The first thing Dean notices is the cobblestone.

No one makes roads like this anymore. The mismatching stones somehow woven into a brutal tapestry. The endless clip-clopping of horses’ hooves, like something’s stuck in a broken engine no one will fix. The shit-human or animal-does it really matter?-stuck to the bottom of his shoes.

He’s either time traveling or dreaming that he’s in Europe. Both options suck equally.

Dean looks up and sees a wooden podium in front of him: low wooden bars on the side; nothing in the front; a staircase in the back for people to walk up. There’s a short, wooden stump in the center of the platform. The front half of the stump slopes downwards in a u-shape, not leaving much of the top surface to stand on and preach-or shout the morning news-or balance chickens on-whatever they did back in these days.

The jingle of metal breastplates and soldiers’ synchronized footsteps make him squint at the distance. A small entourage is approaching the podium. Among the half-circle of copper-colored helmets there’s someone dressed in a white, collarless blouse. His hands are bound in front of him and his chin bowed to his chest.

It takes until the prisoner is mounting the steps that Dean finally names it in his head. This is an executioner’s block. Someone is wearing a leather mask that only shows his bearded mouth and standing left corner, axe in hand. The executioner. The man with bound hands kneels without protest and presses his cheek to the bloodied stump.

Dean darts forward, heels skidding as he throws up both hands to stop the axe before it falls.

The man kneeling looks up at him. No. Cas looks up at him, eyes wide with the kind of surprise you might have when someone hasn’t rsvp’ed to a party but you’re sure they might drop by anyways because they always show up, even if they’re late, and then there’s the sound of their car in the driveway and you tell your friends see I told you he’d be here what did I say I was right all along.

Cas’ eyes shine with a wet terror. “Dean.”

The axe falls through his fingers. Cas’ head is separated from his neck like two orange slices being pulled apart.

And then Dean is back in the Impala.

“Fucked up dream, huh,” he says aloud. Trying to affirm his status; trying to cement his words in the roughness under his tongue. He checks the rear-view mirror-no masked executioner in sight-and then pulls out his phone to study the map again. Sam was supposed to meet him here an hour ago. The family of ghouls they’re hunting seems to be hiding out in the woods nearby. There's no reply from Sam to Dean's last messages.

“Slowpoke,” Dean mutters and turns the key in the engine. He lets the radio play at full blast while he drives. After about a mile or two he sees something in the middle of the road and swerves sharply to avoid hitting it. It looks like some kids’ soccer ball, or a dead rabbit. Nothing worth stopping for.

He gets out of the car anyways.

It’s a head. A human head.

Dean puts one hand on the gun in the back of his belt, his quickening heartbeat anticipating an attack. Like he’s some forest bunny about to get pulled in by a hunter’s bait. After he scans the empty highway around him he looks back at the head by his feet. It’s half rotted; ants and flies are swarming thick around the neck, so many that the base looks black and alive. The eyes are swollen and oozing and blue. As if the sky is hemorrhaging.

Cas. The word burns along the side of his gums. He can’t work his jaw to open it and speak.

Someone grabs the scruff his neck and he’s yanked backwards too fast to whip out his weapon and defend himself.

He’s in a halfway, long and white. Murder-white. The kind of color that is begging to be splattered in blood. The kind of clean that you know is only that way because of all the guts that had to wiped off. He whirls around at the sound of incoming footsteps and feels around his chest and waistband for any blade or gun or half-decent throwing star, but there’s nothing. In fact his clothes are even wrong. He’s wearing something Sam would call a tunic, and Dean has no idea what a tunic is except for the fact he’s undoubtedly wearing one right now.

“I’m dreaming,” he says out loud. “Fuck.”

“Yes and no.” Cas is standing at his right side. Head on his neck and everything.

“You-I-what’s going on here?” Dean narrows his eyes. “Are you even real?”

“Yes and no.” Cas isn’t looking at him. His eyes are fixed straight ahead, like he can see through the corridor wall. His Adam’s apple bobs faintly. Then he closes his eyes and slowly puts his arms behind his back.

“Cas, what’s happening?” Dean rounds on him, reaching out to touch his shoulder just as the soldiers appear again. They bind Cas’ wrists with rope and pull him down the hall, oblivious to Dean’s attempts to get through.

