knees in prayer.

“Our Father who art in Heaven,” the man starts with nervous enthusiasm, hands clasped together around his Bible, “Hallowed be thy name—”

There's a faint hum of disturbance in the air.

When Dean turns, a chill rushes over him at the sight of Cas suddenly standing there, emerged from the shadows.

“You pray too loud,” Cas says scathingly, and with a touch, the man slumps to the ground.

Before Dean can get so much as a word out, Cas is seizing him, throwing him bodily into the bar's alleyway. He hits the brick wall hard, but Cas doesn't let him go, grabbing fistfuls of his jacket to hold him up. The way Cas handles him is jarringly effortless— like he weighs nothing more than an angel blade, spun expertly in his hand.

“What are you, crazy!?” Dean grunts, breath punched out of him at the impact.

Apparently the answer to that is yes. Cas drags him over to the opposite side of the alley, and slams him into the wall again. A dull clang echoes out as Dean falls against a metal container.

Through gritted teeth, Cas snarls at him, “I rebelled for this?”

When Dean crumples, Cas hauls him back up just to drive a fist into his face. The salty, copper taste of blood fills his mouth as he reels backward with a grunt. Without a moment's pause, Cas punches him again. Pain blooms outwards in a dizzy shock, and Dean struggles to get his bearings.

Cas gathers him up close, his grip choking Dean by the jacket collar. He leans in with a dark, livid stare, breath hot on Dean's face as he seethes,

“So that you could surrender to them?”

This is what he gets for vaporising his angel buddy with a blood sigil, apparently. Yeah, dick move, but what else was he supposed to do? Cas wasn't meant to find him this fast. It's all Dean can do to wince, teeth bared, straining for air to speak as his heart races miserably. What even is there for him to say? I have to fix this. I have to end it. I've gotta do what I was s'posed to do all along, then maybe everyone else can get free from this mess.

It's clear there's no answer that Cas is willing to hear. He lifts Dean against the other wall like he's trying to crush him to a pulp, and Dean is helpless to being moved, shoulders ramming back with bruising force. Cas' hands bunch up his collar again and Dean chokes out a noise, trying and failing to fight him off.

He's never been more aware of Cas' body heat, pressed up against him, and his unnatural strength, held in the unyielding muscle of his forearms as they restrain him with ease. It only takes a brief struggle for Cas to swing another punch at him— and another, into his jaw— his stomach—

Cas drags him back up to face him, and Dean tries to speak with what little breath he has, slurred through bloody lips, “Cas— please—”

There's no sign of his words getting through. Turning them again, Cas shoves him up against the other wall, pinning him there like a snared animal. Dean's eyes screw shut, panting in pain, winded from being thrown around so fast and so ruthlessly. If he wasn't being held in place, he'd be slumped to the ground already. His heart thunders.

Cas leans in so close he almost slams their noses together. The low light of the alleyway makes his blue eyes seem dark and unearthly.

In an instant, Dean realises the futility in trying to fight a force of nature.

He might look like some guy in a trenchcoat, but the truth is that Cas isn't human. He's a thunderstorm over frothing waves, shocks of lightning splitting tree boughs down the middle. He's unseen rings of fire spinning, luminous nebula against the night sky, and power. Incomprehensible power.

A frisson of fear runs down Dean's spine, but the spark in his chest feels a lot closer to awe. He takes in a small, overwhelmed breath in the moment's respite Cas is giving him, holding them at a tense standstill. They're uncomfortably, intimately close— all he can see is Cas, keeping him in place, forcing him to face him. His hot breath on his skin, his dark pupils swallowing up the blue of his eyes. Jesus.

“I gave everything for you,” Cas spits, through furiously gritted teeth. He jostles Dean by his jacket for emphasis. “And this is what you give to me.”

The worst part is, he's right.

Cas has every right to be angry, to drive his fists into him, over and over, for every part of him he tore apart for his own gain. He dragged Cas into this mess, and he can't take it back. They were supposed to be the winning side. Now, he's got nothing left to offer except, Sorry. Guess I wasn't the saviour you thought I was.

Who was he kidding, defying Heaven and its divine prophecy? All he did was throw a massive wrench in the universe's plans, and it's his responsibility to fix it, before it's too late. Maybe he can't give Cas back the faith he ruined, or the brothers and sisters he killed in the name of the Winchesters, but he can stop them from destroying anything else. He can end this, the way he was always supposed to. And nobody else has to suffer for it— not Bobby, not Sam, not Adam, and not Cas. Not anymore.

If the universe needs a punching bag, let it be him.

When Cas pulls him up by the collar like a ragdoll, Dean goes without a fight. He doesn't know if he has any fight left in him. He's done digging his nails into everything and hanging on, ripping it all apart for the sake of free will and fixing things his own way. His head lolls, mouth dripping blood.

