Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

If I could bottle up mornings like this and keep them forever, I would.

The sun was barely cutting through the thin curtains of our bedroom, painting soft golden stripes across Castiel’s face. His hair was a mess, sticking out in every direction, and he smelled like soap and coffee—because he was the kind of man who showered before doing anything else, even on a lazy Saturday. I’d been awake for twenty minutes, just lying there, staring at the life I somehow got lucky enough to have.

Padding against the hardwood floor came the sound of nails—our mutt, Ranger, a black-and-brown mix of ten different breeds and pure chaos. He jumped onto the bed like he owned the place, immediately pressing his wet nose to my cheek and snorting like it was some kind of morning greeting.

“Ranger,” Castiel mumbled into the pillow, voice low and gravelly, “off.”

The dog ignored him and flopped across both of us. I laughed, pushing his heavy body toward Cas’s side. “He likes you better,” I said.

Cas cracked one eye open and stared at me like I was the one committing the crime of cuddling a seventy-pound dog. Then he reached up, scratched Ranger behind the ears, and the dog wagged his tail like he’d just been knighted.

These mornings were perfect.

By the time we made it to the kitchen, the smell of bacon had already filled the small house. Sam and Gabriel came visiting and were sitting at the island, arguing about whether pineapple belonged on pizza. Sam looked disgusted. Gabriel, as usual, was winning the argument with sheer stubbornness.

“Morning, lovebirds,” Gabriel sang, raising his coffee like a toast. “Hope you’re ready for my famous pineapple pizza tonight. Family dinner.”

“Nope,” I said, grabbing a piece of bacon from the pan. “I refuse. That’s not pizza, that’s a crime.”

“Dean, you said that about sushi, and now look at you,” Sam said, smirking. “Begging Cas to make it once a month.”

Cas walked past me with two plates in hand, pressed a kiss to my temple in passing, and set the plates down. “Dean will eat anything if he’s hungry enough.”

Everyone laughed—even me. It was easy here. Normal.

Later that afternoon, I headed out to Benny’s garage. He had a beat-up Chevy on the lift and country music playing low on the radio. Benny was the kind of guy who could fix anything with his hands and didn’t care about anything but his tools and his family. Calm, steady. He handed me a rag when I walked in.

“You and Cas still playing house?” he teased, smirking under his beard.

“Better than ever,” I said, grinning. “Sam and Gabriel were over this morning. Ranger nearly broke the bed trying to cuddle us all at once.”

Benny chuckled. “Good for you, brother. Hold on to that.”

I would’ve. I meant to.

But then Michael showed up.

He always came with a kind of storm around him—greasy hair, twitchy fingers, and that grin that promised trouble. Everyone knew he was bad news, but I’d grown up with him. He’d been there through hunts, breakups, and every bad night when I was younger and stupid.

“Dean!” he yelled, slapping me on the back a little too hard. “Still tied down to the angel? Man, you’re no fun anymore. Come out with me tonight—Benny, you too. We’re gonna have a real good time.”

“I’m busy,” I said automatically.

Michael just grinned wider. “C’mon. One night. One drink. One little something to take the edge off. Your boy doesn’t even have to know.”

Benny shot me a look, the kind of look that said don’t be an idiot. He didn’t even have to open his mouth.

I wish I’d listened.

The rest of the day passed in a haze of comfort.

After breakfast and a few hours of watching Sam and Gabriel bicker over a board game, it was just me and Cas again. The sun had slipped lower, spilling soft amber light through the living room windows, and Ranger was snoring like a chainsaw on the rug.

Cas was curled up on the couch, his socked feet tucked under him, reading a book about bees—because of course he was. His brow was furrowed in quiet concentration, and that tiny crease he got between his eyes when he was focused was the kind of thing I could stare at for hours. Five years married, and somehow, I was still stupidly, pathetically gone for him.

I put on some old blues track from my dad’s collection, just low enough to hum through the air. Cas didn’t look up, but when I offered my hand, he closed his book without a word.

“Dance with me,” I said.

“In the living room?” His voice was soft, warm with amusement.

“Yeah. In the living room. Where else?”

He let me pull him up, and we swayed slowly, barefoot on the wooden floor. His head rested against my shoulder, his hand pressed against my back, and for a second, the world outside didn’t exist. Just me, him, and the sound of Ranger snorting in his sleep.

“I love you,” I murmured into his hair.

“I know,” he said, because he was a smartass, and then kissed me anyway. Slow, deliberate. Like he had all the time in the world to remind me what home felt like.

We talked about nothing and everything. How Sam might actually marry Gabriel if he could survive the chaos. How we should take Ranger camping next month. How five years had gone by in a blink, and if this was forever, I was okay with that.

It was a life I didn’t think I’d ever get—a life I was scared to even believe I deserved.

When the sun finally dipped below the horizon and Cas went upstairs to take a shower, my phone buzzed. Michael.

Club tonight, man. Don’t make me drag your boring married ass out of bed.

I almost ignored it. Almost.

The club was exactly the kind of place I’d outgrown—neon lights bleeding across the walls, bass thrumming through my chest, the air thick with sweat, smoke, and something sharp I couldn’t place. Michael was in his element, already halfway drunk, draped over the bar with that wolfish grin.

“Dean!” he bellowed, clapping me on the back hard enough to rattle my teeth. “There’s my guy! Married man out on the town—what’s the occasion? Finally bored of the home life?”

“Just having a drink,” I said, taking the beer the bartender slid across the counter.

Michael leaned in close, eyes glassy. “C’mon, one night to really live. I got something that’ll make you feel like the king of the damn world.”

I laughed, shaking my head. “I’m good. Beer’s enough for me.”

He grinned, sly and knowing. “Sure, man. Beer now. But when you get tired of playing house, you know where to find me.”

The music pounded, lights flashing over Michael’s too-wide smile. For now, I was fine. I told myself I was fine. I went home to Cas that night with nothing in my system but cheap beer and the echo of bass in my ears.

I didn’t know then that this was the last truly perfect day I’d ever have.

Chapter Text

The week after the club was quiet.

Mornings stayed the same: sunlight creeping through thin curtains, the smell of coffee, Cas brushing past me in that soft blue robe he refused to throw away even though the sleeve had a burn mark from last year’s Thanksgiving. Ranger trotted behind him like a shadow, tail wagging. The world still felt like home.

But Michael had a way of lingering. His voice, his laugh, the way he’d leaned in at the bar with that wolfish grin—it kept echoing in my head. We’d been thick as thieves once. Skipping classes together, raising hell in backroads towns, even bailing each other out of the kind of trouble only teenage boys can find. Hell, he was the first one I ever shared a beer with.

I thought about that night a lot—back when life was all adrenaline and nothing had weight.

At work, things were steady. I sat behind my glass-topped desk, juggling schedules and calls for Lisa Braeden, who was a hurricane in heels and the best boss I’d ever had. She ran the whole company like a general, never breaking a sweat.

“Dean,” she said, peering over the divider at me. “The Denver pitch is at three, and I want those files ready before lunch. You’re a lifesaver.”

“Got it,” I said, clicking through spreadsheets.

Being her personal assistant wasn’t glamorous, but it was solid. Reliable. The kind of job that paid the mortgage and bought dog treats and meant I came home every night to Cas cooking dinner like it was 1962. I loved that about him—the way he’d hum softly to old jazz on the radio while stirring sauce, the apron always crooked. It was like living in a world that didn’t know chaos.

That evening, Benny stopped by the garage I sometimes helped him with after work. His hands were black with oil, his plaid shirt rolled to the elbows. He was the picture of calm.

“You hear from Michael?” he asked, wiping his hands on a rag.

I hesitated. “Yeah. Keeps calling. Keeps… I dunno. Making me feel like I’m ditching him.”

Benny squinted at me, the same way he squinted at a stubborn engine. “You ain’t obligated to throw your life away just ‘cause he never got his together. Friends don’t drag you down, Dean. They don’t make you feel guilty for being happy.”

“I know,” I said, though my chest felt tight. “I just… I keep thinking about how we used to be. He was there for me, y’know?”

“Yeah,” Benny said, voice flat. “And now you got a husband and a dog and a job. Don’t throw all that away for nostalgia.”

I nodded like I agreed. But Michael’s words kept crawling back anyway.

He called that night, his voice low and smooth.

“Man, you been ghosting me,” he said. “I’m starting to think the ol’ Dean Winchester died and got replaced by a housebroken puppy.”

I laughed a little, even though it stung. “I’ve just been busy. Work. Home. You know.”

“Yeah, I know,” he said, bitterness curling at the edges. “Used to be you and me against the world. Now it’s you and your angel baking cookies. You don’t even call anymore. You forget who had your back when no one else did?”

The guilt landed heavy, like it always did. I mumbled something about coming out next weekend, just to shut him up, and hung up.

When I put my phone down, Cas was on the couch, Ranger’s head in his lap, flipping through a home design magazine. He looked up with that soft, easy smile that had been mine for five years.

“Dinner’s ready,” he said. “I made your favorite.”

The smell of roasted chicken and rosemary filled the house, warm and safe. I sat down at the table, watching him light the single candle he always insisted on using, even on weeknights. His thumb brushed mine when he passed me a plate. He didn’t know I was sinking a little, and he didn’t need to.

Because here, in this little house with Cas and Ranger and the steady tick of the clock on the wall, life was still perfect.

I told myself I could hold on to that forever.

Chapter Text

It was a Thursday night when I caved.

The house was quiet. Ranger was curled in his bed, twitching in a dream, and Cas was asleep upstairs with a book still in his hand. I’d tucked the blanket over him before coming down to the living room, restless in a way I couldn’t shake.

Michael’s name lit up my phone again. I stared at it for a long time before I finally answered.

“Dean,” he said, his voice dripping with smugness, like he knew I’d pick up eventually. “I got something for you tonight. Just a little fun. No one has to know.”

I hesitated, my eyes drifting toward the stairs, where Cas slept peacefully.

“I dunno, man,” I said.

“Don’t do this again,” Michael said. “Don’t sit there acting like you’re above it all while your life’s slipping past you. We used to be unstoppable. You remember that? When it was just you and me against the world? You’ve gone soft. Housebroken. You ain’t even thirty yet and you already checked out.”

The guilt hit first, then the ache for something I couldn’t name. That voice in my head whispering that maybe he was right.

“Fine,” I said. My own voice sounded far away. “Where?”

The club was a pulse of heat and color, a living thing that swallowed me whole. Lights slashed across the dance floor, blue and red and gold, painting the air in jagged stripes. Music pounded through my chest, a deep, hungry rhythm that drowned out thought.

Michael was waiting at the bar, his grin wide and sharp.

“There he is,” he said, clapping me on the shoulder. “My brother. My partner in crime. Knew you couldn’t stay gone forever.”

I ordered a beer, just to have something in my hand, but Michael was already sliding something small and white across the counter. He leaned in close, voice low enough to get lost in the music.

“Just one,” he said. “One little thing to take the edge off. I swear, you’ll feel like a god. Nobody will know.”

I stared at it. My chest felt tight. Five years married. A house. A dog. A husband who kissed me slow in the living room like I was his whole world.

And Michael looking at me like I was already disappointing him again.

“C’mon,” he said softly, almost pleading now. “Don’t leave me out here alone. You owe me, man. All the times I was there for you? Just… be here for me.”

I told myself it would be once. I told myself it was harmless. I told myself a lot of things.

I let the pill hit my tongue.

It was like someone flipped the world upside down and shook it out in gold.

The music wasn’t just noise anymore—it was alive, crawling under my skin, vibrating in my bones. The lights bent and curved, tracing streaks of color in the air that danced just for me. The room expanded and shrank in waves, like I was floating underwater.

My body felt weightless. Every nerve lit up like fireworks. Laughter bubbled out of me uninvited, raw and electric.

People moved on the dance floor like liquid, their faces sharp and soft all at once. A girl brushed against my arm, and it felt like sparks under my skin. Michael whooped next to me, already lost in his own high, and the club swallowed us both in its hungry mouth.

I forgot the mortgage.
I forgot the dog.
I forgot the man sleeping in our bed with a book in his hand.

The only thing that mattered was the pulse under my skin and the weightless hum in my chest, whispering that this was freedom, that this was living.

Sometime past 3 a.m., I stumbled out into the humid night air, sweat cooling on my skin, colors still clinging to the edges of my vision. Michael leaned against the wall, laughing about nothing.

“You feel it?” he asked, his voice a slur and a grin all at once.

I nodded, still dizzy, the city spinning like a carousel. I felt like I could run ten miles or collapse right there.

For a second, I thought about Cas. About his soft blue robe and his steady hands and the candlelight flickering off his hair at dinner.

And then the music from inside spilled into the street, and I forgot again.

I woke up to sunlight stabbing my eyes.

My head pounded like someone was swinging a hammer behind my temples. My tongue felt dry, bitter, heavy. For a second, I didn’t know where I was—then the familiar ceiling of our bedroom came into focus, and panic hit like a gut punch.

Cas’s side of the bed was empty, but his pillow was cold. He’d been up for hours.

The smell of coffee drifted faintly from the kitchen. Ranger’s nails clicked on the floor downstairs. Somewhere in this house, my husband was living like nothing had changed—like the man he loved hadn’t stumbled through the door at four in the morning, high and grinning like a fool, collapsing into bed without a word.

The weight of it landed all at once.

I turned on my side and curled into myself like I could disappear. My stomach churned. My chest felt hollow and rotted.

Because last night, for a few hours, I forgot him.