“Cas! Cas! Don’t let them do this to you!” Dean glances around for a way to get ahead of them and sees a side hall on his left. He sprints down it and out the exit and ends up on the cobblestone road again. He’s in front of the executioner’s platform once more, but this time he’s not alone. There’s a crowd gathered all around, pressed as tight as sweaty clothes to his skin.

“For his treachery to Heaven and its commands,” someone reads from a scroll. “For his disregard for life, both human and celestial. For releasing the abomination that our Father locked away.”

The crowd murmurs their assent after each line. He’s standing at a trial. No, it’s not a trial because Cas isn’t getting a chance to defend himself. He’s just standing there between the grip of the soldiers, head lowered in anticipation.

This is a public execution.

And these aren’t soldiers. They’re angels.

His mind retches, pouring bile through his veins and he’s shaking so violently he can barely stand.

Cas lowers his head onto the stump and Dean screams so loud he feels like someone’s reached into his chest and yanked his spine clear through his lungs.

The soldiers evaporate. So does the crowd.

Dean falls, his palms bruising the gray stones below him. He rises in one fluid motion and scrambles on all fours towards the executioner’s block.

Blood clots his nostrils immediately. The wooden fibers of the stump are dark and stained in places. Cas' headless body is leaning against the rim of the stump. There's a speck of white severed spine poking out at the top. Yellow maggots curls around the circumference of the bloodied neck. Fat little clusters of maggot eggs cling to the edges like misplaced pearls. A crow pecks furiously at the open flesh and doesn't budge when Dean tries to shoo it away. With a stab of its black beak the crow pulls a string of pink meat from Cas' neck and throws its head back to swallow it.

“Cas.” There's nothing to prove to Dean that this is the angel's body but he knows it is. He knows because his bones are rattling with an intensity of grief that threatens to crack him apart.

Then Dean is in the Impala again. The radio is playing Whitney Houston’s “I Look to You.”

“No, no, no.” He pops the dashboard box open and pulls out his phone. No battery. He rummages around again and pulls up a handful of spiders instead of a cell phone charger. “Get the fuck off-” he drops his hand against his pants leg, swiping back and forth furiously.

The radio song restarts. "As I lay me down/Heaven hear me now."

“Dean.” Someone is in the back seat. Dean knows it’s Cas without looking. “Are you going to drive?”

Dean lifts his gaze very slowly. He’s afraid to see either just a head or a body without a head. But it's just Cas, sitting there with his hands in his lap, wearing the same trench coat and slacks as always.

“Have you-have you been here this whole time?” Dean hears his own voice shaking. “I thought you were at the Heavenly sandbox, trying to sort out a distress call. That was days ago, and me and Sam are-”

The Impala starts driving on its own.

“What the hell?” Dean grabs at the steering wheel but nothing changes. They’re hurtling down the road at ninety miles an hour. “What are you doing? Cas, stop it, what are you doing?”

Cas stares at him. “This is your dream.” He raises an eyebrow. “And yet there seems to be some overlap of our consciousnesses. I don’t quite understand it.”

“Well I don't fucking want this.” Dean stomps on the brake pedal with both feet. “Why won’t it stop?”

“You’re frightened.”

Cas’ placidity grates against Dean like a needle in his throat. “Because I just watched you fucking die!” he shouts back. The Impala is cutting curves too close and then skidding right around the edge of the road. He braces his head against the headrest and grits his teeth. Dream or not he doesn’t want to go through the windshield when they crash.

“You weren’t supposed to know about that.” Suddenly Cas is in the passenger seat. He’s sitting with his knees up to his chest, arms around his legs, and no seat belt.

“About what?” Dean hisses. There’s a cliff up ahead. The Impala isn’t slowing down.

Cas puts his head down between his knees. “Bend your back when you fall.”

Then Dean is back in the Impala. Parked on the side of the road, waiting for Sam to join him on the ghoul hunt. Dean twists the key in the ignition and drives straight back to the Bunker. He doesn't stop for gas, doesn't stop to think, doesn't stop to make any calls. The door slams behind him as he marches down the staircase two steps at a time. “Cas?” he hollers.

“In here.”

Cas is at the kitchen table, holding a pair of chopsticks. There’s takeout boxes of Chinese food everywhere. Cas fishes through the box in his hand and picks out a fried shrimp to chew on.