Cas swings at him with a soldier's stone-cold precision. The blow sends Dean stumbling back, streetlamp bursting into a thousand stars across his blurry vision. He has no strength to stand on, without Cas holding him up— Cas kicks him hard in the chest, and he goes flying.

The chain-link fence at the end of the alley rattles beneath his weight, clattering as he tumbles to the ground. Dean just curls up on his side, eyes gingerly closed, and swallows back the pathetic noise jumping up his throat.

He knows he should move before Cas catches up to him, but he's so tired. And he doesn't get to run away from this. He has to surrender, has to end it somehow, and he can't ask Cas to forgive him for making that decision. Not when he dragged him down to Earth like there was a fight worth fighting, and then left him to deal with the fallout when shit went sideways. This is the least he can give him.

His arms tremble as he gets them beneath him, coughing wetly. Rain is trickling down in earnest now, joining with the blood and sweat at his brow. It's cool where it runs down his nose and over his lips. Over the drumming sound of it hitting the ground, he can hear Cas advancing slowly towards him.

Dean raises his head just enough to look up. He looks not at Cas' face, but at the gore-stained knuckles of his hand, fist clenched and wavering at his side. He wonders if it's the same hand that pulled him out of Hell, branding his unholy skin.

“Do it,” Dean slurs, struggling to speak past the blood in his mouth.

Hell if he doesn't deserve it, after all he's put them through.

He started the goddamn apocalypse when he broke the first seal. The whole fucking world is falling apart because of him, because he couldn't even man up and take accountability for the mess he made. For so long, he ran away from it all, told them to pick somebody else, somebody better. But it's his job to fix this. His job to say yes to Michael, and nobody else's. Has to be him. Cas can rough him up all he wants, but that's not gonna change.

Still, the final blow never comes.

Cas hesitates. Low rumbles of thunder roll over the sky, like the growl of a beast. His righteous warpath has lost its steam; the tangible hum of raw power stays suspended in the air.

Dean braces himself, but he can tell something's different. He can see it in the way those ramrod straight shoulders shift, easing faintly back and forth like a wrestler bouncing on the spot. There's quiet surrender in the way Cas leans back, like he's ready to walk away. His dark, cold stare flickers, the muscles in his jaw twitching. He says nothing. His fist stays ready, waiting.

Why stop now? Why not finish the job? Dean saw his anger, felt it in the biblical downpour from the heavens, like any moment now Cas might send lightning down to smear him into the earth. Stranded now without it, left to pick up his pieces, he feels more afraid than he did on the other end of Cas' fists.

The pain, the punishment— that, he knew how to deal with. But this? This frigid, quiet resignation at his betrayal of Cas' trust? It tears at something deep inside him, deeper than his bruised and broken ribs.

Dean lifts his gaze, barely managing to keep himself from collapsing completely. His voice comes out gruff, bitter, as he yells, “Just do it!”

It takes a little too much exertion to speak, rough and strangled in his chest where every breath comes fainter. Coughing weakly, Dean stares into Cas' cold eyes with a sick kind of desperation. There's not enough air in his lungs to plead.

He has to fight to hold his head up, to see Cas towering over him like a raised blade, poised but not striking. Even if he hadn't been beaten to high hell, Dean thinks he'd have dropped to his knees anyway, right now. Just from that look. His heart hasn't slowed down for a second.

Slowly, Cas uncurls his fist.

Whatever it is in him that inspired mercy, Dean doesn't know. Maybe he just looks that pathetic. Maybe Cas got sick of seeing him fail to fight back; maybe he's seen enough already. He isn't fearless, and he isn't going to lead them to victory— he's a husk of the man he's supposed to be. He's done fighting. All that anger— what good does it do, for any of them?

There's no hint of an answer in Cas' gaze. He's no longer made of stone, but he's not human, either. His chest doesn't move a muscle, lacking the need for breaths to rise and fall. He turns to face Dean head on, disdainful side shoulder shifting back with his unarmed hand, and still he doesn't say a word. There's nothing left to say. The way he's icing him out hurts Dean more than it should. He might be shown mercy, but he isn't forgiven.

When Cas' hand reaches for him again, Dean's eyes crumple shut in a pained grimace. He waits, unmoving, for whatever hits him.

A gentle touch alights on his shoulder.

The warm, golden rush of Cas' grace washes over him, slackening his face, and everything tilts dizzily. He's out before he crumples to the ground.

Handcuffs clink somewhere to his left. Cold, hard metal juts heavy against his wrist. A warm hand releases his arm, and it falls limply to the mattress.

Dean's face feels so hot and swollen, he's not sure he could open his eyes if he wanted to. He aches all over, chest throbbing sharply when he breathes in.