I forgot Cas.
I forgot our life.
I forgot the soft blue robe and the way he says my name like it means something.

And for what? For a pill and a laugh in a club that stank like sweat and regret.

The guilt didn’t just creep in—it chewed. It gnawed at the edges of my ribs, sharp and relentless, whispering that I’d already broken something that couldn’t be fixed. Every image of Cas—his smile last night at dinner, the way he’d kissed me in the living room, the candlelight flickering against his hair—felt like a knife turning slow in my gut.

I could still see Michael’s grin in the back of my mind, the lights of the club bleeding red and gold. They weren’t beautiful anymore—they were mocking. They tasted like betrayal.

I pressed my face into the pillow, breathing in the faint scent of Cas’s shampoo, and I wanted to crawl out of my skin.

My thoughts spiraled, messy and mean:
You’re a liar.
You’re a coward.
You chose that over him.

The high was gone, but it left a film on my insides, something sticky and ugly that no shower could wash off. My body ached with it, but worse than that was the gnawing, raw edge of shame.

Downstairs, I heard Cas laugh at something—probably Ranger spinning in circles for a treat—and my throat tightened.

I should’ve gone down. I should’ve kissed him, told him good morning, acted like everything was fine.

Instead, I stayed curled up, letting guilt eat me alive in the dim light of our bedroom, because for the first time in five years of marriage, I didn’t feel like I deserved to touch him

Chapter Text

The guilt didn’t fade.

If anything, it settled deeper, like silt at the bottom of a river. It coated everything. Every smile Cas gave me. Every warm touch. Every soft moment that used to feel like home now pressed down on me like a weight I couldn’t lift.

I started sleeping in a little later, claiming I was tired from work. Sometimes I lingered in the shower too long, leaning against the wall, letting the water burn down my back as I imagined scrubbing the shame out of my skin. I started checking my phone in secret, deleting Michael’s messages like erasing the words could erase the pull in my chest.

Cas noticed my behavior. Of course he did.

One evening, I was slumped on the couch, staring at the muted TV while Ranger chewed a toy at my feet. Cas came in from the kitchen, drying his hands on a dish towel, and sat beside me. He studied me with that quiet, steady patience he always had.

“You’ve been… off,” he said finally. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” I lied. My voice was rough. “Just tired.”

He didn’t buy it. He didn’t press, either. Instead, he leaned in and started peppering soft kisses all over my face—my temple, my cheek, my jaw. Ranger thumped his tail like he approved.

“Cas…” I muttered, but my voice cracked.

“I miss you,” he said simply, and his lips brushed mine in a kiss that wasn’t just gentle—it was forgiving, like he didn’t even know he needed to forgive me.

I broke. I kissed him back, desperate, cupping his face like maybe I could hold all the broken pieces of myself together if I just held on tight enough. One kiss turned into another, and before I knew it, we were tangled in the sheets upstairs, moving slow and sweet like the first year of our marriage.

Cas whispered my name against my shoulder, fingers tracing the curve of my spine, and for a few fleeting moments, I felt safe. Loved. Whole.

It’s quiet in our bedroom, the kind of quiet that hums gently, like the sound of his breath beside mine. The rain taps against the windows in soft rhythms, and the glow from the bedside lamp catches in his curls, painting them gold. He’s looking at me like he always does — like I’m something beautiful, even when I feel small. Even when I forget how to love myself.

But he remembers for me. Always.

He touches me like he’s writing a letter he’s written a thousand times, one he never gets tired of sending. Fingers brushing my cheek, my neck, my chest — slow, reverent, like I’m sacred. I breathe in, and he’s already closer, his lips brushing mine with a sweetness that still makes my stomach flip, even after all these years.

“Five years,” I whisper, my voice barely more than air.

His smile is soft and sure. “Every day, still choosing you.”

I pull him closer until there’s no space between us, just warmth and skin and everything unsaid. His hands are warm against my waist, steady and familiar. I arch into him, and he exhales like he’s found something he thought he lost.

It’s not frantic. It’s not fire.

It’s candlelight.

It’s tea cooling on the nightstand.

It’s knowing someone’s body like your own, but still getting butterflies when they touch you.

We move together like music — slow and sure and so full of love it aches. He presses his forehead to mine, our breaths tangled, hearts steady. I kiss him between murmurs, slow and open-mouthed and soft enough to make time stop.

It feels like coming home.
Like we’ve always belonged here — in this quiet, in this bed, in each other.

It starts like it always does—with something quiet.
His fingertips at the hem of my shirt. A look that lingers. The kind of silence that hums with intention.
And then he’s pulling me in.

We’ve been married five years, but somehow the way he touches me still makes my pulse stutter. I know this body—I’ve kissed every inch of it in the dark and in the light—but I still feel like I’m discovering something new when his hands slide beneath my shirt, warm and slow, like he’s mapping me again.

When he kisses me, it’s deep—lazy, wanting. His tongue traces mine like a promise. I moan into his mouth, and he swallows it with a smile I feel more than see. There’s no rush in the way he moves. Just patience. Devotion. Like he wants to savor every sound I make.

Clothes fall away between kisses and gentle laughter, soft curses muttered between gasps. My thighs tremble under the weight of his palms. I whimper when he touches me there—teasing, slow. He knows exactly how I like it, how to draw it out until I’m aching.

"God, you're beautiful like this," he whispers, voice rough with want.

I reach for him, desperate and open, and he presses on my cock like a prayer—like he’s worshiping, not just loving. His ass roll slow against my pelvis, and I can’t hold back the moan that escapes me. Every thrust is deliberate, deep, and dizzying. I cling to him, mouth on his neck, nails dragging down his back as the tension builds and builds until I’m shaking.

He kisses the corner of my mouth when I cry out his name. Like it's holy.

After, when we’re still catching our breath, he stays inside me, our bodies slick and tangled. He strokes my hair with one hand and holds my hip with the other like he’s afraid I’ll disappear.

“You’re mine,” he murmurs, barely audible. “Always.”

And I believe it—in every slow heartbeat, every trembling breath, every inch of my aching, full body.
Because love like this doesn’t burn out.

It just keeps getting deeper.

But guilt has claws.

Even as I held him, even as he kissed my jaw and murmured I love you like a prayer, the guilt dug in. My chest burned with it. I wanted to crawl out of my skin. I wanted to confess everything and beg for forgiveness. I wanted to feel clean again.

And under all that, in the quietest corner of my mind, Michael’s voice whispered:

One more, and you won’t feel this way. One more, and the world will love you again. One more, and the guilt will shut up.

The next day, I stopped by the garage while Benny was tinkering with a socket wrench just to keep his hands busy. I leaned against the workbench, his calm filling the space like always.

“You look like hell,” he said.

“Thanks,” I muttered.

“You and Cas okay?”

I hesitated. “Yeah. Just… stressed.”

Benny studied me for a long moment, then shrugged. “Well, if you ever need to talk, I ain’t gonna judge. Just don’t let whatever this is eat you alive, brother.”

Too late for that.

Saturday night, Sam and Gabriel dropped by for dinner. Gabriel showed up with two bottles of wine and enough energy to power the whole block, immediately sweeping Cas into conversation about some new recipe he’d learned. Sam raised an eyebrow at me from across the table like he could smell the storm brewing under my skin.

I laughed in the right places. I ate the food. I let Gabriel tell some ridiculous story about a coworker who tried to bring a live snake to a costume party. And still, under the table, my leg bounced nonstop.

Because Michael had texted three times that day.
Because my body remembered the gold hum of that first night.
Because every warm smile Cas gave me just reminded me I didn’t deserve any of it.

When they left and the house was quiet again, I stared at my phone for a long time.

You wanna stop feeling like a ghost? Michael had written. I can help with that.

I didn’t answer. But the whisper in my head was already louder than my own voice.

Chapter Text

The thing about guilt is—it doesn’t fade.
It rots.

Every kiss from Cas.
Every smile across the dinner table.
Every time Ranger shoved his snout under my hand for a scratch.

All of it just reminded me of the lie in my chest.

I told myself that first night was a mistake. That I’d never do it again. That I was stronger than Michael, stronger than whatever the hell that little white pill did to me. But my body remembered. My bones remembered. The hum, the glow, the weightlessness—it lived in me like a ghost.

And ghosts don’t let go easy.

Michael called on a Friday. His voice was bright, hungry.

“Dean, come on, man. Same club, same night. You know you want to. Don’t leave me hanging again. Don’t pretend you didn’t like it.”

I hesitated. My palms itched. My chest felt tight.

I should’ve said no. I should’ve turned off the phone and gone upstairs to where Cas was humming in the shower.

Instead, I found myself nodding. “Yeah. One drink. Alone. That’s it.”

The club swallowed me whole again.

It was the kind of place where the walls sweated neon. Where the bass didn’t just thrum through the speakers—it invaded your body, crawled up your ribs, shook your heartbeat into sync. Women in dresses that barely counted as clothing laughed and swayed like they belonged to the music. Sweat and perfume and smoke clung to everything, thick enough to taste.

Michael was already half-drunk, waving me over with a grin that promised disaster.

“You made it,” he slurred, pulling me into the mess of bodies on the dance floor. “Now let’s make it worth it.”

One pill. Then another.
The world cracked open.

Colors dripped from the ceiling, thick and molten, streaking across the faces around me. Skin glowed. Hands that brushed against me burned like fire, each touch leaving a comet trail of light. Every sound bent and stretched—laughter turned liquid, voices melting into the bass until everything was music.

Michael spun beside me, eyes too wide, teeth flashing in a grin that looked carved too deep into his face. He shoved another pill into my hand.

“Take it, man. Ride the wave. You’re untouchable.”

I swallowed it without thinking.

That night didn’t stop at one. Or two.

Five times, I promised myself it was the last. Five times, I swore I’d walk out of that club and never come back. Each time the comedown hit like a hammer—sweat drying cold on my skin, heart racing too fast, jaw aching from the grind of my teeth. Each time guilt sank its teeth in deeper, whispering that I was betraying Cas, betraying everything we’d built.

But then Michael would grin, push another pill across the bar, and the guilt would vanish in gold light for just a little longer.

By the time the night bled into morning, my chest ached with the rhythm of the music even after I stumbled outside. The city tilted under my feet. The neon signs on the street warped into halos, pulsing like they were breathing. Faces in the shadows looked sharp, jagged, monstrous for a blink—until I shook my head and they melted back into strangers.

Hallucinations, whispers, heat. Then cold, suffocating guilt.
Over and over.

I swore I was done.

But that’s the thing about ghosts—they don’t go away.

The next time Michael called, he didn’t even offer me one for free. He slid a small bag into my palm with a grin like the devil himself.

“On the house tonight, but you owe me next time.”

I should’ve dropped it. I should’ve stomped it into the ground.

Instead, I stuffed it into my jacket pocket like contraband, heart racing as if Cas could see it glowing through the fabric.

The whole cab ride home, I couldn’t stop touching the outline of the bag. My stomach turned, equal parts dread and craving.

When I walked into the house, Cas was in the kitchen, barefoot in sweatpants, stirring a pot of pasta sauce. He looked up, smiled at me with those soft blue eyes, and said, “Welcome home.”

I kissed him. I held him. I ate dinner with him. I laughed at something Gabriel texted in the group chat.

And the whole time, the bag of pills burned a hole in my pocket.

Chapter Text

The first time I took it at home, I told myself it was harmless.

Just one pill. Just one night. No clubs, no Michael, no women in glitter dresses. Just me, in the safety of my own house, with Cas asleep upstairs. If I didn’t touch anyone, if I didn’t go anywhere, then maybe it didn’t count as falling. Maybe it was just… coping.

I swallowed it in the bathroom with the tap running, my reflection a stranger in the mirror. For a few minutes, nothing. Then the hum hit—low, soft, sweet, like the walls themselves exhaled.

Cas was downstairs reading when I walked in. The world around him glowed faintly, colors bending at the edges of the lamp beside him. He looked up, and for a second, his smile melted the guilt right out of me.

But then he spoke.

“Dean, could you take Ranger out before bed?”

The words weren’t harsh. Not really. But in my head, his tone sounded sharp, clipped, annoyed. Like I was an inconvenience. Like he was tired of me.

“Yeah, sure,” I muttered, my jaw tight.

He went back to his book, but I kept staring. The way his eyes moved across the page looked different—colder. His lips pressed together like he was holding something back. His whole face seemed carved with irritation.

He’s mad at me, I thought. He’s sick of me.

I took Ranger out, standing in the cool night air while the dog sniffed at shadows, and my stomach twisted.

At work the next morning, Charlie and Ash were hovering by the coffee machine, laughing about some dumb inside joke. Married a year now, both still glowing like honeymooners. Normally, I liked them—Charlie’s quick wit, Ash’s easy charm. But today, their laughter grated against my skull. Too bright, too smug.

They glanced my way, and Ash clapped me on the shoulder. “Morning, Dean!”

I forced a smile, but inside, the thought burned: Smug bastards. Showing off like they’re better than me.

Lisa called me into her office by noon. She wasn’t angry, but her voice seemed sharper than usual, clipped at the edges.

“Dean, we need those quarterly numbers sorted by the end of the week. Can you handle that?”

Of course I could. I always did. But the way she looked at me—like she doubted me, like she was already impatient—made my skin crawl.

“Yeah,” I said through gritted teeth. “I got it.”

Walking out, I could still feel her gaze on my back, heavy, judgmental.

That night, Benny swung by the house. We cracked open a couple beers in the garage while Ranger nosed at our boots. Benny talked about some fishing trip he was planning, his voice calm and steady as always.