“What.” Dean runs a hand through his hair. "The actual. F-"

“Your dream,” Cas reminds him. “This world responds to your emotions. I assume you find-” he points at the box of fried noodles “-Panada Express comforting?”

Dean plops down on the bench across from the angel. As good as the greasy pork and steaming noodles smell, he’s not eating anything in this nightmare. It might be some kind of Hades-esque trap that condemns him to be stuck here forever if he eats a single cashew. “Dad used to get it for me and Sam as a treat. Sam, he loved the orange chicken, like he’d full on hog the plate.”

“I favor the honey cashew shrimp,” says Cas.

“Tell me how to get out of this dream.”

“Your dream,” Cas repeats and Dean wants to slap him.

“Are you even the real Cas?” he snaps.

Cas slurps up a long slice of green pepper. “Yes and no.”

Motherfucker, Dean mutters under his breath. “Can you at least explain what the whole history-channel beheading was?”

Cas taps his chopsticks together. “Pass the chow mein, please.”

Dean rolls his eyes but he does shove the box over. “I don’t have time for this, Cas.”

“Don't worry, Dean. You’ll have all the time you need.”

There it is again. That calmness. Dean can’t quite place why he hates the tone of voice so much. "Cas. Start explaining now. Please."

“The angels have found me guilty,” Cas says, ripping a packet of chili sauce open. He sticks his tongue out and licks a drop of sauce cautiously before squeezing the whole packet onto the fried noddles. “For letting Lucifer free, of course, but there are plenty of other crimes I’ve committed over the years. Either I be judged accordingly, or they said they will kill innocents in every town you-we’ve-saved people in.”

Cas picks up the chopsticks again and starts shoveling chow mein into his mouth.

“Wow. So you’ve decided to just let them kill you?” Dean folds his arms tightly across his chest. “How about telling them to get fucked and then coming to me and Sam for help? We could find a solution where no one has to die!”

"I already found a solution.” Cas wipes the corner of his mouth on the back of his sleeve. "Everything is going to be alright."

Dean finally figures it out. There’s not a ounce of fight there. Cas is fully resigned to what's happening.

“Cas, you can’t-” he leans across the table, trying to make eye contact with him. “First of all, yeah you let Lucifer out but I was the one who released the Darkness. Plus God sort of fixed that. And whatever else they’ve got on you-they also killed tons of innocent people in their civil war and tried to start the friggin apocalypse. They can’t find you guilty. I’m sure Sammy would get out his law books and have something to say about it.”

Cas scrapes the bottom of the paper box with the chopsticks. Scritch-scratch-scritch. “I’m fixing my mistakes, Dean. I didn’t expect to survive Lucifer but now that I have I need to make it right.”

Dean feels like his intestines have suddenly turned to steel. “What do you mean-didn’t expect to survive?”

Cas lifts an eyeball out of the paper box. He balances it evenly between the bright red chopsticks before popping it into his mouth and biting it down the center. Black and white juice sprays out, hitting Dean in the face. Dean gags and jerks away as Cas dips his chopsticks back into the box and retrieves another eyeball, one that’s blue as his own. He smiles through the sticky strings of gelatin-like substance.

“I can make it right.”

Dean is in the Impala again.

He clenches his fist around the steering wheel and slams his head forward, again and again and again until he tastes copper and sugar trickling thick down into his mouth.

“You stupid sonofabitch,” he shouts, knuckles gleaming white. “I’m not letting you do that.”

He reaches for the car keys and they turn into a remote control. His fingers twitch and the television channel changes. Scooby-Doo flashes across the screen. His surroundings flick into focus: he’s sitting on the edge of the bed in a motel room that’s wallpapered with a sunflower print.

“I like this episode,” says Cas’ head from the pillow behind him. Just Cas’ chopped-off head. No body. 

“Okay,” Dean says. Okay this is happening type of okay. The skin around the edge of Cas’ neck is uneven. There’s a neat stain of blood below him on the pillowcase. His teeth wiggle when he opens his mouth to laugh at the television.

Dean isn’t paying attention to Fred and Daphne running across the screen. He thinks about what Cas said in the last chapter of this novel-length nightmare. “You didn’t-you thought Lucifer would kill you. Is that-is that why you said yes? Because you knew it’d be a suicide mission?”

“I said yes to be useful,” Cas replies shortly. Then, “nothing else mattered.”

Dean opens his mouth but Cas keeps talking. “In the end it was futile. I have a chance to try again now.”

