Chapter Text
The weight of the world is love.
Under the burden of solitude,
under the burden of dissatisfaction
the weight, the weight we carry is love.
Allen Ginsburg
Heavy raindrops hit the windows of his cabin. They transformed the outside world into a monochromatic kaleidoscope. The rain had been torrential for weeks. For once their water stores weren't dangerously low but Cas knew that rationing would still be a priority. Come summer, the ground would become hard and arid, with rain scarcely falling but the sky still filled with lightning storms. He could scarcely remember a time when the extreme weather hadn’t been seen as normal.
As the night sky flashed with fork lightning, Cas settled himself in for a long night. Weather like this made him nervous, his skin prickling with unease. He knew that in ancient cultures, they viewed lighting as the Gods sending a message down to earth. His God, the father he’d spent more than a millennium of his life believing in, had left them. Heaven was empty and the angels were all but extinct. He didn’t see it as a message, more of an omen of the darkness to come. The darkness they had already endured.
There had been a time when he never needed sleep. When grace flowed freely through his veins, fatigue was a foreign concept. Now, when he was made of blood and muscle instead of stars, exhaustion claimed his body every night.
Under rough cotton covers, he listened to the raging storm outside. Others in the camp complained about nights when the rain was fierce, stating they could never sleep easily over the sound of the downpour. Cas never had that trouble, especially not with the cocktail of prescription pills in his system. The chemicals flowed through him, bringing the steady relief of sleep.
He only stirred when he felt the bed dipping, the feel of worn flannel-covered arms wrapping around him. Damp hair settled into that sweet spot between his collar and jaw. It must have been a tough night, Dean rarely sought out his company after sunset unless he needed comfort.
"You smell like smoke," Cas said as a way of greeting. The acrid smell of smoke filled his senses as Dean just lay there, the silence quickly becoming ominous. It settled onto his skin like a daunting weight. “Dean? What’s wrong?” Cas uttered into the dark.
Finally, after several silent moments, Dean spoke up. His voice was raspy, whether from fire or worry, Cas didn't know. "We lost Mark. Croats took him down. Had to salt and burn the body," came the rough response. He sounded worn down to the bone, weary cutting away his flesh until nothing remained. When Dean was like this, those days becoming more frequent, the pain of his lost grace thrummed through Cas' whole body. He wanted nothing more than to make Dean's pain vanish.
He didn’t say sorry or offer a passing condolence. “He deserved a better way to go.” They were all going to die one way or another, it was an inevitability, but no one deserved to be taken by the virus. “Do you want to talk about it?” he asked, wrapping a hand around Dean’s forearm.
“No,” Always no. Dean never wanted to talk about the pain and loss he’d endured since the first outbreak. Never saying how he truly felt after the night in Detroit. Never truly saying the words that Cas wanted to hear. “No, just… just stay.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Cas replied, his thumb stroking Dean’s wrist absentmindedly. "I'm right here." Dean melted into his touch, one of the few small ways that this version of Dean showed his emotions.
In the morning, Dean was gone. The air outside still clung to the scent of smoke.
The first time Dean had sought him out had been the night after Detroit. In the early days of the world crumbling around them, before Cas…when he still had his grace, there were remnants of the old Dean. The Dean that he had saved from Hell and rebelled for time and time again. After Detroit, the first part of Dean died.
He'd come to Cas' cabin that night with shaking hands and wild eyes, his chest rising and falling as he held back the sobs he'd later release. At first, Cas had assumed that Dean would need space. He'd seen time and time again how trauma could make Dean either retreat into himself or lash out. Having Dean come to him so soon after Sam's decision had been confusing.
"What do you need?' Cas had asked. He would do anything to stop the pain.
"I don't… how could… he’s my brother. We saved the world. How could he… I don't know," Dean had replied. "Make me forget," he'd begged. Cas had moved slowly, hands ready to wipe this all from Dean's memory. "No. Cas… just, make me forget."