“You should come,” he said. “Bring Cas. You two deserve a weekend away.”

I smiled faintly, nodding, even though my chest was buzzing from the pill I’d taken an hour earlier. Benny’s voice was warm, grounding. He didn’t judge me. He never did. He just sat there, a solid presence in a world that was starting to tilt.

For a while, I leaned into that steadiness. For a while, it was enough.

But when I went back inside, Cas was at the sink washing dishes. He glanced at me over his shoulder, eyes unreadable in the dim kitchen light.

“Could you dry these?” he asked.

His words were ordinary. His tone was not. Not in my head. It dripped with irritation, with weariness, with something sharper.

I froze, staring at his back. My chest pounded. His shoulders looked tense, his posture distant, like he couldn’t stand being in the same room with me.

“I’ll do it later,” I muttered, too quickly.

He paused, then nodded slowly. “Alright.”

But in my ears, it sounded like disappointment. In my head, it echoed like judgment.

And the guilt came crashing back, worse than ever.

This is where it started. Not bruises. Not blows. Just words and looks that weren’t there—sharp edges carved out of love by the drug in my veins.

And I told myself it was still fine. That I was still in control.

But the truth was, the shadows were already spreading.

Chapter Text

It started with a gesture.

Cas was in the kitchen, reaching for a glass on the top shelf. He stretched, his arm moving fast, and in the warped haze of the pill still humming in my veins, it didn’t look like reaching. It looked like swinging. Like a shove, like a threat. My body tensed before my brain caught up, my heart slamming against my ribs.

But then his hand closed around the glass, and he poured himself water. Like nothing had happened.

“Dean?” he said softly, noticing the way I froze. “Are you alright?”

The tone was calm. But it didn’t sound calm. It sounded sharp, biting, edged with disdain. Like he was mocking me.

I muttered something, sat at the table, tried to shake it off. But my hands wouldn’t stop trembling.

Later that evening, Sam stopped by. Cas was chopping vegetables at the counter, his movements rhythmic, steady. To me, they looked jerky, hostile—like every slice of the knife was aimed at me.

“Hey, Dean,” Sam said, clapping me on the back as he sat down. “Thought I’d check in. You’ve been hard to reach lately.”

“Been busy,” I said flatly.

Cas glanced over his shoulder. “Dean, could you stop being fucking incompetent and set the table, please?”

It was cold and nasty and in my ears, his voice dripped with irritation, with condescension. Like I was some kid being ordered around.

I slammed the drawer shut harder than I meant to. “I’ll get to it.”

Sam’s brow furrowed. He glanced at me, then at Cas, then back again. Something unspoken passed over his face.

Dinner was tense, though maybe only in my head. Cas passed me the breadbasket, and I swear his hand lingered too long, his eyes too sharp, like daring me to take it. I jerked it from him, muttering thanks through clenched teeth.

Sam cleared his throat. “So, uh, Gabriel’s thinking about applying for a teaching position. He’s nervous, but I think he’d be great at it.”

Cas smiled faintly. “I’m sure he would. Gabriel has a natural charisma.”

But the smile didn’t look faint to me. It looked smug. Condescending. His words, his tone—they grated in my chest like sandpaper.

I laughed harshly, bitter. “Yeah, real charismatic.”

Cas paused mid-bite, confusion flickering across his face. “Dean—”

“Don’t start,” I snapped.

Sam set down his fork slowly. “Hey… maybe we should just—”

“No,” I barked, cutting him off. My hands were fists in my lap. “I’m sick of it, Sam. He thinks he can just talk to me however the hell he wants. Right in front of you, too.”

Cas looked stricken, his mouth opening and closing like he didn’t even know what I was talking about. Sam’s eyes flicked between us, lips pressed tight.

“Dean,” Sam said carefully, his voice measured. “I don’t think that’s what’s happening here.”

The words landed wrong. Too careful. Too cautious. Like he thought I was the problem. Like he thought I was the one acting out. Like I was being crazy?

I stood so fast the chair legs scraped the floor. “Get out.”

Sam blinked. “What?”

“Get. Out. You come into my house, sit at my table, and you don’t even back me up? You don’t even see how he treats me?” I gestured wildly toward Cas, whose hands were folded in his lap now, eyes wide, silent.

Sam opened his mouth, closed it again, then pushed his chair back. “Alright,” he said softly. “I’ll go.”

He didn’t argue. Didn’t raise his voice. Just gave me that look—the one that made my stomach twist, the one that said he saw something I didn’t want him to see.

He squeezed my shoulder on his way out, gentle. Too gentle. Like I was fragile.

After the door closed, silence thickened in the house. Cas cleared the plates quietly, moving slow, cautious, like I was some wild animal ready to snap.

And maybe I was.

I sat there, still buzzing, still seeing the faint flickers of hostility in every glance, every gesture. The way his hand gripped the dish towel too tight, the way his eyes darted toward me and then away.

“You embarrassed me,” I muttered, low. “Right in front of Sam. Like I’m nothing.”

Cas froze mid-step, confusion etched on his face. “Dean, I didn’t—”

But I couldn’t hear the rest. The words tangled, twisted in my head until they weren’t words anymore—just sharp sounds, sharp looks, sharp edges.

I pressed my hands into my hair, tugging, trying to breathe. Trying to drown out the gnawing voice inside me whispering that he hated me, that he despised me, that every smile was a mask.

The voice that also whispered the cure was sitting in my jacket pocket, upstairs in the drawer where I thought I could keep it hidden.

The world swam, shifting around me, colors bending at the edges of my vision. Cas’s face looked strange for a moment—longer, sharper, less kind. His lips moved, but I couldn’t hear the words anymore.

All I saw was accusation.

All I felt was guilt.

And all I wanted was the glow to drown it out again.

Chapter Text

The pills stopped feeling like “choices.”

At first, I told myself I only needed them on nights when the guilt clawed too deep. Then it became weekends. Then, any time Cas’s tone cut sharper in my ears, or when the silence between us felt too loud, or when the world pressed too hard against my chest.

I wasn’t using every day. Not yet. But I thought about it every day.

And that was enough.

I started avoiding Cas.

I’d sit in the garage long after Benny left, pretending to tinker with tools until the sky went dark. I claimed late nights at work, though Lisa never kept me later than five. Sometimes, I’d take Ranger for a walk long enough to circle the whole neighborhood twice just to keep from going inside.

Because inside, Cas’s words were changing.

“Dean, you forgot the laundry again.”
What he really said: Dean, you’re useless.

“Could you grab some milk on your way home tomorrow?”
What he really said: Dean, you’re failing me.

“Are you alright?”
What he really said: Dean, you’re pathetic.

The worst part was when I swore I heard him whisper things horribly—You’re a burden. You’re a joke. I should never have married you. I’d turn, demand to know what he meant, and Cas would just stare at me with wide eyes, baffled, hurt.

I stopped asking. It was easier to believe he he still loved me than admit he hated me.

Work was no better.

I never used during the day—it felt dangerous, impossible to hide—but the cravings made every moment jagged. Charlie and Ash’s laughter grated, too bright, too smug. Lisa’s sharp heels clicking across the office floor drilled into my skull.

“Dean, I need those documents filed by noon.”
What she really said: Dean, you’re incompetent.

“Can you handle the calls while I’m in the meeting?”
What she really said: Dean, you’re replaceable.

I kept my head down, fingers white-knuckled on the keyboard, jaw tight. When the craving clawed too sharp, I clenched my fists until my nails dug crescents into my palms.

At five o’clock sharp, I’d grab my jacket, my pulse racing. The glow was waiting at home, tucked in the sock drawer like a dirty secret.

Benny was the only place I still felt steady.

One evening, we sat in the garage with bottles of beer sweating in our hands. Ranger sprawled across the cool cement, tail thumping whenever Benny scratched his ears.

“You’re quiet tonight,” Benny said, leaning back against the workbench, his voice smooth as molasses. “Quieter than usual.”

I shrugged. “Just tired.”

“From work?” he asked, skeptical.

“From everything.”

He nodded slowly, sipping his beer. “Well, life’ll do that to you. But you got good things, Dean. Don’t lose sight of that.”

The words landed heavy. Too heavy. Because all I could think about was Cas’s sharp tone in my head, the imagined insults, the judgment dripping from every glance. I wanted to tell Benny everything. I wanted to spill the pills, the guilt, the hallucinations—but the words stuck.

Instead, I just nodded, pretending the beer in my hand could wash the craving away.

Benny didn’t push. He never did. He just sat there, calm, steady, a rock in the storm.

But even rocks can’t stop you from drowning if you’re already walking into the water.

That night, I lay in bed beside Cas, staring at the ceiling while he breathed evenly next to me. His hand brushed mine in his sleep, warm, familiar.

And still, the voices in my head hissed: He doesn’t love you anymore. He resents you. He’s waiting to leave.

I slipped out of bed, padded to the bathroom, and locked the door. The pill tasted bitter on my tongue, but the glow that followed spread warm and golden, softening the edges of everything.

The voices went quiet.
The guilt blurred.
For a few blissful hours, I wasn’t drowning.

Until morning came, and the guilt crawled back sharper than before.

Chapter Text

Cas stopped looking at me the way he used to.

He still kissed me, sure — a quick brush of lips before work, a hand on my shoulder when passing by — but it wasn’t warm anymore. It wasn’t real. His mouth barely touched mine, his hand felt like it was just there out of obligation, and his eyes… God, his eyes were glass.

When he smiled, it didn’t reach them. It looked like he was mocking me.

One night, I came home late, the glow still curling through my veins. Cas was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of tea in front of him, the steam curling upward like smoke from a gun. He didn’t even look up when I walked in.

“Hey,” I said, tossing my keys on the counter.

“Mm,” he murmured, eyes still on his tea.

That sound — that little nothing of a sound — went through me like a knife. Cold. Dismissive.

I stood there, staring at him. “That’s all I get?”

He finally looked at me, his gaze flat. “I’m tired, Dean.”

There was no apology in it. No softness. Just those cold, steady eyes like he was looking right through me.

The next day, Sam called.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” he said, his tone somewhere between concerned and annoyed. “Is everything okay with you and Cas?”

“We’re fine,” I snapped. “Why?”

“Because the last few times I’ve seen you, you’ve looked… tense. And Cas seemed—”

“Seemed what?” I barked.

“Distant.”

I laughed bitterly. “Distant? He’s not distant, Sam, he’s ice. He barely talks to me unless it’s to point out something I’ve done wrong. He doesn’t care anymore.”

There was a pause on the line. “Dean, I’m just saying—”

“I don’t need you to say anything,” I cut in. “I don’t need you poking your nose into my marriage like you know better. You think you get it because you’re dating Gabriel? You don’t know what it’s like. You don’t know what it’s like to sleep next to someone who doesn’t want you anymore.”

“Dean—”

“Don’t call me. Don’t come over. Just leave me the hell alone.”

The words came out sharp, final. I hung up before he could respond.

That night, Cas reached for my hand on the couch. I stared at our fingers touching and it didn’t feel like love. It felt like pity.

“You okay?” he asked softly.

I pulled my hand away. “Stop pretending you care.”

His brow furrowed, that familiar crease between his eyes deepening — but to me, it didn’t look like confusion. It looked like contempt.

I got up and walked out of the room, his eyes burning into my back.

By the time I shut myself in the bathroom and locked the door, my hands were shaking. The pill was already on my tongue before I realized I’d even reached for it.

Warmth spread through me, the edges of the world softening again, his cold gaze fading from my mind like smoke.

And for a little while, I could almost believe he still loved me.

Chapter Text

It started the same as every other night lately — quiet, heavy, thick with unspoken things.

Cas was in the kitchen, rinsing dishes in the sink. The water was running, his shoulders hunched just enough to look closed off, and every sound — the clink of plates, the rush of the tap — felt louder than it should have.

I stood in the doorway, watching him.

He didn’t turn around.

“You could say hello,” I said.

“I didn’t hear you come in,” he answered, his voice even. Too even.

But my chest tightened. It didn’t sound even to me — it sounded sharp, clipped, like he’d been waiting for me just to tell me I’d ruined something again.

I took a step toward him. “You mad at me?”

Cas sighed, not looking up from the sink. “Dean, I’m tired. I don’t want to fight.”

The words rolled over me like cold water. Not the content — the tone. That flat, tired tone. It felt like dismissal, like contempt.

“You think everything I say is a fight now, huh?” I stepped closer, heat curling in my gut. “Maybe if you actually looked at me—”

And then it happened.

He turned fast — too fast — and in that split-second, his elbow moved toward me. I swear to God I saw it connect. I swear I felt it slam into my ribs, sharp and hard. Pain flared, hot, immediate.

I stumbled back, clutching my side.

“The hell, Cas?!” My voice cracked, raw.

His eyes widened. “Dean, I didn’t—”

“Don’t you lie to me,” I spat, my pulse thundering in my ears. “You just— you hit me.”

His mouth opened, closed. His face was pale, his hands wet from the sink, fingers twitching like he didn’t know what to do with them.

“Dean, I didn’t touch you,” he said, quiet, careful.

That careful tone — that’s what broke me. Careful like I was fragile. Careful like I was crazy.

I walked out before I said something I couldn’t take back. My ribs still ached, phantom pain curling deep in my bones. I could still feel the blow — the betrayal.

By the time I got in my car, my hands were shaking. My phone was already in my hand, Michael’s number ringing before I even thought about it.

He picked up on the second ring, his voice bright and smug. “Knew you’d call.”