“To die? To fucking die? Is this some-” elaborate kamikaze plan, Dean starts to say but then he stops. He feels like he’s had this conversation before. A few years ago, also in a motel room with shitty wallpaper. I’m afraid I might kill myself. He swallows hard. On the television the Scooby gang is having sandwiches in a diner and Cas watches with a soft smile.

“Is this what you want?” Dean begins tentatively. “Do you want-an end to-to all this?”

Cas shifts on the pillow, smearing the neat blood puddle under his severed neck.

“Do you want to die?”

Cas looks at him briefly. “This isn’t like what you’re thinking of. My state of mind was different back then.” He turns back to the TV. “This is a matter of necessity. My preference plays no part in this.”

“I don’t think being alive is a matter of preference, Cas, it’s not a-a favorite color or something.” Dean scrubs a hand over his face. “I don’t-I don’t know what’s going on here, Cas, but I need to talk to me. Let me help you.”

It’s commercial break on the screen. A lady with plastic hair curlers on her head is talking about all-natural laundry soap.

“I want to make the right choice,” Cas says quietly. “To save people. To do what’s right. No matter the cost.”

“And you think that being dead is the best way for you to make a difference? Don’t you think you could do a lot more good by being alive?”

Cas doesn’t answer until the commercial is over and the Scooby-Doo jingle resounds. “I’ve hurt so many people,” he sighs. “Lucifer is still out there…I can’t protect you and Sam from him. But this is something I can do for you.”

“You don’t need to protect us, Cas! How about the other around for once?” Dean turns around to fully face him. “If this is a dream then you must be in danger somewhere. Tell me where you are and I’ll come for you. We’ll talk to the angels, get them to change their minds. We’ll fix this together.”

Cas opens his mouth and the winking silver of an axe blade springs out, like a deadly jack-in-the-box. Dean ducks immediately and them scrambles backwards, reaching for his duffle bag of weapons. His fingers close around something long and thin and bendable. He looks down and sees that it’s a stalk of wheat.

He’s in the cobblestone square again.

There’s an old woman at his side. She’s carrying a bushel of grain in her arms. “Here he comes,” the old woman grins. Dean can see her teeth. They all have eyes, too, staring back at him.

He grabs the stalk of wheat and charges forward. If this is a dream, his dream, then everything can bend to his will. The wheat fibers harden into an angel blade. He leaps onto the platform and stabs the executioner through the chest. The crowd hisses, shrill and harmonized, as Dean spins around and slits the throats of the other soldiers. He turns to Cas who’s on his knees, shoulders slumped over the stump.

With one move Dean cuts the ropes open and frees Cas’ hands. He pulls Cas to his feet, only to realize the axe has already been swung. Cas’ neck is sliced halfway to the middle of his throat. Blood washes warm and flowing over Dean’s hand as he hopelessly tries to press the wound shut. Cas’ head yawns back and forth, blood webbed between the chasm. It reminds Dean of trying to glue the plastic head of a toy soldier back on, only to find out you’ve used the wrong kind of glue and the head is loose and one vigorous battle charge away from toppling off.

“Hey, hey, hey, stay with me,” Dean repeats feverishly as Cas’ head tips to the side. “I need you to fight, Cas, I need you to fucking fight for yourself, okay? I can’t make that choice for you. I need you to want to get out here.”

“I need to save him,” Cas mumbles in red rivulets.

“Can you hear me, man? Come on, don’t give up now. You-you never meant to hurt anyone. I know you. You’ve always tried your best to do good.” Dean stumbles and Cas’ neck tears open further. The angel’s head is hanging on by a one-inch strip of skin. “You are good, okay? And I need you, we need you, and I can’t bring you home unless you want to come with me. Please, wake up.”

Cas blinks and Dean stops to catch a breath. Only to feel a slow trickle of blood running down between his own collarbone. His eyes flick up and he sees the executioner standing upright again. There’s no axe in his hand though.

Dean reaches up to his own neck and feels the triangular metal protrusion. The axe is wedged in his throat.

The crowd cheers as Dean watches his head drop off the platform and fall to the cobblestone road. “The traitor is gone!” the old woman shouts, her hips swinging as she marches over and kicks her leather shoe in Dean’s gaping mouth. “Long live the justice of the Heavens!”