He sounded raw. As if by saying yes, Sam had flayed Dean alive. As if he had taken a knife to his brother’s skin and left him a blood-soaked mess that Cas desperately wanted to stitch back together.
So Cas held him close. In the dark of his cabin, he held Dean close in his arms. Two men as broken as the world around them, clinging onto something that didn't have a name yet. Something they didn’t want to name out of fear of it all slipping away.
As Dean's silent sobs wracked his body, Cas tried to put him back together through touch alone. In the end, it was no use. He could feel the Dean he'd saved from Hell dying in his arms with every sob. As Dean slipped away, Cas felt himself begin to fall.
By dawn, Dean was gone.
Dean called a meeting the morning after Mark's death. The chair he once occupied stayed empty. With clouded bitterness, Cas wondered how many many more chairs would fall empty by the end. Would there be anyone left to see that day?
When he'd woken alone, the pain of absence had clung to his bones. The absence of Dean, of the man he had once been and the lack of grace. Deep in his heart, he knew that he wouldn't last through the day without the fog.
"— intel before those fuckers got him," Dean was talking but he could have been a thousand miles away. Cas' head swam, the hazy intoxication easing the pain but dulling all his other senses with it. "We're not the only ones who have noticed shit going on over the past few weeks."
"So what's the plan?" another voice spoke. Always looking to their leader for guidance.
It wouldn't work. The details of the plan are things Cas knew better than anyone else at the table. When the sweat was cooling on their skin, Dean had told him everything. Every little detail.
It wasn't going to work.
With the intoxicating taste of Dean still on his tongue, Cas had stayed silent. It would never work but offering a solution, the only solution, would be an admission of what he had done. He wouldn't break the spell between them with the truth. When Dean was like that, sweat-soaked and spent, he showed Cas a vulnerability that was never seen by anyone else. Not since Sam's betrayal.
Cas could never admit to his own betrayal.
"— with us?" A sharp voice asked. It dragged him out of the fog. Dean's eyes, like forest born steel, were on him. Always on him, seeing something in Cas that he himself and long stopped looking for.
Hazily, he raised his head. "What?"
"You with us?" With me. That was what Dean was really asking. Was Cas with him? Would Cas follow him to the end of the world and further? A world where the only colour was found in spilt blood.
More eyes on him. Different questions from Dean's. Always the same questions. Why was he still here? Why would Dean put so much faith in this godless man? A man that was useless without his grace?
"Cas, are you with me on this?" Dean pressed on. He could hear the need for reassurance in Dean’s voice even if no one else could. Of course, they couldn’t, they would never know Dean the way that Cas did.
I’m not going anywhere.
"To Hell and back," he replied.
It was where they would end up after all.
The comfort that Dean sought at night changed after Bobby's murder.
For it had been murder by its very definition of an unlawful killing. Death was inevitable, it would all come to them before too long. But Bobby, Bobby had been taken from them. Ripped away when Dean had needed him most.
Sam had been gone for three months. The weather grew more savage by the day. Demons came and savagely tore Bobby from their lives without a care. When the pyre had burnt down and nought but ash remained, Dean came to his cabin just like he had done after Detroit.
Again, he said the words that were akin to a knife in Cas' heart. Make me forget. Dean didn't want to live with the pain, he didn't want to remember the hollow feeling in his chest. Make me forget. A plea said over and over again, his words growing more frantic as Cas held him.
The smell of smoke clung to their flesh.
Make me forget. Said over and over and over again. The muscles in Dean's body quivered with the strain of containing his grief. Over and over he begged and Cas had never felt so powerless, so resentful for the grace shimmering under his skin. He was made of stardust, of cosmic power and yet he could do nothing to heal Dean's pain.
Make me forget.
"I can't… I'm not strong enough for this," Dean gasped out, breath rising and falling rapidly as he fought against the grief dragging him down. "Just…" a breath. A shaking and rattling breath that would haunt Cas for weeks following. "Kill me. I can't … just kill me Cas." A plea. Dean was begging not for his life but for the end. "Fucking kill me."