“I need something,” I said. My voice was tight, too tight.

“Already on your way over?”

“I’ll be there in ten.”

Michael’s apartment stank of stale beer and cigarette smoke. He was sprawled on the couch in a torn hoodie, a half-empty bottle in his hand.

“What happened to you?” he asked, eyes narrowing.

“Cas hit me,” I said, the words tasting bitter, burning my throat. “Out of nowhere.”

Michael’s mouth twitched, but it wasn’t sympathy. It was amusement.

“What?” I snapped.

He shrugged, taking a swig from his bottle. “You’re a girl if you take that shit from him.”

My stomach dropped.

He leaned forward, grinning like a man who’d just found a weapon. “You don’t let anyone hit you, Dean. You hit back. And if you can’t, you numb it until you can. You get me?”

I hated how much those words sank in. How much I wanted the numbness more than anything.

He tossed me a small bag. “On the house tonight. Stronger batch. Don’t be a coward.”

I stared at it in my hand. The weight felt heavier than it should have.

By the time I was back in my car, my fingers were already tearing it open.

I didn’t want to think about Cas’s face. I didn’t want to think about the look in his eyes when I accused him. I didn’t want to think about how maybe his elbow had never touched me at all.

I just wanted to forget.

The pill hit fast, harder than before, flooding my veins with heat. The phantom pain in my ribs melted, my thoughts dissolved, and the kitchen scene blurred until it was nothing but a faint shadow.

For a little while, I didn’t care if Cas hated me.
For a little while, I didn’t care if I hated myself.

I drove home with the glow still curling warm in my chest, my hands loose on the wheel, my mind floating somewhere far above the streetlights.

The house was dark except for the kitchen light spilling into the hallway. Cas was sitting at the table, still in the same clothes as earlier, his hands wrapped around a mug of tea gone cold.

He looked up when I came in. His expression was… guarded.

“Dean,” he said slowly, like he wasn’t sure what version of me had just walked through the door. “Where have you been?”

“Out,” I said, too sharply.

His jaw shifted — just a little — and in the golden haze of my high, it looked like contempt. Like he was sizing me up.

“You’ve been out a lot lately,” he said.

And then he stood. Too fast. Too close. His hand lifted — not in a fist, just a vague movement in the air — but in my head it was sudden, violent. A swing.

The flash of imagined impact cracked through me. I swear I felt it in my cheek, hot and sharp, the sting radiating across my skin.

I heard a sound — a dull thud — but it was over so quick I wasn’t sure if it was real.

Cas’s voice cut through the ringing in my ears. “Dean—”

But my vision tunneled, the room spinning around him. I stepped back, my breath coming too fast, my cheek throbbing.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” I demanded.

His eyes widened, confusion breaking across his face like a crack in glass. His lips parted like he wanted to speak, but nothing came out right away.

“You just… you—” I couldn’t even finish the sentence. The betrayal burned in my throat.

Cas touched his own cheek then, just for a second — his fingers brushing along his jaw like he was checking something. His gaze darted away.

I didn’t linger on it. I didn’t want to linger on it. All I could think was that he’d done it again. That the man I’d loved for five years had put his hands on me.

“I’m not doing this with you tonight,” I said, my voice trembling with rage I didn’t fully understand.

Cas stayed still, watching me like I was a puzzle he couldn’t solve. He didn’t step toward me again. He didn’t say my name.

And maybe that was the most damning thing of all.

Chapter Text

I didn’t go to work for two days.

Lisa called the first morning. I told her I was sick, that I’d caught something, but she didn’t sound convinced. I could hear the tapping of her nails on her desk through the phone. She told me to rest, to “get better,” but her voice had that clipped edge I’d started hearing in everyone lately.

Charlie texted later to check in. I left it on read.

I stayed in bed, blinds drawn, staring at the ceiling like the plaster might give me answers. I kept replaying it — the flash of his arm, the sting in my cheek, the way he just stood there after like he was daring me to say something. I tried to imagine what I’d done to make him snap, but the more I thought about it, the more I told myself it didn’t matter. You don’t hit the person you love. You just don’t.

By the second day, my chest felt like a vise. I didn’t know if it was fear or anger, or both tangled together until I couldn’t tell them apart. I avoided him, even in our own house. When I heard him moving through the kitchen, I stayed upstairs. When I knew he was in the bedroom, I lingered in the garage.

And still, his presence pressed in on me.

It was raining the night it happened again.

I came downstairs after sunset, the air thick with the smell of garlic and butter. Cas was at the stove, stirring a pot, his hair curling at the edges from the humidity. The table was already set, candle lit in the center.

“I made your favorite,” he said without looking at me. His voice was calm. Too calm.

I sat. I didn’t answer. The clink of the spoon against the pot made my skin crawl.

He brought the plates over, setting one in front of me, and sat across the table. For a few minutes, we ate in silence, the rain pattering against the windows. I kept my eyes on my food, pushing pasta around with my fork.

Then he said it.

“Dean… we need to talk.”

My grip tightened on the fork. His tone was flat, deliberate — like he was preparing to accuse me of something.

“About what?” I asked.

“About us.”

The words hit like a shove.

I looked up — and in that moment, I swear I saw his hand reach across the table, grabbing my wrist. I swear I felt the pull, the scrape of the chair legs on the floor, the shock of being yanked up. My pulse roared in my ears.

Then came the swing — quick, sharp, across my face. White heat flashed behind my eyes.

I staggered back, my hand flying to my cheek.

“What the hell is wrong with you?!” My voice cracked, high and raw.

Cas was still in his chair. His fork was set neatly beside his plate. His eyes were wide, his mouth slightly open, like he’d been caught in the middle of chewing.

“Dean…” he said slowly, cautiously. “I didn’t—”

“Don’t you dare,” I snapped, my voice shaking. “Don’t you dare pretend like that didn’t just happen.”

He rose slowly from the table, his hands visible, palms up. “I would never—”

“Bullshit!”

The word tore out of me, harsh enough to make Ranger, who’d been lying by the fridge, lift his head and whine.

Cas stopped where he was, a foot away from me, his jaw working like he was holding something back. “I don’t know what’s happening to you,” he said quietly.

I laughed — short, bitter, ugly. “What’s happening to me? You’re the one putting your hands on me.”

His shoulders slumped, and for the first time, I thought he looked… tired. Not angry. Not even hurt. Just tired in a way that made something twist in my chest.

I didn’t stay in the kitchen.

I went upstairs, locked the bathroom door, and slid down against it until I was sitting on the cold tile. My cheek still burned, phantom heat throbbing in time with my pulse.

The bag was in the drawer under the sink. My hands knew where it was without looking.

The pill was bitter. The glow was warm.

And the man I’d loved for five years felt further away than ever.

Chapter Text

Cas wanted a family dinner.

He said it would be nice, that it had been too long since we’d had everyone in one place without rushing off somewhere. I told him I wasn’t in the mood, but he just gave me that small, polite smile and said, “It’ll be good for us.”

So Sam came. Gabriel came with him, loud and laughing as always. Benny brought pie. Even Charlie and Ash stopped by after work, settling into chairs with the ease of people who’d been around our table a hundred times before.

The smell of roast chicken and rosemary filled the air. Candles flickered. Plates clinked, glasses chimed, the kind of warm background noise that used to feel like home.

But it didn’t anymore.

Cas sat beside me, his hand occasionally brushing mine when he passed something across the table. Every time it happened, my chest tightened. His touch didn’t feel affectionate — it felt staged, like he was putting on a performance for the others.

When he smiled at a joke Gabriel told, I swore there was something in his eyes that wasn’t joy. It was sharp. Mocking.

“Dean,” Cas said at one point, his tone even, “could you pass the bread?”

In my head, it wasn’t a request. It was a command. A test. I shoved the basket toward him a little too hard, the rolls spilling onto his plate.

Sam’s fork paused halfway to his mouth. His eyes flicked between us, then went back to his plate like he hadn’t seen anything.

The tension only got worse. Every word Cas said seemed to carry a hidden barb, every glance a warning. My skin prickled with it, my grip on my glass tightening until I thought it might shatter.

When the plates were cleared and dessert was being brought out, Cas touched my shoulder.

“Can I talk to you for a moment?”

It wasn’t loud, but it might as well have been a gunshot in my head. Everyone’s eyes seemed to flick toward us, subtle, quick.

“Now?” I asked, my voice low but sharp.

“Yes. In the bedroom.”

I followed him down the hall, my pulse thundering. The second the door shut, I felt the air change — heavy, charged.

Cas turned toward me, his hands moving in a gesture I didn’t understand.

And then it happened.

He stepped forward, too close, too fast. His arm lifted — and I swear I saw his fist coming. I swear I felt the crunch of it against my face, the burst of white-hot pain exploding across my nose. The copper taste flooded my mouth instantly, warm and metallic.

I stumbled back, my hands flying to my face.

“What the hell is wrong with you?!” I choked out, voice muffled by my palms.

Cas’s eyes went wide, his hands frozen mid-air, open, not clenched. His face twisted — not in anger, but in something I couldn’t place right away.

And then he started crying.

Big, silent tears slid down his cheeks, his lips trembling as he tried to speak.

“Why are you crying?” I demanded, my voice sharp, disbelieving. “I’m the one bleeding here.”

He shook his head, his shoulders shaking harder, a broken sound escaping his throat. “Dean… please…”

I didn’t understand it. Why he looked like that. Why he was looking at me like I had done something.

“I can’t do this in front of them,” he said finally, his voice breaking.

I left him there, in the bedroom, his face buried in his hands. When I walked back into the dining room, the conversation died instantly.

“Everyone out,” I said flatly.

Benny shifted in his seat. “Dean—”

“I said out.”

They went. No one argued, no one raised their voice. But I saw it — the quick glances, the unease, the way Charlie’s eyes darted toward the hallway like she wanted to check on Cas but didn’t dare.

The door shut behind them, the silence settling heavy again. I stood there in the kitchen, the metallic taste still in my mouth, the phantom throb in my nose making my eyes water.

Cas didn’t come out.

That night, I lay in bed alone. The side where he usually slept stayed cold, untouched. Somewhere down the hall, I thought I heard him crying again, muffled and low.

I turned onto my back and stared at the ceiling, telling myself it was his fault. That he’d brought this on us. That the man beside me wasn’t the man I married.

And yet, in the dark, the guilt curled under my ribs like a knife.

I reached for the drawer in the nightstand.

Chapter Text

Michael always knew how to get under my skin.
Not in the way Cas did — quiet, subtle, like water wearing down stone — but fast, loud, reckless.

I didn’t even remember calling him that night, just that my hands were shaking and my chest felt too tight to breathe. The “black eye” was still fresh, tender under my skin. Or at least, that’s how I saw it.

Earlier that evening, Cas had been in the living room, folding laundry while I paced. He glanced up at me, his mouth opening like he wanted to speak, then shutting again. That silence burned more than words.

“Just say it,” I snapped.

“Say what?” His voice was tired, thin.

“Whatever’s on your mind.”

“I’m worried about you.”

The words landed wrong — not soft, not loving — sharp, accusing. In my head, his eyes narrowed. His jaw tightened.

“Yeah?” I stepped closer. “You worried enough to actually care?”

He set the folded shirt down and stood. His hand lifted — not in a fist, just a small gesture — but the pill haze twisting through my brain turned it into a swing.

The blow landed in my mind before it ever could in reality. My head snapped back, pain flaring under my eye.

“What the hell is wrong with you?!” I yelled, shoving him hard.

Cas stumbled, his back hitting the wall. His hand flew to his face, covering his eye. Tears welled instantly, and he reached for me, his fingers curling around my arm like he was trying to stop me from walking away.

“Dean, please—” His voice cracked, small and desperate.

I yanked my arm free like his touch burned. “Don’t you touch me.”

He stayed against the wall, tears streaking down his cheeks, his breathing shaky. The skin under his fingers was already darkening, purpling. I didn’t think about what that meant. I didn’t let myself.

Michael opened the door before I’d even knocked. He took one look at my face and whistled low.

“Damn, trouble in paradise?” he asked, grinning.

“Shut up,” I muttered, pushing past him into the stale stink of his apartment.

“Hey, I’m just saying, maybe he’s finally tired of being your little housewife.” He dropped onto the couch, lighting a cigarette. “You hit back at least?”

I didn’t answer. My jaw clenched.

“Guess I got my answer,” Michael said, smirking. “You can’t let anyone — anyone — put their hands on you. You gotta teach ‘em. Otherwise, they’ll keep doing it. That’s life.”

The words slid under my skin like oil, thick and poisonous.

He switched topics without warning, leaning forward with a glint in his eye. “So, your boss… Lisa, right? That hardass with the heels?”

“What about her?”

Michael’s grin widened. “Bet she’s a real piece of work. I got something special coming in from overseas — pure, exotic MDMA. You want it bad enough, maybe I can work out a trade.” He chuckled. “How much is she worth to you? I’m sure we can get creative.”

“Jesus, Michael,” I said, disgust curling in my gut.

“Don’t act all righteous,” he said, flicking ash into an empty beer can. “We both know you’d sell your soul for another hit. What’s the difference?”

I wanted to walk out. I wanted to tell him to go to hell. But the craving gnawed at me, louder than my anger.

By the time I left, my jacket pocket was heavier.

When I got home, Cas was in the bedroom with the light off, lying on his side with his back to the door. His shoulders shook under the blanket, each breath uneven. I stood there for a moment, watching, the bag in my pocket burning like a brand.