Dean flails his arms and the executioner kicks his body down to the rest of the crowd. They raise their pitchforks and kitchen knives and starts stabbing with giddy glee. Pain burst through Dean’s nerves and he bolts up in bed screaming, saliva strings between his teeth.

He grabs his phone from the nightstand and looks at the missed messages and calls. Sam. Cas.

His eyes circle around the room: no sunflower wallpaper. No Chinese takeout. No hacked up parts of his best friend.

The door of the room opens and Sam and Cas come in, talking to each other about the family of ghouls they’ve just taken out. Dean opens his mouth but doesn’t get a word in edgewise as Sam tosses his bag onto the other bed and then grabs his wallet from the shelf next to the TV. “Gonna get some food for us, I’m starving. Do you want to come with me?”

It takes Dean three seconds to realize his brother is addressing him. “No-uh-I’m-I-what-the-”

Sam half-rolls his eyes. “Be back in an hour or so. There’s still some jerky left in the front pocket of my bag if you get hungry.”

Dean just stares at Sam. Like if he looks long and hard enough the towering figure of his younger brother will fizzle away like bubbles at the top of a can of soda. Sam seems pretty solid, though; he ducks, habitually, the way he always does as he leaves the room and then the door closes and Dean is alone again.

Except for Cas, who’s sitting on the edge of the other bed.

“Cas?” Dean gets up slowly. Are you real? Are you actually here? Are you going to stay?

“Dean-don’t.” Cas turns his back on him. “I-I need to tell you something. Something happened in Heaven.”

Dean lowers himself back onto the mattress. They’re in the same motel room but it feels like they’re on opposite sides of a wall. Cas keeps facing away, back hunched forward, head dipped down so far he looks almost headless. Dean twists his neck around to look at him-if he can’t make eye contact, at least he can watch the tremor of his shoulders. He can know without a doubt this time if reality goes taunt again and he’s thrown back into a dream. Or if this is real and Cas is about to confess his death sentence to him.

And then suddenly it hits him. He can do something for Cas. He can make this easier for him. He knows how hard it is to tell the ones you love that you’re leaving them. So instead of waiting for Cas’ breathing to steady and the next sentence to come out, Dean says, “I know.”

He doesn’t elaborate how he knows; doesn’t add I’ve dreamed of your execution half a dozen times.

They sit there silently, listening to the hum of the yellow light bulb above their heads.

“Can I go with you?” Dean asks eventually. He’s going to go either way-follow Cas secretly once he heads out, ask Sam to lojack the car, track his cellphone-but he wants to give Cas a chance to invite him to come. He wants to be the kind of friend that you would want to bring to your beheading.

Cas sighs. A long sound accompanied by a rise and slump of his shoulder. “You can’t.” Then, quieter, as if slipping out of the cracks unnoticed, “You’re the one they want to kill.”

No surprise that angels want him dead. There are few groups in this world, human or otherwise, that would root for Dean’s survival. Dean huffs and tries a small smile in preparation to crack a joke when his expression drops. You’re the one they want to kill. I have to save him. The crowd’s furious delight at his own beheading.

“What do you mean, Cas? Why me?”

Cas sucks in a breath and holds it. The molecules in the room grind to a standstill.

“Please don’t be angry,” the angel says in a tiny voice.

Dean immediately gets angry. Internally. For now, at least. “Cas.”

“Heaven demanded-the angels leading Heaven insisted that someone be held responsible for the devastation of the Darkness. They called me there so they could hold me…so you would come.”

So you could be bait, Dean translates in his mind. 

Cas still hasn’t turned around to face Dean. He pulls his elbows and arms in closer, like he’s trying to shrink himself. “If you didn’t show they would start…killing people to get your attention. I-I convinced them not to."

Dean digs his nails into the curve of his knees. “And exactly how did you convince them?”

Cas pauses, long enough for Dean to wants to crack his knee in half. “I told them the truth. I was the one that helped Rowena perform the spell that freed the Darkness. I released Lucifer into the world. If they wanted-”

“A fucking sacrificial lamb?” Dean snaps.

“Please don’t be angry,” Cas repeats.

Dean squeezes his eyes shut. “I’m trying, Cas, I’m trying but. You asked for your own execution? To save me?” It's like someone cutting down a tree to offer shade to a thistle.

Cas finally twists around, eyes narrowed and harsh. “I am making things right, Dean. I’m saving innocent lives!”

