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Michael leaves his vessel, and somehow it is worse.
Castiel is there when it happens. He catches Dean when he falls forward, wraps his arms tightly around the man’s too-thin frame, and feels the weight of him settle against his chest like an unmoving stone. He bears it easily, because he will always be there to catch Dean when he falls, to hold him tight and raise him back up from the ground until he is standing tall and proud once more.
Sam is there too, he motions for Castiel to guide Dean’s boneless form slowly down to the ground and crouches there, puts a hand against his brother’s shoulder and pushes him away from Castiel to get a clear look at his face.
In the moonlit darkness of the warehouse Michael has led them to, Dean is whole. Pale, thin, and far too cold, but physically unharmed.
But Castiel knows better, knows what happens when an archangel forces their grace into the space between a human’s bones. He sees the speck of red that flecks the corner of Dean's mouth, sees the way his lashes cling darkly against his pale cheeks, and he knows with a complete certainty deep in his blood that something is wrong.
Sam does too, because he exhales sharply, pats Dean’s cheek roughly and furrows his brow.
“Dean,” he says, with the voice of a younger brother. “Dean, wake up.”
There is nothing.
Castiel has never been inside of a hospital room before.
This is untrue. He can remember a time, long ago, when he stood in the hallway outside of Dean Winchester’s room and allowed the righteous man’s abomination of a brother to spit angry words at him while Dean slept away.
At the time, he had been different, only just beginning his fall. Sam’s words had stirred something in him, a feeling that was unnamable and uncertain, something Castiel had feared. He knows now that it was guilt and regret, emotions so foreign to him that at the time he thought it must have been some demonic effect of standing too close to Sam Winchester. Because he was an angel of the lord, then, and angels did not feel regret. They didn’t feel anything at all.
He is not an angel anymore.
“Dean.” He says, and his voice sounds wrong in the quiet of the dimly lit room, too loud and too hoarse, like a rock that shatters the delicate surface of the lake, forces water into rippling rings that spread and distort the careful reflection painted on its surface. It feels like the disruption of some sacred silence; his voice, with all its awkward roughness, sounds out across the room like something wicked and unholy.
But Castiel has not been holy in a very long time, and he has never been able to resist the shape of Dean’s name around his lips, the very sound of it far lovelier than all the choirs of heaven. So he says it again, louder this time, like perhaps it may be enough to get the sleeping man to open his eyes, to turn his holy gaze towards Castiel and grin for long enough that the wickedness brought upon by a broken silence is repaired by the sanctity of his smile.
“Dean.” Castiel breathes, channeling whatever grace he has left within this broken body into the words, tries somehow to will the very thought into being. “Wake up.”
And still there is nothing.
Dean does not smile, does not open his eyes, does not even move , and Castiel is reminded once again of all the ways in which he has fallen, all the ways that he is no longer the warrior of heaven he used to take so much pride in being.
He is nothing now, too weak even to breathe an ounce of colour back into the features of the man who should never be so still; so pale.
He does not know how long he stays there in the silence afterwards, body completely still where it sits vigil next to Dean’s bed. He does not mark the passing of time, does not look away from the shallow rise and fall of Dean’s chest as he sleeps away. Once, Castiel finds himself trying to peer into Dean’s head, to glimpse a dream or a thought or anything, and all he is met with is the unbreakable silence; the darkness of a mind buried so deep within itself that even dreams are stolen away.
Castiel does not try again.
After what feels like a millenia spent guarding Dean’s body from all that might do him harm, Castiel dimly notes that Sam has returned. The younger Winchester approaches the doorway as if he too can feel the weight of the quiet around them, and when he comes to a stop next to Castiel’s chair, he does little more than stand like a statue with his eyes glued to the bed for several long minutes.
Castiel almost forgets he’s there until Sam clears his throat, testing the waters of the silence around them, assessing its breakability.
Finally, he says: “Any change?”
Castiel forces himself to look up then, to look at Sam’s face where he’s begun moving towards the hard plastic chair on the opposite side of the bed. He settles into it like a dying man; slow and tired as if all his limbs have grown ten times heavier since he left the dim hospital room to go in search of a place to rest for the night.
