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Castiel stares into Dean’s back, gaze wobbly-edged with haze. The sun is dipping below the horizon, his silhouette stencilled into the gold allure. His jaw is set, grip white-knuckled on the railings. It hurts to look at - a stance unwavering with its strength plucked from the miseries of war - and Cas is beyond hurting now, beyond pain.
“Dean,” he breathes out quietly, words tasting of smoke.
And Dean doesn’t turn around because what would be the point? He won’t look him in the eyes anymore, at least not while sober. His hands twist on the railing, holding up the weight of all the muted grief and fear that drives him forwards.
“Dean,” Cas repeats, “Come back inside.”
The world is all grey around him, smeared with death and ash and hopelessness. He wants to drain it all away, drink until he can’t see straight, until the ache of loss ceases to spoon the soul out of him.
He hears Dean sigh, the sound rough and tired. He pushes away from the railing, pressing past Cas stood in the doorway. He sits down on the edge of his bed, shifting to take his jacket off. It ends up half folded over the back of a chair.
Cas watches him, stomach twisting tightly, wound around something akin to grief; mourning for the man the apocalypse wore down. Dean’s edges are hard, constructed for his own protection. When worn down they turn brittle and sharp, cutting into whoever’s closest and whoever’s around. There’s no apologies in the apocalypse, no purity in what they have. Even still, Castiel loves him, as completely and desperately as he has ever since the first day.
He slips into Dean’s small cabin, closing the door behind him and drawing the curtains. The air is cool, perforated only by the swarm of warmth around the far heater.
“Cas, come on,” Dean huffs out, frustration drawn through his words.
Cas wants to sit down beside him, kiss him softly and gently, palm cupping his cheek. He wants them to look at each other again, to gaze into the endless green in Dean’s eyes. He wishes they had more time, wishes the pin and needle numbness washing over him would swallow him completely.
He takes out his lighter, reigniting the ongoing joint caught in his hand. He takes a long drag, breathing in slowly, eyes closing.
“Cas, seriously?” Dean’s standing up now, in just a shirt and pants.
Cas inhales more, opening his eyes sleepily, almost catching his gaze.
“Hello, Dean,” he says, sounding nothing and everything like the nostalgic greeting used to. It almost hurts, almost burns, but he’s too floaty to care.
“At least smoke outside so I don’t have to breathe that shit in,” Dean grumbles, kicking his shoes off.
“Want some?” Cas asks, offering the joint towards him lazily.
“No.” Dean walks past him, opening one of his cupboards and drawing out a large bottle of whisky. It’s half empty, glowing a muted gold in the lowlight.
Cas shrugs, settling himself languidly on his side of Dean’s bed. He closes his eyes again, leaning his head back against the few pillows. He breathes in, chest filling up with fuzzy warmth. The air inside him tingles, coating him with calm.
He’s vaguely aware of Dean knocking back a couple of glasses, wiping the dregs from his mouth, pinched expression slowly relaxing.
Cas almost loses track of time, sinking into the safety and comfort of the bed and the weed. He wishes he could, but he doesn’t want to black out tonight.
Dean seems to have other ideas, going through his bottle of whisky even faster than usual. Perhaps he can sense it too, the finality in the air that tastes like they have fewer and fewer nights like these left.
The thought makes all of Cas ache, an agony that permeates through all the drugs and alcohol he refuses to part from in the end times. It aches in a hollowing way that makes him crave for complete numbness, immunity from the pain of seeing what he’s become, what he’s allowed the world to succumb to. The suffering he can’t save Dean from. Is that the worst of all of it? He wonders, head tipped to the desolate heavens despite having no view of the sky. He used to be able to see it around him, each alteration in colour an incomplete part of his constellation. It all used to be so clear. He was once so alive with purpose.
“Move over, Cas.”
Dean’s slurred voice pulls him out of his downward spiral, the only thing that could possibly make him feel better. He shifts over in the bed, limbs heavy and difficult to move. He smokes more, staining the sheets with the scent of his debauchery. The guilt isn't here yet. It awaits him, perched atop the precipice of tomorrow morning’s sobriety.
He feels a shoulder knock against him, the warm side of Dean’s body pressing up against his. It’s still electric where they touch, just like the very first time. It blossoms anew across his skin, warm and soft and hopeful, a comfort-crafted bud of a flower, still blind to its future. Precious in its dumb naivety, Cas wishes it were him.
Dean’s staring at him now, the weight of his gaze for once softened with inebriated warmth. Drunk is the closest he’ll get to affectionate these days, something that should sting more than it does. Cas can’t remember how to feel things like that right now. Instead he makes hazy eye contact with dulled, ashen green and smiles even slighter. He laughs, the sound fuzzy and unreal, more sound than feeling.
“You’re high as fuck, Cas,” Dean says, words faraway, muted in the presence of his touch. It trails up his arm, uncoordinated and shaky.
Cas grins, all cotton tasting teeth and glazed over eyes, courtesy of the crushed up pills he snorted earlier and the concoction of drugs almost constantly inhabiting his vessel.
“And you’re drunk,” he answers.
Instead of responding to that Dean kisses him, grabbing Cas’s face and pulling it to his own.