I didn’t speak. I didn’t ask about his eye.

Why should I ask? He did hit me after all.

I went to the bathroom, shut the door, and locked it.

The pill was bitter. The glow was sweet.

And the man in the next room was still crying.

Chapter Text

Ash told me about the work dinner on a Tuesday night.

She was in the kitchen with Castiel, leaning against the counter with her arms folded, that calm, steady look on her face. “Lisa invited both of us to the company dinner this Saturday. She said it’d be good for you to come.”

I grunted from the couch. “Why would she want me there?”

“Because you’re her assistant?...,” she said simply. “And because it’s important to her.”

I almost said no. I didn’t feel like smiling for a room full of Lisa’s colleagues and pretending I gave a damn about quarterly growth or whatever corporate people talked about. But Ash’s tone — even, expectant — made it sound like a refusal wouldn’t be an option.

“Fine,” I said, eyes still on the muted TV.

By Friday night, the plans were set. Ash had asked Cas to lay out a suit for me on the bed, the kind of small gesture that used to feel thoughtful but now felt like control. I lingered in the bathroom longer than necessary, staring at my reflection.

That’s when I saw it again.

The black eye.

It looked disgusting on me

I’d noticed it the night he hit me, and I could still see the shadow of it now when I glanced at myself. Dark, purplish, ugly. The fact he Hadn’t even mentioned it, made my stomach twist.

What made it worse was that no one seemed to notice. Not when we walked into the office building where the dinner was being held. Not when Lisa greeted us at the door, her smile sharp but polite. Not when Charlie waved from across the room, her husband Ash at her side.

How could they not see it?

I kept waiting for someone to glance twice, for someone to ask if I was alright, for someone to give me that look — the one people give when they suspect something’s wrong. But it never came. They acted like it didn’t exist.

Maybe they were just too polite to say anything.
Or maybe they didn’t care.
Saturday night was coming. I didn’t know exactly what was going to happen, but the hum under my skin told me it wasn’t going to end quietly.

Chapter Text

By Saturday, my bones were screaming for it.

The pills in the drawer were gone — had been gone for days — and without them, everything in the world seemed too sharp. Light stung my eyes, sounds rattled in my skull. Cas’s voice, no matter how soft, sounded like gravel against my skin. My hands shook when I poured coffee in the morning. My jaw ached from clenching it in my sleep.

I told myself I’d get through the dinner without it. I told myself I could handle a few hours. But then Michael called.

“Got something special,” he said, his voice slick with satisfaction. “Better than the last batch. Better than anything you’ve had.”

The craving was instant, hot and desperate. “What’s it gonna cost me?”

Michael chuckled. “We’ll work it out.”

Cas came into the living room that afternoon, fixing the cuff of his shirt. “Lisa said it’s a formal dinner, Dean. She asked that you bring someone if you want to. She said she hasn’t seen you at these things in a while.”

I didn’t look up from my phone. “I already have a plus one.”

“Benny?”

“No,” I said. “Michael.”

Cas’s hands stilled. I didn’t look at him, but I could feel the tension in the air. “Michael? Why would you—”

“He’s my friend,” I cut in. “End of discussion.”

Cas didn’t push, but the quiet that followed wasn’t peace. It was resignation.

Lisa’s house was everything I expected from someone who ran the company like a general — the kind of house where the floors were polished enough to see your reflection, and the furniture looked like it had never been touched. Even the air smelled expensive, some kind of floral perfume layered over wood polish.

Richard, her husband, was the picture of polite wealth. Gray at the temples, crisp suit, handshake like a contract. Lisa looked the same as she did at work — tailored dress, immaculate hair — but when her eyes fell on Michael beside me, her smile faltered for half a second before returning.

“Dean,” she said, leaning in to kiss my cheek. “It’s good to see you outside the office.”

Michael grinned like a wolf. “Pleasure to meet you, Lisa.”

Dinner was a slow burn.

Michael kept his grin tucked just enough to be polite, but I could hear the undercurrent in his voice — the quiet challenge in every casual question. Richard tried to steer conversation toward the company’s expansion plans, Lisa kept the wine flowing, and I nodded and smiled in all the right places.

But my mind wasn’t on the table. It was on the weight I knew Michael carried in his jacket. Every so often, his fingers brushed against it, and my stomach tightened with anticipation.

When dessert was being cleared Lisa walked into the back to place the dishes there, Michael leaned toward me, his breath warm against my ear. “Back room,” he murmured. “Give me ten minutes.”

I didn’t ask. I didn’t follow. I stayed at the table, swirling the last of my whiskey and pretending to listen to Richard explain something about quarterly returns.

Lisa didn’t come back for a long time.

When she finally reappeared, the difference was like night and day. Her hair was mussed, one sleeve of her dress creased, and the careful precision of her makeup was gone — lipstick smudged, mascara faintly blurred. Her eyes looked… hollow. She was breathing heavily.

She sat down without meeting anyone’s gaze, her hands folded too tightly in her lap. Richard asked if she was alright.

“Fine,” she said, her voice clipped. She didn’t touch her drink.

Michael came back moments later, sliding into his chair with a satisfied smirk and pulling up his zipper that made my skin crawl— not enough to stop me from taking the small, clear bag he pressed into my palm under the table. I didn’t look at him. I didn’t look at Lisa either.

The rest of the night was quiet in the wrong way. Conversation limped along. Lisa kept her eyes down. Richard filled the gaps, but there was no warmth left in his voice. I focused on the bag in my pocket like it was the only real thing in the room.

Lisa didn’t come to work on Monday. Or Tuesday. By Wednesday, her office blinds were drawn, and Charlie told me she was “taking some personal time.”

On Friday, I overheard Ash telling someone she might not come back at all.

I didn’t ask questions.

People overreact.

That night, I came home, tossed my jacket on the couch, and went straight to the bathroom. I didn’t think about the way Lisa’s eyes had looked, glassy and far away. I didn’t think about the hollow in her voice when she’d said “fine.”

I thought about the glow.

The pill was bitter. The warmth was instant.

And whatever happened in that back room wasn’t my problem.

Later that same night.

I didn’t even wait for the pill to fully hit before texting Michael: Come over.

He showed up twenty minutes later with a six-pack and a grin that said he was still riding the same high I was.

“You look better already,” he said, stepping into the living room and tossing me a beer. “Guess that exotic stuff’s treating you right.”

I cracked the can, took a long pull, and let the warmth from the MDMA curl tighter in my chest. The edges of the room were soft, gold-tinted, humming faintly like a favorite song played low. My limbs felt loose, my thoughts pleasantly blurred.

Michael dropped onto the couch like he owned it, kicking his boots up on the coffee table. “You know,” he said, tilting his head toward me, “I was wondering if you were gonna ask.”

“Ask what?” My words felt slow, like they’d been dipped in honey.

“What I did.”

He said it like a dare. I didn’t answer, just stared at the ceiling while the lights from the TV screen pulsed against it in lazy waves.

Michael leaned in, voice dropping. “Your boss? She didn’t put up much of a fight. Tried to keep her mouth shut, but you can always tell. I’ve got a way of getting what I want. That bitch almost bit me!”

I didn’t move. I didn’t even look at him.

“Bet she’s still thinking about it,” he went on, smirking. “Bet she’ll think twice about inviting me anywhere again.” He laughed — sharp, ugly — and took a swig of his beer. “You should’ve seen her face. She's tight as fuck tho... I could live in that pussy. Richard is one lucky guy.”

A flicker of something twisted in my stomach, but the glow dulled it, smoothed it over until it was almost gone. I didn’t want to see her face. I didn’t want to picture it.

Michael noticed my silence and grinned wider. “What? You’re not mad. You got what you wanted, didn’t you?” He tapped the coffee table, where my next dose sat in its little baggie. “Better than gold, man.”

I reached for the bag without thinking. The pill was bitter. The warmth was instant.

Michael leaned back, satisfied, his voice fading into the hum in my head.

By the time he left, I couldn’t remember half of what he’d said. I couldn’t remember Lisa’s face, or the way she’d looked at the table, or the fact that she still hadn’t come back to work.

I remembered the glow.

And right then, that was enough.

Chapter Text

I could feel it before it happened — the tension in the air, the tight coil in my chest, the phantom ache already blooming across my face before a single touch.

That’s how it works now. I know when he’s going to hit me.
I can see it before it happens.

I was in the bathroom, leaning over the sink, staring at my reflection. The skin under my right eye looked darker than usual, swollen in my mind, tender when I pressed my fingertips there. I could almost feel the heat radiating off it. Another bruise, I thought. Another souvenir.

From down the hall, Cas’s voice came: “Dean?”

It was soft — too soft — like bait. My stomach knotted instantly. I shoved the door open, the handle banging against the wall.

He was in the bedroom, folding laundry with that mechanical precision that always made me feel like he was silently judging me. His movements were steady, his shoulders relaxed, but when his eyes met mine, they widened.

“Are you—” he started.

That was when it happened. Or at least, when I saw it.

A blur of his arm — fast, sharp — and the world jolted. In my mind, the blow landed square on my cheekbone. Pain flared instantly, electric, making my head snap back.

I gasped and staggered, but before I could get my bearings, another came. My ribs this time. I swore I felt the impact ripple through my chest, rattling my breath. Then one more — sharp, upward — into my nose. A crack rang in my ears. Warmth flooded instantly under my nose, metallic and wet.

I pressed a hand to my face, convinced I was bleeding. “What the hell is wrong with you?!”

Cas’s eyes were wide now, his hands raised in open-palmed surrender. “Dean, I’m not—”

But I couldn’t hear the rest over the roar in my ears. My pulse was thundering, my breath sharp and shallow.

“Stop hitting me!” I barked, stepping forward, my free hand shoving at him.

He stumbled back, his shoulder hitting the wall. His hands went up again, trying to shield his face, but I swatted them away — in my mind, to stop another punch.

“Stop!” I yelled again, even as I closed the distance.

His voice broke into a scream — high, panicked, nothing like the calm man I married. “Dean, please!”

And then I saw it.

The side of his face where my hand had shoved him was already blooming with angry red, deepening by the second. His bottom lip had split, a bead of blood tracking down to his chin. His hands trembled as he tried to cover it, his breath ragged.

“You think this is a joke?!” I snapped. “You think I’m just gonna let you—”

He choked on a sob. Loud, raw, unrestrained. It hit me somewhere deep, but the MDMA-laced paranoia in my brain twisted it, made it sound like guilt — like he’d been caught.

His palm was pressed to his cheek now, but between his fingers I caught glimpses of swelling. The bridge of his nose looked wrong — faintly crooked — and when he shifted his hand, I saw the smear of blood across it.

“You don’t get to cry about this,” I said, my voice sharp, cruel even to my own ears. “I’m the one you hit.”

He shook his head, backing against the wall like he wanted to melt into it. Tears streaked down his face, mixing with the blood at his lip. His breathing was erratic, each inhale shuddering like it hurt.

I didn’t see that as fear. I saw it as defiance.

And in my mind, that meant I couldn’t stop. Not until I was sure he wouldn’t try again.

I don’t remember the details — just flashes. The sound of my own shouting. The feel of my hand connecting with something soft. His voice breaking on my name, over and over, until it didn’t sound like words anymore.

When I finally stepped back, my chest was heaving, my palms stung, and my vision felt hot around the edges. Cas was crumpled against the wall, one arm curled over his face, the other braced weakly on the floor like he was trying to keep himself upright.

His shirt was wrinkled, collar twisted. There was a purplish bloom across his left cheekbone now, swelling fast. His lip was split in two places, one bleeding freely down his chin. Blood smeared the side of his nose, and I could see the faint wobble in his breaths like each one hurt.

“Dean…” he croaked, voice almost gone.

I didn’t answer.

I stormed out of the bedroom, the sound of his sobbing following me down the hall.

The air outside felt cold, biting, and it helped clear my head just enough to remember where I was going.

Benny opened the door before I could knock twice. He took one look at me — flushed, wide-eyed — and didn’t ask a thing.

“Beer?” he said simply.

I nodded, my hands still trembling as I took the bottle. The living room was dim, country music low in the background. Ellen and Bobby sat at the kitchen table in the back, playing cards. I caught Bobby’s glance toward me — quick, assessing — before he looked back down at his hand.

Benny sat opposite me, leaning back in his chair. “What happened?”

“He hit me again,” I said, my voice raw. “Harder this time. My nose might be broken. I’ve got bruises all over.”

Benny’s eyes flicked over my face, my hands, my arms. His brow furrowed for just a second — like he was looking for something that wasn’t there — but he didn’t call me on it.

“You gotta make a choice,” he said slowly. “Either stay and let it keep happening, or get out before it destroys you. But whatever you do, don’t let it turn you into something you can’t come back from.”

I swallowed hard, nodding like I agreed. Ellen’s voice carried faintly from the kitchen, but I couldn’t make out the words. Bobby’s glance came again, softer this time. Pity, maybe.

I left before the silence got heavy.

Back home, the house felt empty. Cas’s voice was gone. Ranger was curled in his bed, ears twitching, but he didn’t get up when I walked by.

The bathroom light was harsh, almost blinding. The bag was in the drawer, waiting.

The first pill burned its way down my throat, warmth blooming fast. But the craving wasn’t satisfied. Not tonight.

I crushed another on the counter. The powder shimmered faintly in the light, fine and dangerous. I bent down and inhaled sharply. The burn hit like fire, rushing straight to my skull. My pulse roared in my ears, the warmth crashing over me like a tidal wave.