Castiel shakes his head, doesn’t dare say out loud the truth of it: that there had been nothing; that even Dean’s soul lies dormant, still and dim where it is usually a ball of shivering light, ever restless like the man himself.
Sam just nods, blinking tired eyes down at his brother and absentmindedly adjusting the thin blanket across Dean’s shoulders. They sit there for a while, a pair of still guardians, though at times Castiel can feel Sam’s gaze on him like a brand and tries very hard to ignore it. Sam may not be good at the endless stillness of watching over his brother, but Castiel has been a vigilant guardian to humanity for millennia. This he can do.
Then, like the snapping of a string pulled too taut, Sam speaks again.
“If you want to go and take a nap, Cas, I can…” Sam gestures vaguely towards nothing in particular to illustrate his capabilities in continuing the watch. “I booked us a room at the motel down the road.”
Castiel does not even spare Sam a glance. “I don’t sleep.”
“Right. Right, yeah, but if you need a break or something—”
“Are you telling me to leave?” Castiel interrupts, finally tearing his eyes away from the rise and fall of Dean’s chest to stare at Sam unblinkingly.
He cannot explain it, the tight ball of heat that sits heavy at the base of his chest at the thought of leaving this room, at the thought of being forced away. With nowhere else for it to go, Castiel directs the heat towards the younger Winchester, willing his own eyes to bore deep holes into Sams’, to burn away at his gaze until there is nothing left but the sacred silence and the sound of Dean’s breathing once more.
Sam, for his part, only widens his eyes. “What? Of course not, Cas, I just…” He trails off again, seemingly incapable of getting his thoughts across in complete sentences.
Reassured that nobody is prying him away from Dean, the ugly and unnamable feeling in Castiel begins to settle, and so he returns his gaze towards his charge.
From across the bed there is a long and heavy sigh— like Sam too is releasing a ball of heat from somewhere deep within his chest. Castiel looks up again to see Sam run a large hand through his dishevelled and slightly damp hair.
“Cas.” He finally starts. Stops again. Closes his eyes for a single moment and opens them again with a look that a voice in Castiel’s head— Dean’s voice— would describe as the patented Sam Winchester puppy dog eyes.
“You know Dean’s not—” Another incomplete sentence. “He’s not going to wake up anytime soon.”
He says it like the words get caught in his throat, like it takes a monumental effort to even voice the thought.
“What happened… having an archangel take over like that for so long; people don’t just bounce back from that.”
Castiel doesn’t know why, but Sam’s words grate against his heart and settle deep and heavy within his gut. He finds himself clenching his jaw, working his teeth against each other in an effort to reign in the sudden flash of anger that courses through him. Instead, he folds his hands over his lap and drives his gaze harder into the side of Dean’s sleeping face.
“I’m well aware of the effects angelic possession can have on the human brain.” He says simply, through clenched teeth, without looking at Sam at all.
“I know, Cas. I know. It’s just— I know how… hard it can be, not knowing what’s going to happen, not being able to do anything.” He hears Sam release a breath, frustration clearly building as he runs a hand down his face. “I just don’t want you to get your hopes up. This is… this was bad, Cas. This was really bad. We always knew there might not be an easy fix, even before we got there.”
“What would you prefer we do then, Sam?” Castiel asks, and somehow it comes out angry, demanding.
He knows, logically, that Sam is undeserving of this rage, this fire that seems to burn within him with nowhere else to go. Knows that Sam is just as devastated, just as torn with the sight of his brother like this. Castiel knows that Sam speaks with kindness, with experience dating back his entire life, with the deep and profound knowledge of what it means to sit vigilant by Dean’s bedside and not know when and if he will wake up.
But Castiel doesn’t care. He is angry. He does not understand how Sam can sit there, placating, while his brother dies only a few feet away. So he says: “Would you like to leave?”
Sam seems to sense it, the rising voice, the anger. He throws a hand up in surrender, shakes his head and purses his lips.