“It's for his own good,” Bobby's low voice comes from nearby. It echoes around the room like it's coming from inside a tin can. Must be in the panic room.

Sam's voice comes next, quietly upset. “Yeah, whatever.”

Maybe it's cowardly of him, but Dean doesn't want to face them yet. That sombre, disappointed look on Bobby's face, cutting deeper than their dad's disapproval ever could. That kicked puppy look on Sam's, knowing his big brother had no faith in them. Knowing that he gave up. It's easy to pretend he's still out cold; he'd rather not move an inch of his tenderised meat.

Dean listens as two pairs of footsteps shuffle and echo around him. The heavy metal door to the panic room is pulled open with a loud clanking. He only realises Cas is there, watching the proceedings silently, when Sam addresses him as they're leaving.

“Cas?”

“I'll keep an eye on him,” Cas' low voice answers. It fires off tension between Dean's shoulders, but he stays perfectly still.

Sam sounds almost judgemental when he mutters, “He's not going anywhere like that.”

It's clear from the tension in the room that they know that Cas did this to him. 'For my own good.' Yeah. The silence draws out for long enough that Dean risks cracking his eyes open, just enough to look through his eyelashes and the congealed mess of his swollen eye.

Nobody's looking at him anyway. He can just make out Sam's long legs standing by Bobby, one foot out of the door, and Cas' tan trenchcoat, blurring in and out of focus at the side of the room.

“You could fix him up in a second,” Bobby grouses. “Why don't you?”

The hard, unyielding glare on Cas' face gives nothing away. From his feigned sleeping position on the cot, Dean stays silent. He knows exactly why Cas won't heal him. He didn't expect him to.

It doesn't take long for them to leave after that. Only Cas stays. Not that it means much— either he's planning on standing sentinel and knocking Dean back out the second he wakes, or he's going to fly off and sulk like he can't stand to be in the same room as him.

No sense in stalling any longer. Dean cracks his eyes fully open, and finds Cas already watching him with a deep, sullen set to his brow. His heart lurches.

“Told you to knock that off,” Dean grumbles, trying to levy himself up into a sitting position. He chokes off a breath at the stabbing pain in his abdomen.

“You weren't sleeping,” Cas retorts flatly.

Right. Angel. Kind of hard to disguise a change in his breathing. Why Cas didn't alert Bobby and Sam, he doesn't know. Maybe he wanted this interrogation to be private.

Just as Dean has himself hunched gingerly over the side of the bed, teeth gritted, Cas strides over to him with purpose. He lifts a hand towards Dean's bowed head.

Flinching away, Dean realises too late that Cas has two stiff fingers poised. He's trying to heal him.

“Save it,” Dean grunts, lowering his eyes.

Cas' hand doesn't move. “Why.”

“You know why. Why you did it in the first place.”

There's no sense in undoing it, letting him get away with what he did. The pain was punishment— retribution for sending Cas to Oz, and for betraying his trust— but it's a reminder, too. Sam's right; he's not going anywhere like this. Not with any kind of speed anyway. His injuries keep him tethered here, every bite of pain another rough shake to his shoulders, yelling at him not to be so stupid again.

Cas wanted him to feel it. To know he fucked up, and to take responsibility for that. He was angry, and he's angry still— he's just too benevolent, and too conscientious, mission-over-feelings, to deny Dean healing when he can be of use. He did it to hurt him, the same way he'd been hurt by somebody he thought he knew, and Dean gets that. Dealing with a couple of bruises is the least he deserves.

“To stop you from doing something you'd regret,” Cas intones darkly.

“Oh, really?” Dean snarks, taken aback and trying to hide it. He raises his eyebrows and ignores the ache of the movement, searching Cas' face. “'Cus in that case, you could've just knocked me out. One tap and it's all over.”

Cas' glare deepens, but his tone remains calm and collected. “I was angry. I acted impulsively.”

Notably, he doesn't apologise for doing it in the first place. Maybe that's what makes Dean believe he's telling the truth.

“Yeah,” Dean says on a sigh, flat and dry. “Trust me. I know the feeling.”

He's intimately familiar with making brash, hot-headed decisions that only dig the hole deeper. The searing burn deep in his sternum, prickling over his skin, making the hand clenched around his beer bottle look like the blood-smeared fist of Alistair's prodigy.

How many times has he smacked some sense into Sam to keep him out of trouble? How many times had Dad done the same to him? It's only now that Dean starts to wonder if Cas did what he did out of a place of care. To stop you, he'd said. Despite his fury, despite his desire for retribution, he hadn't wanted Dean to throw himself into the lion's den. Even if it saved them all more pain. He'd been trying to protect him, in his own fucked up way.

It's somehow harder to digest the idea that Cas cares than it was to believe he wanted to punish him.