The walls breathed. The floor swayed under my feet. The air felt thick with gold.

And somewhere in the house, Cas’s sobs were still echoing.

I let the glow drown them out.

The next morning, I found him in the kitchen.

He was moving slow, careful, like every muscle ached. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled down despite the heat, and a collar sat high around his neck, hiding the skin there. I caught flashes of white under the fabric when he reached for something — bandages, wrapped neat.

“Morning,” I said. My voice came out sharper than I intended.

“Morning,” he replied without looking at me. His tone was quiet, flat. He kept his gaze on the counter like it was something that might break if he stopped watching it.

I leaned against the doorway, studying him. “You going out today?”

“I had plans,” he said. His hand tightened faintly around the mug he was holding. “With Gabriel.”

“Had?”

“I cancelled.”

He didn’t elaborate. Just sipped his tea, wincing slightly as the mug touched his split lip.

In my head, it was an excuse. A way to avoid being seen with me. Maybe he didn’t want people asking about the bruise I thought I had.

“You cancelling on me too?” I asked.

His shoulders tensed. “It’s not about you, Dean.”

“Sure,” I muttered, pushing off the doorway. “Everything’s about you, though, right?”

He didn’t answer.

Later, I passed the bathroom and caught a glimpse of him in the mirror through the half-open door. His shirt was off. Bandages wrapped tight around his ribs, more across his shoulder. A strip of gauze covered part of his cheek, faintly spotted through with blood.

He saw me and shut the door without a word.

I told myself it was guilt. That he was hiding because he couldn’t face what he’d done to me.

But the bandages stayed in my mind, even as I went to the drawer and reached for the next pill.

The bitterness hit my tongue, the warmth unfurling under my skin.

And just like that, I stopped thinking about it.

Chapter Text

It started small, like it always does — the kind of nothing moment you wouldn’t remember if it wasn’t for the way your chest tightens before you even know why.

Sam was at the door with a six-pack, smiling that soft, careful smile people use when they’re stepping into a room that might already be on fire. His eyes went past me almost immediately, scanning the living room like he expected to see something out of place.

“Cas here?” he asked.

“In the kitchen,” I muttered, stepping back to let him in.

We walked in together. Cas was pouring coffee into two mugs, his back to us. The second he turned and saw Sam, I caught it — that tiny jolt in his shoulders, like a muscle memory. His gaze darted to me first, quick and sharp, before he pasted on this thin, polite smile for Sam.

They talked like everything was fine. Sam asked about work, about Gabriel, about a book Cas had mentioned last month. And yet, every time I moved in my chair, I could see it — the way Cas’s hands twitched just enough to spill a little coffee, the way his breath seemed to catch like he was waiting for something.

He did spill, eventually. A single drop on the counter. Nothing. But his reaction…

“I’m sorry,” he said instantly, reaching for a towel. His voice was too fast, too soft, like the words were automatic. “I’ll clean it up, I’m sorry.”

It wasn’t guilt. Not to me. To me, it was another one of his games — make me look like the bad guy by acting meek in front of Sam. Playing the victim in subtle, quiet ways only when we had company.

Sam’s eyes flicked between us. He didn’t say anything, but I knew he saw something.

Later that night, Benny came by. Cas disappeared into the bedroom within five minutes, mumbling something about emails.

Benny sat with a beer, watching me in that way he does — not judging, just… measuring.

“You’ve been different lately,” he said finally. “You okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“You sure? You look tired. Distracted.”

“I said I’m fine.”

He took a slow sip, his eyes never leaving mine. “Sometimes a man carries more than he can handle. Starts thinking everyone’s against him. Makes him see shadows where there aren’t any. You ever feel like that?”

My skin prickled. “If you’re asking if I’m paranoid, the answer’s no. Cas is against me. You just don’t see it.”

“Dean—”

“No. Don’t ‘Dean’ me like you know better.” My voice rose. “You think I’m making it up? You think I’m imagining him hitting me? You’re stupid if you think I’m wrong. You’re supposed to be my friend, Benny. If you can’t believe me, maybe you’re no better than him.”

Benny’s jaw tightened, but his voice stayed calm. “Alright. If you ever want to talk without all this anger, you know where to find me.”

I turned away from him, breathing hard, my pulse pounding so loud it felt like the walls could hear it.

I texted Michael that night: Need more.

When I got to his place, the air was heavy with cigarette smoke and something sharper. Michael grinned like he’d been waiting all week for me to show up.

“Thought you might be ready for the next step,” he said, holding up a baggie. Not pills this time. Crystalline, like frost in the light. “This ain’t the usual. This’ll take you higher than you’ve ever been.”

“What is it?”

He smirked. “Doesn’t matter. You trust me, right?”

I did. Or maybe I didn’t. It didn’t matter.

We cut it on the coffee table. He showed me how to do it right — fine lines, no clumps, use the card slow so you don’t lose any. He handed me a rolled bill and nodded.

The burn was instant, violent. My eyes watered, my throat closed for a second. Then came the rush — not a glow, not a hum, but a full-body surge that made the room tilt and shiver.

Michael laughed. “Told you. Better than gold.”

When I got home, the high was still clawing at me from the inside out. Cas was in the living room, reading. He looked up, and I swear his eyes narrowed.

“What?” I snapped.

“Nothing.” His voice was small.

I crossed the room, sinking into the couch beside him. “C’mere.”

“Dean—”

“I said, c’mere.” I grabbed his wrist, pulling him closer, leaning in until my lips brushed his ear. “Been too long. I want you.”

He stiffened. “Not now.”

The refusal sliced straight through the high, leaving raw anger in its place. “Not now? You always have an excuse. You hate me, don’t you?”

“No,” he said quickly, but his voice trembled.

“You do,” I said, gripping his arm tighter. “You can’t even touch me anymore. You’d rather sit here and—”

He tried to pull away. I didn’t let him.

“You think I don’t see it? You think I don’t know what you’re planning?” The words spilled out, fast and ugly. “You’re just waiting for the right moment to do it. To finish what you started. I should’ve stopped you the first time you laid a hand on me.”

His face went pale, his free hand curling into a fist — not to hit, but to hold himself together.

“I’m going to bed,” he said finally, voice low, like talking to a wild animal.

“Yeah, run away,” I called after him. “That’s what you’re good at.”

I sat there alone, the new drug still roaring through me, making the walls pulse and the shadows shift. In my head, I could see him in the bedroom, plotting. Waiting.

And I told myself I’d be ready when he came for me.

Chapter Text

I couldn’t make it four hours anymore.

Four hours without the burn, without the rush, and the world started clawing at me. My skin itched, my heart pounded, and every sound scraped against my skull like broken glass. I’d wake up and go straight for the drawer. If I had to leave the house, I’d take enough for the drive, enough for the stop at the store, enough for the way back.

Michael was the only one who didn’t make me feel like I was losing it. He never told me to slow down. Never told me to stop. If anything, he kept pushing. And every time I ran low, he had what I needed — no questions asked, just a price.

It got so I didn’t even care what the price was.

That night, Cas came into the living room while I was cutting another line on the coffee table. I didn’t bother hiding it.

“Dean,” he said softly, but there was something in his tone — not anger, not even disappointment. Worry. “We need to talk about this.”

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

“You can’t keep doing this to yourself.”

I laughed without humor, leaning over the table. “To myself? This is the only thing keeping me alive.”

He stepped closer, hands out like he wanted to keep the space calm. “I’m worried about you. I love you, and I—”

“Don’t.” My voice snapped sharp enough to make him flinch. “Don’t say that like it means something. If you loved me, you wouldn’t treat me like this.”

His brow furrowed. “Dean, I’m not treating you—”

He reached for me then — slow, careful, like he was going to pull me into a hug. But the second his arm moved into my peripheral vision, it shifted in my head. It wasn’t a hug anymore. It was a swing. A hit.

I didn’t think. I reacted.

The coffee table tipped with the force of my movement, the glass ashtray clattering to the floor and shattering. I shoved him hard, the sound of his body hitting the wall echoing in my ears like proof.

“Don’t you touch me!”

He raised a hand — open-palmed, protective — and in my head it became another strike. I grabbed the nearest thing — the heavy ceramic lamp — and swung. The thud that followed was sickening, followed by the crash of the lamp hitting the floor in pieces.

Cas stumbled back, his arm coming up to shield his head. Something dark smeared down the side of his face — blood, just a thin line at first, then more as it trailed toward his jaw.

“Dean—” His voice broke on my name.

I saw defiance in his eyes. The reader would see terror.

He moved toward the couch, maybe to grab his phone, maybe to steady himself. I thought it was to come at me again. I shoved him, hard enough that his hip hit the edge of the coffee table and knocked over what was left of my stash.

“Look at what you did!” I snarled, pointing at the spilled powder.

Cas stared at it like it didn’t matter, one hand pressed to the side of his head where the blood had started to drip. “Please… stop.” His voice was shaking now.

In my head, it was an act. More games.

I took a step forward, my pulse roaring, the room swaying under the weight of the high and the rage. Cas backed into the corner, hands up, breath coming fast.

“Stay away from me,” I warned.

He didn’t move.

And for a moment — just a moment — I could see him the way he really looked: pale, trembling, with a red smear across his temple and a thousand-yard stare that didn’t belong to the man I married.

I crushed that image as fast as it came.

I left the house before I could think too much. Michael was waiting in his car around the block, and when I slid into the passenger seat, he grinned.

“Rough night?”

“Give me what you’ve got.”

He handed me a small bag, something darker, denser than what I’d had before. “This’ll take you higher than you’ve ever been,” he said.

I didn’t ask what it was. I didn’t care.

Michael and I sat in his car for a while, the windows fogging faintly from the heat inside. The bag he’d given me was already half empty, my heart still hammering from the hit I’d taken before we even left the street.

He grinned, leaning back in the driver’s seat. “You know,” he said, “for someone who plays the doting husband, that angel of yours has a real holier-than-thou face. Like he’s looking down on you every second you’re breathing.”

“Yeah,” I muttered, staring out the window.

Michael smirked. “Bet he loves making you feel small. Loves making you crawl to him for scraps.” He laughed, low and mean. “If I were you, I’d make sure he remembered who runs the house. And if he doesn’t? You put him back in line.”

The words slid into my head like poison, curling around the already raw edges of my thoughts. I didn’t need the reminder — I’d been living with that look from Cas for months now, the one that said you’re not enough.

When I got back home, Cas was in the living room. He looked up when I came in, and I swear his eyes narrowed.

“What?” I snapped.

“Dean,” he started carefully, “you’ve been gone for hours. I was—”

I didn’t hear the rest. In my head, his tone was sharp, mocking, dripping with judgment. He stood, and in that movement I saw another swing, another blow coming my way.

I didn’t think.

I lunged.

The coffee table tipped again, the edge catching Cas in the thigh as I shoved him back. He stumbled, one hand coming up to shield his face. I grabbed his wrist, yanking it down.

“Stop hitting me!” I shouted, the words burning my throat.

His eyes went wide. “I’m not—”

I swung. Once. Twice. The sound of skin on skin echoed too loud, too sharp. He hit the wall hard enough for the picture frame to fall, glass shattering across the floor.

He slid down the wall, one arm curled protectively over his head, the other reaching blindly toward the coffee table where his phone lay.

I saw him grab it and thought he’s calling someone to come after me.

“Don’t you dare!” I snarled, snatching it from him. But the call had already connected.

“Cas?” Sam’s voice was faint but clear through the speaker.

Cas didn’t answer. His breath came in jagged gasps, his chest heaving, tears streaking down his face.

“Cas? What’s going on?” Sam’s voice sharpened.

From the phone’s tinny speaker, I could hear him listening — could hear the sound of Cas’s sobs, the rustle of him shifting on the floor.

And then I hit him again.

Harder.

The kind of hit that sent his head snapping to the side, blood blooming instantly from somewhere I couldn’t see. His arms flew up, shielding himself, his voice breaking on a sob that cut through the high for half a second.

“Dean, please—”

“You think I’m gonna let you keep doing this to me?” I yelled, every word jagged and loud enough for Sam to hear. “You’re the abusive one! You’ve been hitting me for months!”

On the other end of the line, Sam’s voice was frantic now. “Dean, stop! Stop it right now! I’m coming over—”

I hung up.

Cas stayed on the floor, his arms still up, trembling so hard the muscles in his forearms twitched. There was a dark smear along his jaw now, and blood at the corner of his mouth. One of his eyes was swelling fast, the skin around it already turning dark.

“You brought this on yourself,” I muttered, stepping over him to get to the drawer in the bathroom.

I crushed another line. Sniffed deep.

The burn was instant. The rush was faster.

By the time I came back, Cas hadn’t moved.

And I told myself that meant he finally understood.

Chapter Text

The pounding on the door felt like it was inside my skull. Each thud shook through my temples, rattling against the high that still had my heart sprinting.

I yanked it open, ready to snap at whoever was dumb enough to come here right now — and froze when I saw Sam standing there, Bobby behind him, and Benny bringing up the rear.

Sam’s eyes were hard, his jaw tight. Bobby’s expression was darker — the kind of storm you don’t outrun. Benny’s was unreadable, but his fists were clenched at his sides.

They pushed past me before I could even say a word.

Cas was in the corner of the living room, curled up small, his knees pulled close, his arms wrapped over his head. His hair was a mess, his shirt stretched and hanging off one shoulder. Blood had dried at the corner of his mouth, a fresh smear still wet along his cheek. One eye was swollen nearly shut.