“Cas, that’s not—”
But Castiel is nothing if not wrathful to the very core of his being, his blood and bones fused together long ago by righteous fury. And though most of his grace has long since been torn away from him, he can feel its residue echo through his veins now, feels his blood boil with every rising word.
“Maybe we should just get into the car and go back to the bunker.” There’s nothing Castiel can do now, no way he can stop. “Maybe we should call Jack and Mary and tell them that we were wrong, that Dean didn’t survive, that there’s no one to bring back.”
The heat builds. He feels it rush up to the back of his throat, burning and burning and burning.
”Cas—”
“Maybe we should just leave him here. Maybe we shouldn’t do anything at all. Maybe we should just kill him now, quick and painless, and we can put this hospital in our rearview mirror and tell our family that Dean is dead!”
And then it is over.
His voice has rung out, his fury has been spoken, and there is nothing left in its wake but Dean and Sam and Castiel, silent and still in the aftermath. The heat that has been steadily rising from his chest sits in his throat now, burns his tongue and his eyes and his nose, and he knows that it was never anger at all. Castiel feels his heartbeat stronger than he ever has before; it beats and beats and beats and he thinks that this must be what it is to mourn.
This must be what it means to grieve.
“He’s not dead.” Castiel says then, pleads. His voice is not loud anymore. It cracks and falls to the ground like a man on his knees. “He’s not dead.”
From where he sits, Sam’s eyes shine brightly. He does not look angry. He only looks sad. Castiel watches as his throat bobs.
“I know, Cas.”
“I can’t leave.” The words are little more than a whisper. “What if he— what if he’s no longer here when I come back?”
And that’s the thing, isn’t it? This is what Castiel cannot bring himself to say, to think. That Dean might never wake up. That his body is safe but his mind, his soul, might be lost forever. That Castiel may step outside of this room and find nothing but an empty bed when he returns, and he will never see Dean again.
It is terrible and it is horrifying.
And it is so very real.
But Sam…understands. Of course Sam understands. The younger Winchester blinks roughly down at his brother, his cheeks wet, and clenches his own jaw. When he looks back up at Castiel— who has not noticed until now that tears have begun to slip their way freely down his own face— there is nothing but kindness written on his features, nothing but the knowledge that neither of them are alone.
“We’ll stay, Cas. We’ll stay until Dean wakes up.” The words are said firmly, as if Sam is speaking more to himself than to anyone else in the room. “He’ll wake up.”
So Castiel nods, and when all the words have been said, when the tears have begun to dry, they sink into silence once more. They stand silently guard.
Dean does not wake up, but that’s fine. Sam and Castiel will watch over him, waiting for his return. When he opens his eyes, they will be there.
And everything will be alright again.
And it is.
Several hours later, when Sam has fallen into an exhausted and uncomfortable sleep with his chin tucked into his chest, Dean wakes up.
Castiel is not sure how he knows, isn’t sure if he feels the shift in the air or the slight twitch of Dean’s brow or just knows, with something so deep in his being that it has perhaps always been there. The part of Castiel that fell from heaven, that chose Dean Winchester over and over again because it was never any choice at all. It has always just been.
He knows because he hears it.
“Cas.”
The name is quiet, barely even there. A whisper that is more breath than actual voice, more the movement of lips around the air than real sound.
Castiel hears it anyways, feels his heart bloom with a desperation so sudden that for a moment he believes he imagined it, that this dizzying shift from hopelessness to relief cannot possibly be real. To hear the sound of his name spoken into the silence and not against it, with a voice that is all at once broken and soft and so beautiful— Castiel can feel every tear he has not yet shed begin to build in the space behind his eyes once more.
“Cas.” Dean whispers again, unmistakable: like a blessing, a prayer. His eyes are still shut, body unmoving save for a slight twitch in the index finger of his right hand. His lashes flutter and he breathes in once, deep and slow.
Outside, the sun is beginning to rise, the birds flitting around by the window and chirping as if, they too, know that Dean Winchester is awake.
“Cas.” He says, and this time it is like a sigh. Quiet and soft… but real.
Real.
Dean Winchester speaks his name, and all of a sudden Castiel is holy again.