“I am not innocent, Cas. And you dying is not-that’s not a solution. You don’t just fucking-launch a body onto a grenade to keep it from going off. You didn’t even try to find another way, me and Sam-”

“No.” Cas’ eyes are reddening but his voice is sharper and clearer than ever. “This world, this sad doomed little world, it needs you. It needs Sam. I will not let you die, I won’t let any of you die. You-” he blinks. “You mean too much to me. To everything.”

Dean shakes his head. “Cas. What the hell do you think you mean to us?”

Cas just looks at him with an expression that seems to collect all the sadness in the world into one thin smile. “I can do the right thing, Dean. I can fix my mistake.”

“This isn’t right, Cas!” Dean punches the mattress below him and the seams of the fabric split wide open. His fingernails snag at a seam of the bedspread as the rest of him plummets downwards. Below him is a black, bubbling mass of nothingness. “Cas!” he shouts, swinging his other arm up. “Give me a hand!”

The halo outline of Cas’ head rises in the space above Dean and then the silhouette hardens into the hooded shape of the executioner. Dean wriggles away frantically, trying to grip the other side of the mattress-hole, but the executioner swings and chops his fingertips off at the first joint.

Dean falls and lands with a hard knot in his back.

He’s at the bottom of a brick wall. It looks like the side of a house. From hundreds of years ago.

Fuck.

Dean sees the back of the execution platform up ahead and he starts running, barefoot, over the cobblestone road. Villagers shout at him, and a few try to get in his way, but he swerves around the obstructions and runs faster. He can see Cas being lead up the stairs to the stump-his white blouse swelling in the late afternoon breeze-and he shouts no wait stop but nobody seems to hear him.

Dean finally scrambles up the wooden steps-splinters slitting the soles of his feet but he doesn’t cry out-and grabs at the nearest soldier. The soldier stabs his sword clean through Dean’s knee, then rams his helmet into Dean’s face, sending him flat on his back. “Wait!” Dean flops over and reaches out. Cas turns around to look at him-turns around long enough that Dean counts it as hesitation.

You don’t have to do this, Dean prays to him.

Cas starts to open his mouth to say something when the soldiers clamp their hands on his shoulders and shove Cas to his knees. One of them grabs a tuff of his hair and shoves his cheek to the execution stump. Another pulls his left arm back and the third one peels back the hem of his collar so the path for the axe is clear.

“Dean.” Cas is looking at him, his right arm splayed out, fingers twitching against nothing at all. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Hey.” Dean scoots over, half-lying down, half sitting up, broken leg sagging behind him. He takes Cas’ free hand between in both of his. “Tell me where you are, please. Tell me you don't want this.”

Cas’ eyes are glassy. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It’s the only thing that matters, Cas. The only thing.” He rubs Cas’ cold knuckles with his fingertips. “I’m here. I’ll take you home. Just tell you want to go.”

“The angels-they won’t stop. They’ll hurt people-they’ll hurt you.”

“Like they haven’t hurt you already?”

Cas is shivering. The axe blade is resting on the back of his neck, ready to slice. He looks so small and so alone.

“Take me, you sick fucks,” Dean shouts to the gathered crowd. “Didn’t you want my head in the first place?”

One of the villagers steps forward. “Castiel is the true heretic. His sins have gone unpunished for far too long now. We will not rest until-”

“Oh save it,” Dean shoots back. He doesn’t let go of Cas’ hand. “How many times have you left humanity defenseless? How many times has your fighting left dozens, hundreds for dead? How many times have you butchered Cas, strung up his insides, and you still claim to be agents of mercy?”

“You think you have right to pass judgement? You let demons and monsters kill innocent men, women, and children every day! Cas is the only one who’s ever stayed true to your mission. He’s the least guilty of all of you.” He smiles a little at Cas. “The least guilty between me and him.”

“Dean.” Something shifts in Cas’ expression. “Dean, I-”

“If any of you really think you’re good enough to be judge and jury,” Dean raises his voice, “if you really believe you aren’t full of fucking sin yourself, then be my guest and cast the first goddamn stone.”