Cas’s little gasp of surprise is enveloped inside it, all the remaining air in his lungs stolen. He’s long past the uncertainty, the naivety he once held about his feelings for Dean. This isn’t the first time they’ve kissed, and he hopes it won’t be the last, though it must be close to it now. His eyes sting, burning and hot like acid has been poured into their sockets.
“Cas? Wh’as wrong?” Dean pulls away, swaying slightly on the bed. His lips are wet with Cas’s tears and the sight almost makes him laugh again.
He feels a hand cup his cheek, a gesture so precious to him that it hurts, bores a hole through every heavily cushioned wall he’s built up with narcotics.
“I love you,” Cas says weakly, blurry gaze transfixed on Dean’s unfocused green.
“Don’t say that to me.” He sounds angry, confused, words an open wound torn apart by the alcohol and Castiel’s careless confession.
He must consider it careless, mustn't he? He surely believes he doesn't mean it, refuses to accept the truth so obvious to everyone else. But what does it matter anymore? They’re going to die, and if Dean won’t believe he loves him then how bad can such a fate truly be?
“I mean it,” he tries, unable to voice the devastation he feels.
Dean’s expression hardens with hurt. “No, you don’t.”
Cas reaches for him, grabs at his hands loosely, a pitiful attempt at getting him to see , to understand.
Dean pulls away from him, stumbling to his feet, already across the room and pouring another glass of whisky before Cas has any time to process, let alone react. He downs it emotionlessly, then tips out another. His hands shake, his grip on the bottle lopsided.
“Dean, please,” Cas tries, hating how wounded he sounds, how desperate he is for some response, some reciprocation even if he’ll only give it when drunk.
“What?”
“Come lie down,” Cas says instead of "please stop drinking. I fucking love you, you asshole. Why won’t you believe me?” You never believe me.
Dean sends him a withering look, its intensity significantly dulled due to the fact he can’t stand up straight. How many glasses has he even drunk? Cas wasn’t paying attention.
“Why?”
Cas just pats the bedspace next to him, feeling a little dizzy and very tired. He wants to curl up and go to sleep forever.
Dean huffs out an exasperated sigh, but doesn’t refuse. He slips back into the bed beside the once-angel, tugging him into a loose hug.
Cas buries his face in Dean’s chest, letting out a soft hum of contentment.
“I do love you, Dean,” he mumbles into his shirt.
“Don’t.” Harsh and brittle, but he’s drunk and try as he might, the words just don’t have their usual edge.
“I know what you’re planning,” Cas says instead, subtly changing tactics, “I know what you’re going to do as soon as you get the Colt.”
“Yeah?”
Cas closes his eyes. “Yeah.”
“And what am I gonna do?” Dean slurs, pushing away from Cas, as if trying to see his face.
Cas feels cold without his touch, unstable without his comfort, just as adrift in this world as he always has been.
“Cas?” Rough fingertips brushing his cheek.
He opens his eyes. “I will follow you, Dean. You know I always will.”
Dean just stares at him, expression too complex to read.
Cas pulls him into a second kiss, trying to keep it soft, gentle, loving. He can taste the alcohol on his breath, sure that Dean can probably taste the smoke and weed on his.
“Cas, fuck,” he breathes into his mouth, words flavoured with desperation and regret. Dean kisses back hard, hands tangling into his hair, a clutch for stability, nails against his scalp.
Cas lets his eyes bleed tears down his face, lets the salt taint their kiss until Dean drags himself away, gaze foggy.
“Go to sleep,” he says, pushing Dean back against the rumpled pillows.
“Don’t want to.”
“You have to get up early tomorrow,” Cas tells him, feeling sad and distant, knowing all too well that their time together will come to a close in the morning, as it always does.
Dean grumbles something incomprehensible, curling into Castiel’s side, gripping at him tightly. The action is vulnerable and it makes him ache to witness it.
“Dean,” he whispers, quieter now, stroking the stray hairs away from his weary face.
“I can’t do this anymore,” Dean almost sobs, trembling against him, words alcohol-slurred and honest.
Me neither, Cas thinks, but I will. For you.
“D’you think…” a pause, “d’you think we’ll find the Colt soon? I want to end this.”
Cas cuddles up to Dean, pulls him even closer. “I’m certain.”
His answer seems to placate Dean. He finally falls asleep, breathing into Cas’s neck, grip on his shirt going slack.
Castiel stares at him, thoughts disjointed and fond, wreathed in the despair he’s learnt to fold and compact into little flowers over the years, each one representative of his devotion to Dean. Each one cuts into his neck, as much a noose as a gift. He decorates himself with such devotion, degrading as it was in the eyes of Heaven to love a human as completely as he does. Despite this, he never feels dirtied by it. Unlike everything else he has done, this radiates purity in his eyes, giving him something akin to hope. Though maybe it isn’t hope, as he’s still too logical for something that whimsical. It rests alongside it though, quiet and content. Resolute and sure, he knows exactly what he’s dying for.
He presses a gentle kiss atop Dean’s head, then closes his own eyes to sleep.
It’s just them. It’s just Dean, the soul he fell for. Where Castiel has many regrets in the final days, mistakes he drinks himself into unconsciousness over, this won’t become one. It still remains as it always will, even as cold and distant as he is now, that Cas can never regret loving him.