He looked… small. Not just small — child-like, like a boy who’d been caught in a nightmare too big to understand.

“Cas—” Sam was already at his side, crouching down, his voice softer than I’d heard it in years. “Hey, you’re okay. We’re here now.”

Cas shook his head, mumbling something I couldn’t hear. His shoulders trembled.

“What the hell is going on here?” Bobby’s voice cut through the room like a whip.

“He’s been hitting me,” I blurted, my voice raw and fast. “You think he’s some saint? He’s been hitting me for months. Look at him — he’s pretending again. He does this every time so you all take his side.”

Bobby’s eyes locked on me, sharp and unflinching. “Boy,” he said, and the weight in that one word stopped me for half a second, “you better shut your mouth before you dig yourself in deeper.”

“It’s the truth!” I barked.

“No, it ain’t,” Bobby snapped, stepping forward. “You’re so strung out you can’t tell up from down. You been seeing things that ain’t there. You been beating on him, Dean. Every bruise on him, every busted lip, every damn bandage — that’s you. And you’re too far gone to see it.”

My stomach twisted, but the high twisted it back, feeding me heat, rage. “You’re blind. All of you. He’s abusive, he—”

Benny stepped in close, his voice low but steady. “I’ve known you a long time, Dean. I’ve seen you mad, I’ve seen you reckless. But I’ve never seen you like this. You’re not seeing reality, man. And if you don’t stop—”

I shoved past him, the words hitting the wall of my paranoia and falling flat.

Cas had looked up at me then, just for a second, and I swore I saw it — that spark in his eyes that said he was planning something. In my head, it was all there: the swing, the shove, the way he’d try to finish me off.

I lunged.

Sam grabbed me from behind, but I twisted out of his grip, my fist connecting with Cas’s shoulder. He cried out — sharp, choked — curling in tighter, hiding his face with both arms.

“Dean, stop!” Sam’s voice was a shout now.

I swung again, catching him along the ribs. He folded in on himself even more, sobbing openly, the sound tearing through the room like fabric being ripped apart.

“Dean Winchester!” Bobby’s voice cracked like a gunshot. “You lay one more hand on him and I’ll put you down myself!”

I didn’t stop.

My hands were on Cas’s shirt, yanking him up, his weight too light, his head lolling before he tried to push back weakly.

Sam and Benny were on me then, pulling me away, but not before I saw it — the dark stain spreading down the side of Cas’s shirt, the sluggish trickle of blood from somewhere at his hairline.

“Let me go!” I shouted, thrashing. “He’s going to kill me! You don’t understand, he’s been—”

Bobby got in my face, close enough I could see the fury in his eyes. “You listen to me, boy. He ain’t touched you. Not once. You’re high outta your damn mind, and you’ve been hurting him. You’re the danger here. Not him. You.”

I tried to shove him, but he didn’t move an inch.

“You wanna act like a man? Then own what you’ve done. You’ve been beating the one person who’d walk through fire for you. And for what? Because you can’t put the damn drugs down long enough to see straight?”

Cas’s voice was barely there, but I heard it. “Please… just stop.”

It wasn’t to them. It was to me. And it broke something small in the back of my mind — not enough to sober me, but enough to feel like my ribs had caved in for half a second.

Benny’s voice was softer now, behind Bobby. “Dean… you’re not the guy I knew anymore. You’re killing him. And if you don’t stop, you’re gonna lose more than him.”

I told myself they were all wrong. That they’d fallen for Cas’s act. That the look on his face — pale, tear-streaked, afraid — was just another manipulation.

But when they got me out of the room, I could still hear him.

The quiet sobbing. The sound of him trying to breathe through it.

And for a flicker of a moment, I couldn’t tell if the pounding in my head was the high, my heartbeat, or the truth finally trying to get in.

Bobby didn’t move when I shoved at him again. He just squared his shoulders, planting himself between me and the couch where Cas sat trembling.

“You wanna hit someone?” he said, his voice low but edged with steel. “You wanna act like a man? Then hit me, boy. Come on. Let’s see how tough you are when the person hits back.”

I stared at him, my fists trembling, high buzzing so loud I could barely hear my own thoughts.

“Go on,” he said again. “Or is beating on someone who loves you the only thing you’re good at these days?”

Behind him, Benny had crouched down beside Cas, his big hands careful as he dabbed at the blood along Cas’s temple with a wet cloth Sam brought from the bathroom. Cas flinched every time the cloth touched him, eyes darting toward me, his whole body wound tight like he was expecting another blow.

Sam’s voice was soft, coaxing. “You’re okay, Cas. You’re safe right now.”

Safe. Like I was a monster.

Benny stood up when I took a step forward, positioning himself between us. His jaw was clenched, his voice even. “Dean, you stay away from him. You don’t want me to put my hands on you. ‘Cause if I do, I won’t stop.”

It wasn’t an empty threat. Benny’s the calmest man I know, but when he says something like that, you believe it.

I turned away from them all, pacing toward the kitchen. My hands itched for the bag in the drawer, for the rush that would clear my head. I found it, poured too much onto the counter, and took it all anyway. The burn ripped through my sinuses, the high hitting me like a sledgehammer.

I started tearing through the house after that — knocking over chairs, scattering papers, sending the coffee table skidding across the floor. The sound of breaking glass was like a drumbeat under my skin.

The walls were too close. The air was too heavy. I needed to move.

I saw Cas again, still on the couch with Sam and Benny at his sides. The high twisted the sight into something else — him smirking, taunting me, daring me to do something.

“You hate me, don’t you?” I snarled.

He shook his head, his lips trembling. “No, I—”

“Liar.”

I grabbed the nearest thing — my old leather belt from the hook by the door — and doubled it in my hand. The snap of it cracking against my palm filled the room.

Cas’s scream was instant, sharp, terrified. He scrambled backward, pressing himself into the corner of the couch, his hands coming up over his head like a child bracing for a blow.

Bobby moved faster than I’d seen in years, stepping between us. “That’s enough!”

Benny came in from the side, his arm catching mine and twisting until the belt fell to the floor. The look on his face was somewhere between rage and heartbreak.

“You need to be stopped, Dean,” he said, his voice low. “And I don’t want to be the one to do it. But I will.”

I struggled, shouting every insult I could think of, thrashing like I could break their grip. Bobby’s open hand connected with the side of my head — not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to stun.

“Get him in the spare room,” Bobby said to Benny. “Lock it. Don’t open it till he’s burned through this high.”

They dragged me down the hall, my feet kicking against the floor. I caught a glimpse of Cas over my shoulder — pale, shaking, clutching the cloth to his face like it was armor. His knees were pulled up to his chest, and Sam was crouched beside him, murmuring something too soft to hear.

I shouted again, my voice hoarse. “He’s the abuser! You’ll see! You’ll all see!”

Benny shoved me into the room, Bobby right behind him. They pushed the door shut and turned the lock.

I could hear them moving away, voices low. Then nothing.

The silence pressed in until I couldn’t stand it. I tore through the room, throwing things against the walls, shouting until my throat felt raw. I found the rest of my stash in my jacket pocket and poured it all onto the nightstand. My hands shook so bad I spilled half of it onto the carpet.

I didn’t care.

I took more. And more.

The high roared back, bigger, meaner than before. My skin burned. My thoughts raced so fast they blurred together. The walls seemed to bend inward. The ceiling pulsed like it was alive.

I was somewhere between flying and falling.

And I wasn’t coming down.

Chapter Text

The room was spinning by the time I took the next line. I told myself it would settle me, smooth out the burn still roaring in my veins — but the second the powder hit my nose, the rush slammed into me like a freight train.

The walls bent inward. My chest felt too tight, like someone had wrapped a belt around my ribs.

I sat on the floor for a second, leaning back against the wall, breathing through my teeth. My heart was hammering so fast it felt like it was tripping over itself. But the high made it funny somehow — like the kind of joke only I could hear.

I laughed. Loud. Too loud.

From down the hall, I could hear voices. They were still in the living room, tending to Cas.

Sam: “You’re okay. Just keep still.”
Benny: “Let me get a fresh cloth.”
Bobby: “Don’t move, son. You’re safe now.”

They sounded so far away, like they were talking from the bottom of a well.

I pushed myself up and stumbled toward the door. My hand was slick on the knob — sweat, probably — but I got it open. The light from the hallway hit me like a spotlight.

When I stepped into the living room, they all turned for a split second, just to glance at me, then back to Cas. He was sitting on the couch, knees still pulled in, wrapped in a blanket now. Benny was crouched in front of him, holding the cloth to his temple. Bobby stood behind the couch like a wall, arms crossed. Sam sat beside Cas, murmuring something low.

No one was looking at me.

That made me laugh again — a bright, too-sharp sound that made Sam glance up with this little flicker of unease.

I walked straight to him and bent down, wrapping my arms around his shoulders in a clumsy hug. “Sammy,” I said, grinning wide. “You’re my brother. My best friend. You know that, right?”

He tried to pull back, gently. “Dean, you’re—”

“No, no, no,” I cut in, squeezing harder. “Don’t ever forget that. You and me, that’s forever. I’d do anything for you.”

Something in my chest gave a sharp twinge. My breath caught. I put a hand there, pressing hard like I could rub it away. My fingers trembled.

Nobody noticed.

Sam was already turning back to Cas, his hand resting lightly on Cas’s knee. Benny was asking Cas if he felt dizzy. Bobby was muttering something about getting ice.

I straightened, swaying slightly, and the heat in my chest turned into something else — an itch, a pressure that made me want to lash out. My gaze snapped to Cas, huddled small under that blanket.

“Yeah, hide under there,” I said, my voice loud enough to cut through their conversation. “You think they’re gonna protect you? You think this little act’s gonna save you?”

Cas flinched, his eyes darting down.

Sam’s tone was sharp now. “Dean. Enough.”

I kept going. “You’re all falling for it. He’s abusive, he’s been coming after me for months, but nooo, poor Cas, poor little angel boy.” My laugh was jagged now, too high, too fast.

Bobby stepped in front of the couch again, his voice a low growl. “You shut your damn mouth.”

I took a step toward them anyway, my hand still on my chest, my breath coming quicker now.

The lights seemed brighter suddenly. My ears were ringing. My skin was slick and hot, my heart racing so fast I could barely catch a full breath between words.

I stumbled into the kitchen, needing space, needing… something. The tiles felt cold under my bare feet. My hands were shaking so bad I almost dropped the bag when I took it from my pocket.

“Just one more,” I whispered to myself. “Just one more and I’ll be fine.”

I poured it onto the counter — too much. I knew it was too much, even as I leaned down and sniffed it all in one brutal line.

The burn was blinding. My head snapped back, my chest seized.

I gasped once, twice, but the air wasn’t coming in right. My hands flew to the counter, gripping the edge so hard my knuckles ached.

The ringing in my ears roared, drowning out every sound from the living room. My legs felt weightless and heavy all at once.

I opened my mouth to call out — for what, I didn’t even know — but nothing came. Just another desperate gasp.

The kitchen spun. My knees buckled.

And then I was on the floor.

Chapter Text

The world was shrinking.

Not in the way a room feels smaller when it’s crowded, but in the way a fist closes — slow, deliberate — around something fragile. The air was thick, sticky, like breathing through wet cloth. Every inhale caught halfway, my chest refusing to pull enough oxygen in, my ribs feeling like they were locked in place.

My heartbeat wasn’t steady anymore. It was stumbling, skipping, tripping over itself like a drunk trying to walk in a straight line.

The floor under me was cold, but my skin burned — slick with sweat, clinging to the tile.

I tried to push myself up, but my arms gave out almost immediately. They felt wrong. Weak. Like someone had replaced the muscle with wet paper. My hands scraped across the tile instead, nails catching uselessly at the grout.

Somewhere above me, the light buzzed. Too bright. Too loud.

My head was heavy, my thoughts sliding slow, thick.

Get up.

I told myself to get up. My body didn’t listen.

I needed to make noise. Let them know I was here. My eyes darted — slow, sluggish — across the kitchen floor. My vision kept tunneling in and out, like someone was playing with the focus on a broken camera.

There was a spoon near the edge of the counter. If I could grab it, drop it, maybe they’d hear.

My hand stretched out — trembling, pale. My fingers didn’t even get close before my chest clenched again, hard enough to send a shock of panic through me.

A sound escaped my throat — not a word, not even close. More like a wet, ugly gasp, the kind that rattles deep inside.

It scared me.

Because it didn’t sound human.

That’s when I felt it — my body.

I hadn’t really looked at myself in weeks. Not with both eyes open, not with the drugs quiet enough in my head to notice.

My arms were thinner than I remembered. Skin pulled too tight, the veins standing out like dark rivers under the surface. My fingers were bony, the knuckles red from where I’d split them open against walls, furniture, maybe even Cas — I couldn’t remember which.

My shirt clung damp to my chest, and through the fabric I could see the shape of ribs I hadn’t noticed before. My jeans hung loose at the hips. My bare feet were gray at the edges, the nails uneven.

I looked like a ghost of myself.

I looked like every junkie I’d ever told myself I’d never become.

I tried to speak — to call for someone — but my tongue felt swollen, clumsy, like it was taking up too much space in my mouth. The taste was bitter, metallic. My lips stuck when I tried to part them.

The buzzing in my ears got louder.

Footsteps.

Somewhere down the hall, I heard Sam’s voice, low, saying something to Cas. Then closer, heavier.

He was coming into the kitchen.

I wanted to tell him I was fine, that I just needed a second — but my body betrayed me again, another horrible choking sound tearing out of me.