“Dean.” Cas squeezes his hands back, hard. There’s a timidness in his eyes, like a small green stalk midst a field of withered stems. “Dean, I think-I don’t want to-”

The axe breaks skin and Cas' eyes widen, his lips twisting in agony. His arm jerks and Dean can't do anything but watch as the axe lifts and drops again. The first cut didn't severe the head cleanly and now the executioner is sawing back and forth like Cas' neck is a loaf of bread and Cas is bubbling blood between clenched teeth and writhing in pain, cheek scraping against the wood and Dean is being pulled away by the other soldiers and Cas' fingers slip from his sweaty grip and Dean tries-fails-to hold on. Cas keeps staring at him, trying to say something with his watering gaze until his eyes roll back in his head and-

“Dean!” Sam looms over him, coming into focus gradually like fog rolling in. “You’re awake!”

Dean tries to bolt up only to have his brother’s mammoth hands pressing him down. “Hey, hey, it’s okay. You’re still weak, and the doctor wants to run some tests-”

“Cas,” Dean interrupts him frantically. He blinks, his eyes registering the white walls of a hospital room. “Where’s Cas?”

“-to check your brain activity,” Sam rambles on, “I was so worried about permanent damage. I didn’t know what to do-after that ghoul smashed your head in I had to take you to the hospital. You weren’t even breathing at first-”

“Is this a dream?” Dean plucks at the IV drip in his arm. “Get me out of here, Sam!”

Sam rushes to stop him from pulling the needle all the way out. "This isn't a dream, Dean-you were in a coma. You’ve been out for almost a week. The doctors said your brain activity was still going crazy though. It was like something was happening inside your mind.”

Dean hooks his fingers around his brother’s wrist. “We-I need to get to Cas. The angels, they’re going to-”

“Cas is on his way.” Sam untangles himself from his grip. “He called a few minutes ago. He said things were complicated in Heaven for awhile but he figured it out now. He’ll be here in an hour or so.”

“Jesus, Sam.” Dean falls back against the pillow, unsuccessfully choking back a wretched sound. “Why didn’t you lead with that? Jesus fucking Christ-” he crosses an arm over his eyes. “God. Cas.” He lifts his arm slightly to see Sam’s confused expression. “Call him.”

“I just said, he’s on his way-”

“Sammy. Please.” Dean bites the corner of his lip. “I need to talk to him now.”

Sam must recognize the hook of desperation in his voice because he only hesitates a second longer before handing the phone over. Dean’s hands start shaking so much he can’t even hold the phone. Sam lays it down on Dean’s chest and presses the speaker button.

Cas picks up on the fourth ring. Not that Dean’s been counting.

“Dean.” Either the connection’s shit or Cas’ voice is breaking up. “I heard you.”

Dean squeezes his eyes shut. He’s very aware that Sam is watching him but he’s so close to crying right now. Under the covers he balls his hands into fists and wills himself to stay composed. “Yeah?”

“You don’t understand.” Cas is breathing so close to the receiver Dean can almost feel his wonder. “It wasn’t just me who heard you. All of Heaven heard you. And they listened.”

Air comes rushing like waterfall rapids into Dean’s lungs. “For real?” he dares to question.

“This is real, Dean. You-you-I don’t know how you did. How did you find me?”

“I always will, Cas.” Dean pushes himself up on his elbows and starts to shift his legs over the edge over the bed. Sam comes rushing over, weakly pushing him back and then resorting to supporting Dean by the arm. “Tell me where you are and I’ll come get you.”

“You don’t need to-I’m coming to the hospital. Sam said you were hurt-I’m sorry I didn’t-”

“It doesn’t matter-Cas. Let us come to you.” Dean ignores Sam muttering about MRIs and blood work results that haven’t come in. “Just-” Dean exhales. “Just say it and I’ll be there.”

Sam finally grows silent beside him. He must understand that something’s happened between them; something Dean will probably never be able to talk about, but will carry in his rib cage forever like a hand-carved tumor.

“Dean.” Cas breathes out into the receiver. “Dean. I want to go home.”

Dean brushes a hand against the back of his eyes. “Okay.” He can feel himself grinning so wide his jaw ache. “Okay. Send us your location and we’ll be there in no time. Just wait for us, okay?”

“I will. Dean.” Cas’ voice grows softer. More trembling. “Thank you.”

“I’ll see you soon.” You made it. You’re going to be alright. You’re alive.

“I’ll see you, too.” I trust you. I'm going to let you help me. I want to be alive.

"You said live out loud, and die you said lightly,

and over and over again you said be."

- Rainer Maria Rilke