“You won't seek out the angels by yourself again,” Cas says, catching Dean's eyes again with a sobering look.

“No promises,” Dean murmurs hoarsely. He has to blink away the moisture in his eyes.

It was a stupid plan, he gets that. But as much as he wants to, he still can't see another way out of this. At least if Cas' faith in him is already ruined, he can't sink the bar any lower when he fucks up again. Cas pulled him from the depths of Hell, from souls strung up on the rack before his snarling teeth— it's a goddamn miracle the guy ever had any respect for him at all. Blind, stubborn loyalty, he guesses. Cas needed someone on his side, and there he was. The righteous man. Humanity's fucking finest.

Sitting handcuffed to a bed in an apocalyptic bunker, Dean doesn't doubt that looking at him now, Cas is thinking he should've hedged his bets on some other poor bastard. Now, they're in too deep to back out.

“Let me heal you," Cas says quietly, his hand already reaching out.

Dean's expression closes off, and he leans away. “Nah, it's just a scratch.”

“Three of your ribs are broken, two with hairline fractures. I'll leave the bruises if it makes you feel better.”

Dean scoffs, lips twitching upwards despite himself. He avoids the heat of Cas' gaze, resting on the mottled side of his face. The tear in his lip stings when he moves it, split open from the impact of his teeth with Cas' iron knuckles, trickling copper-red over his tongue. He doesn't need Cas' x-ray vision to tell him he looks like shit.

If they're going into the fight he thinks they are, he can't afford to be benched this early. Cas knows that too.

“Dean,” Cas says with gravelly impatience.

“Fine,” Dean bites out. He swipes his tongue over his bleeding lip, eyes landing somewhere near Cas' perpetual five-o'clock shadow. “Work your magic on me, Doc.”

His attempt at lightheartedness falls dead between them, but despite his persistent sour mood, Cas isn't rough with him. Not like Dean expects him to be, after the violence and heady show of power earlier.

Where he could have seized Dean by the shoulder, or gripped the back of his neck to keep him in place, Cas brushes two fingers against his temple instead.

It could be impersonal, the swift business of someone reluctant to touch him at all, but Cas doesn't need to make contact to heal if he doesn't want to. Dean has seen him hold a distant hand over people's foreheads, giving out perfunctory miracles. It means something that Cas always handles him so reverently.

The touch is so light, stirring fine hairs, it feels like it can't possibly be doing anything. But when he takes another breath, Dean can feel his ribs shifting, discomfort fading away until his lungs fill with ease. His eyelids flutter on a sigh— he hadn't even realised he'd closed them.

An all-encompassing warmth washes over him from head to toe. Cas' fingertips follow, smoothing over his brow, the cut on his cheek, the swelling of his eyelid. His broad palm hovers inches away from Dean's face, not quite resting there, and Dean swallows hard against the urge to lean into it. He doesn't deserve how goddamn kind Cas can be.

It doesn't escape his attention that despite saying he would leave the bruises alone, Cas runs his grace all over him, sealing gashes and vanishing tender aches. He doesn't make the marks disappear, but he does heal them until they could be weeks old. Like the fight is already far behind them.

You should put those back, Dean wants to say, wants to warn him. He keeps his eyes closed against the burn behind his eyes. What's gonna stop me now, huh?

Cas draws the pad of his finger over Dean's brow as his hand retreats. His voice is low and serious, hard-edged. “I won't hesitate to stop you if you try again.”

Even though he knows he's going to, knows he has to try, a part of Dean feels stupidly grounded by that promise. That's Cas— unrelenting. Willing to stand up for what he believes in. Prepared to fight his friends if he disagrees with their decisions. He's strong-willed— stronger than Dean will ever be. He needs that, right now. Needs to know there's somebody else to pick up all the pieces of what he leaves destroyed in his wake.

He knows he can't look Cas in the eyes and swear that he won't, so he keeps them closed.

It's easier that way, to imagine the clench of that stubbled jaw, the wounded glint to his eyes, the hardened resolve in the straightness of his shoulders beneath his coat and the way it hangs off of him, an ill-fitting human suit. Makes it easier, not to actually see it, at full strength.

Like this, Cas could be something else, not a flesh-and-blood man at all, but the mass of holy light and energy that he truly is— that feel-good warmth resting behind Dean's sternum, that burning brand on his shoulder. He feels it more with his eyes closed. Feels what's really happening here. Cas knows how to use these human hands, to hurt and to heal, but he's more than those things. He's something much greater. And he's sticking by Dean's side 'til the end, speaking in whatever language he can understand to get his point across.

As long as Dean's lived, nobody has ever tried that hard for him before. He's never had so much hanging on the line— trust to break, expectations to disappoint. It scares the hell out of him.

“Yeah, I know,” Dean murmurs, and it comes out soft with surrender.