So he did. Cas closed the space between them, crashing his lips furiously into Dean's and killing the Dean that begged for death with a kiss.
Cas had been the one who rebuilt Dean after Hell. Down to the atoms, Cas had built Dean and knew every corner of his soul. He knew and loved all the versions of Dean, past or present.
Loving Dean was more straightforward than breathing and more complex than the intricacies of the universe. Cas had stayed and fought by Dean's side because of that love. However, he couldn't let the Dean that was drowning in grief see another day. Just like he'd rebuilt Dean after Hell, he would rebuild him.
As the kiss deepened, as Cas' hands dug deeply into Dean's flesh, he thought Dean would resist. He knew Dean and he knew that Dean would never let himself have this. Never let anyone see him as defenceless and wanting. Never let a secret he'd kept deep in his bones see the light. When he felt Dean respond, like a drowning man seeking safety, Cas knew that he could take this man apart and put him together.
He guided Dean to the bed, the same bed they lay in together before but not like this. Never before like this. Clothing was ripped away. Touches left bruises on tanned and freckled skin. Skin became slick with sweat and all the while, Cas tore away at the deep, dark cloud of pain that was consuming the man he was tasked with saving. It wasn’t the tender, rose-coloured idea that Cas had once dreamed of. It seemed more visceral and frenzied with biting kiss, so sharp they drew blood. Nothing in the world they now inhabited was soft and an act of love was sharp around the edges.
When Dean came, it was with a gasp for air. The most glorious sound Cas had heard in all his thousands of years on earth.
The drowning man had found salvation.
The day that Cas became human was blurred with rain and blood. Deep in the woods away from the cabin, his grace seeped from his body. Rainwater soaked the blood-tinged shirt as he screamed in agony.
He never knew it would end like this. He never knew his life as an angel of God would end in blood-soaked earth. Like everything in their world, the act of becoming human was excruciating and he could feel everything down to his bones. Thousands upon thousands of years of memories had been contained in the grace flowing from his body. The once stunning wings that were now battered and worn from battle were ripped from their joints, Cas digging into his own flesh to be rid of them.
A yell came from the distance, Dean must have heard his screams of pain from his cabin. Cas heard his name being called over and over, growing more frantic as Dean searched for him. He wanted to scream for Dean to leave, just leave him among the dirt, rocks and trees for all the good he could do.
“Cas!” Hands on him, soaked with rain water and blood. “What… what happened? Talk to me. Talk to me please.”
“I’m sorry,” Cas managed to gasp out between his cries. I’m sorry I wasn’t stronger. I’m sorry I let all this happen. I’m sorry my kind was ever created.
“You promised. Fuck, Cas you promised me. You’re not going anywhere, right? That’s what we say, okay? We’re not going anywhere. You promised .” Dean was babbling, saying anything and everything he could to keep Cas conscious. Hands, hands that had explored his body in ways that Cas would never forget, tried to stem the bleeding. “What happened? What happened, Cas? Come on, you can’t leave me. You can’t… I can’t do this alone.”
“I’m sorry,” I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I love you. I’m sorry.
It felt like he was flying. Maybe this was what dying felt like. He was flying, wrapped in Dean’s arms and flying away from it all. As he soared, Dean never stop talking, begging him to stay alive and stay with him. Cas couldn’t die because Dean needed him. Dean loved him. He couldn’t die because Dean loved him.
Cas had killed a part of Dean because of love. Dean wanted to save a part of him because of love. Maybe, in the end, love was the cause of all of this.
When it was all over, when he was human and the wounds were held together with crude stitches, Dean had him close in his cabin. That night, for the first time ever, Cas had a dream. He dreamt that he was flying and he woke up screaming.
The man Cas had saved from Hell, the man he'd fallen for in every way imaginable, had died long ago. The rot crept in at the first mention of the virus. As the world fell into ruin and decay, Cas could only watch in graceless horror as parts of Dean Winchester were lost to history. He'd killed for this. He'd fallen for this. He'd killed and fallen for Dean. The worst part of it all was that given the choice, he would still do it. All for Dean.