The look on his face when he saw me told me everything.

The six-pack of bottled water in his arms dropped to the floor, two rolling toward the fridge. “Dean—”

He was kneeling beside me in an instant, his hands on my shoulders, then my face. “Hey, hey, stay with me, man. Breathe. You gotta breathe!”

I tried. I swear I tried. My chest wouldn’t listen.

The edges of my vision were going dark.

Somewhere behind him, I could hear Cas’s voice — high, strained — asking what was happening. Benny’s boots on the tile. Bobby barking orders.

Sam’s hand pressed against my sternum, feeling the stutter of my heartbeat. “He’s not getting air!”

I clawed weakly at the tile, the panic rising sharp now, cutting through the haze for just a second. My nails scratched uselessly, searching for anything I could hold onto, anything that would anchor me to this side of the dark.

But all I could feel was the cold tile.

My head rolled to the side, and through the blur I saw Cas in the doorway. His face was still swollen, one eye dark and puffy, the other glassy with tears. He was holding the blanket around himself like armor, his lips pressed together, trembling.

Even now — even with the high breaking me in half — some twisted part of me still wanted to blame him. Still wanted to say this was his fault.

But the words wouldn’t come.

Sam’s voice cracked. “We’re losing him!”

The darkness was heavier now, pressing down like water filling my lungs. My heartbeat was a strange, uneven echo in my ears.

I thought about the spoon on the counter. About the bag in the drawer. About the way the glow felt, back when it didn’t hurt.

Then the floor tilted.

And I slipped.

Chapter Text

When I opened my eyes, there was no sound.

Not silence — this was different. This was the absence of everything, the kind of stillness that made you wonder if your ears had stopped working altogether.

The ground beneath me was pale, almost white, but not snow. It looked like marble, smooth and faintly reflective, stretching as far as I could see. The air was cold but sweet, crisp in a way that made my lungs ache when I breathed it in. There was light — soft, silver — but no sun, no source. It just was, hanging in the air like a constant dawn.

I stood slowly, my bare feet making no sound against the surface. My body felt weightless, like the heaviness I’d been carrying for years had been left somewhere far behind.

For a moment, I wondered if I was dead.

“Cas?” My voice was small here, swallowed instantly into the stillness. “Sam? Bobby? Benny?”

The names felt wrong in this place, too loud, too earthly. I turned in slow circles, scanning the horizon, but it was all the same — endless pale ground and silver light.

“Gabriel?”

Nothing.

I started walking. The air didn’t change. My steps didn’t echo. After what felt like hours — or maybe seconds, time didn’t make sense here — a shape appeared in the distance. A figure, standing still, watching me.

Something inside me knew before I could see her face.

Mom.

She looked exactly like she had in the old photos — golden hair curling softly at her shoulders, warm eyes that could melt the frost off a January morning, a gentle smile that didn’t belong in the kind of life we’d lived. She wore a soft cream dress, the hem brushing the tops of her bare feet.

For the first time in years, I felt scared.

“Mom?” My voice cracked.

“Yes, sweetheart.” Her voice was warm, but there was something in it — a thread of sadness woven through the comfort.

I froze a few feet away, afraid if I got closer she might vanish.

“You’re… you’re here?”

She tilted her head, studying me. “For now. But you aren’t supposed to be.”

Her words hit like a cold wind. “What do you mean?”

“It’s not your time, Dean.” She stepped closer, her eyes searching mine. “You’ve made mistakes, baby. Big ones. And you’ve been hurting people — especially the ones who love you most.”

I shook my head. “I didn’t—”

“Don’t,” she said softly, but there was steel in it. “You’ve always been a good liar, Dean. Even to yourself. But not here. Here, you can’t lie. Not to me.”

The silver light shifted around us, and suddenly I was small again — maybe seven years old — standing in the kitchen of our old house. The smell of burnt coffee and cheap whiskey clung to the air.

Dad’s voice boomed from the doorway, angry and sharp. Mom stood between him and the table, her arms crossed tight.

And then — the hit. A sharp, awful sound. Mom’s head jerked to the side, her hand flying to her cheek.

I could feel myself moving before I even knew I had — stepping between them, my skinny arms spread out wide. “Leave her alone!”

From behind me, I heard Sam’s small voice, shaking. “Dean…”

The vision snapped, and we were back in the pale world. Mom’s eyes glistened with unshed tears. “You remember that night?”

“Every second,” I whispered.

“You stood between me and your father because you knew it was wrong. You protected Sam every time. You swore you’d never be like him.” She reached up, her fingers brushing my cheek in a way that made my chest ache. “But you are now, Dean. You’ve become the man you hated most.”

The words gutted me.

My knees gave out, and I sank to the cold marble ground, my face in my hands. “I don’t know how to stop. I don’t—” My voice broke. “I didn’t mean to be this.”

Mom knelt in front of me, her hands on my shoulders. “The drugs are killing you, Dean. But worse than that — they’re killing the part of you that’s good. The part that loves, and protects, and takes care of people.”

Tears blurred my vision until her face was a soft smear of light and shadow. “I hurt him,” I choked. “I hurt Cas.”

“Yes,” she said gently. “And if you keep going, you’ll kill him. Just like your father killed me.”

I shook my head, sobbing now, ugly and unrestrained. “I don’t want to be him.”

“Then don’t be.” She leaned forward, pressing her forehead to mine. Her voice was warm against my ear. “You have to fight, Dean. Not for me. For you. For the boy who swore he’d never let someone he loved live in fear. For the man Cas thought he married.”

I threw my arms around her, holding on like she might vanish if I let go. She smelled like home — cinnamon and laundry soap and the faintest trace of garden roses.

“I don’t want to go back,” I whispered.

“You have to.” Her voice trembled now, just a little. “Because if you don’t, there won’t be anything left of you to come back to.”

The light around us began to shift, growing warmer, brighter, pulling her away from me.

“Mommy—”

She smiled through her tears. “I’ll see you when it’s really your time, baby.”

The silver light faded. The cold air thinned.

Her warmth was fading from my arms, and I clung harder, desperate to keep her there.

But the silver light around us shimmered again, rippling like water — and suddenly we weren’t in that pale, endless place anymore.

We were back in the old house.

The kitchen this time smelled different — heavier. It was late, I could tell from the dark pressing against the windows. I was maybe twelve. Sam was smaller, maybe eight, sitting at the table with his hands wrapped around a mug of cocoa that had long gone cold.

Mom stood by the counter, her back to us. Dad’s boots thundered across the floor behind me, his voice a low, mean growl.

“You embarrassed me,” he was saying. “In front of them.”

“I didn’t,” Mom replied softly. “I only said—”

The sound of his hand connecting with her face was sharp and sickening. She staggered back against the counter, her head snapping to the side.

“Stop it!” I shouted, stepping between them, just like I always did. My heart was hammering, my hands up. Sam’s chair scraped against the floor as he stood too, his voice small: “Please, Dad…”

John’s eyes were glassy, his breath stinking of whiskey. “Get out of my way, Dean.”

“No!” I shouted. “You’re not touching her again!”

And then his hand was on me, shoving me so hard I hit the edge of the table and knocked Sam’s mug over, cocoa spilling everywhere.

Mom tried to push him back, but he turned on her again, harder this time.

The sound of her hitting the wall was worse than the smack — a deep, awful thud that made Sam cry out, his hand was tight around her throat, the wet nasty gasps filling our ears then he just left her.

I ran to her, catching her before she slid all the way to the floor. “Mom? Mom!” Her eyes were open, but they didn’t look at me. Her lips moved, but no sound came out.

Sam was sobbing now, clutching her arm.

“Call 911!” I screamed at him.

Dad stood there, breathing hard, his hands still clenched into fists. He didn’t move toward her. He didn’t move at all.

The sound of Sam’s shaky voice on the phone felt far away. All I could see was her face going still in my arms.

The silver world snapped back into place around us. Mom was watching me with tears in her eyes.

“I didn’t make it that night,” she said gently, the words like ice sliding down my spine. “You remember.”

“I didn’t want to,” I whispered. My voice shook so bad it didn’t sound like me. “I told myself you left. That you… that you ran away.”

She cupped my cheek, her touch warm even in the cold of this place. “You were just a boy, Dean. You did everything you could. You took care of Sam after that, and you survived. But now… you’re becoming him. And I can’t watch you do that.”

The truth hit so hard I couldn’t breathe. “I’m sorry,” I said, the words breaking apart in my throat. “God, I’m so sorry.”

Her eyes softened, but the sadness didn’t leave. “Then you go back. You make it right. You stop before it’s too late.”

I buried my face in her shoulder, shaking like I was twelve again, holding her after she’d been hurt. “I don’t want to lose you again.”

“You won’t,” she murmured. “I’ll be waiting for you. But not yet, sweetheart. Not yet.”

The light began to pull her away again, brighter now, warmer.

“Mom—”

She smiled through her tears. “Go home, Dean.”

And then the light swallowed her whole.

Chapter Text

I woke up to the smell of rot.

Not the kind you get from garbage or roadkill — this was wet and sweet, clinging to the back of my throat like syrup gone sour. My eyes flickered open and I almost wished they hadn’t.

The world around me was wrong.

The ground was black — not just dark, but wet and slick, like I was lying on oil. Every time I shifted, it made a faint squelching noise, and when I sat up, my hands came away coated in something thick and red.

The air was heavy, like breathing through wet cloth.

Shapes stood in the distance — tall, thin, too still to be human, their edges rippling like heat waves. I blinked, but they didn’t move.

I swallowed hard. “Cas?” My voice was hoarse, weak. “Sam? Benny?”

No answer.

Only the sound of something dripping somewhere behind me.

I took a step forward and the ground seemed to move under me — like I was walking on the belly of some giant animal, each step sinking a little deeper.

The shapes in the distance shifted. Not closer, not farther. Just… taller.

Something wet brushed my shoulder, and I turned — but there was nothing there.

And then the sound started.

Not loud, not at first — just a faint, high-pitched ringing, like a television left on in another room. It grew sharper, cutting into my skull until I pressed my hands over my ears.

I’m small. Maybe nine. Sam’s even smaller, clutching the hem of my shirt as we stand in the hallway.

The sound of Dad yelling is muffled through the bedroom door, but Mom’s voice is sharper — pleading, begging him to stop.

Something crashes. Sam flinches.

I push him behind me. “Stay here.”

When I open the door, the room smells like whiskey and rage. Dad’s standing over her, his face twisted, his hand raised again.

“Stop!” I shout. My voice cracks.

He turns that look on me — the one that says I’m about to regret opening my mouth.

The moment freezes, hanging there in my head like a noose, before the nightmare world snaps back.

The black ground beneath me pulses. A sound, low and wet, comes from somewhere below — like something breathing.

The shapes in the distance start… laughing. It’s not human laughter. It’s high, reedy, sharp in all the wrong places, like metal scraping glass.

It’s later. I’m thirteen. Mom’s in the kitchen making pancakes. The smell is warm, safe. Sam’s laughing about something stupid, and she’s pretending to be annoyed but she’s smiling.

Then Dad comes in.

The smile drops.

He says something I don’t hear. Mom tries to answer, but he’s already walking toward her. The sound when he grabs her arm is worse than the slap — it’s bone grinding, skin pulling.

She looks at me. Not at him. At me.

And I freeze. I don’t move.

Her smile is gone for good this time.

When the nightmare world snaps back, the air is colder. My breath comes out in little clouds now.

I see something ahead — a table. Just sitting there in the black, like it’s been waiting for me.

On it is a picture frame.

It’s me and Cas, younger. We’re sitting in my truck, rain tapping on the roof. I’m grinning like an idiot because he just told me he loves me for the first time.

We kiss, slow and awkward and perfect. I remember thinking, This is it. This is the one.

And then — the scene rots.

The rain gets louder. The light fades. Cas is older now, and I’m screaming at him, my hands on him but not in love — in rage.

The sound of my fist connecting with him is louder than the rain. He’s crying, saying my name, and I’m not listening.

My chest tightens so hard I can’t breathe.

The nightmare world tilts.

I stumble and suddenly I’m somewhere else — Lisa’s living room.

Michael’s on her in the back of a room. She’s fighting, pushing at him, her voice raw from grunting. I’m standing in the doorway.

I could stop it. I could stop him.

But I don’t move.

I turn away.

When I look back, her eyes meet mine over Michael’s shoulder — and there’s this look, this shattered look, like she’s not even seeing me anymore, just the fact that I didn’t help.

I blink, and she’s gone.

Back in the nightmare, the shapes are closer now. They’re whispering. My name. Over and over.

The ground beneath me ripples, and I realize it’s not ground at all. It’s skin. I’m standing on something alive.

A smell hits me — copper, sweet and foul. I look down. My boots are in blood up to my ankles.

Something grabs my arm.

Cas.

Only it’s not Cas. His face is half gone, skin hanging loose, one eye missing. The other stares at me, wet and glassy.

“You did this,” he says, voice bubbling like there’s water in his lungs.

I scream, but it comes out wrong — high-pitched, inhuman.

The shapes close in. The ground heaves. And everything goes black.

The blackness didn’t stay black for long.

It bled into a deep, rust-red glow, like the inside of an eyelid pressed too hard. Shapes moved in it — slow, swimming, as though I was underwater.

Something wet brushed my ankle. I looked down and saw Ranger.

But he wasn’t right.

His fur was patchy, falling out in clumps, skin mottled with bruises. His eyes were cloudy, milky white, and his tail didn’t wag. He just stood there, staring at me with his head tilted in that same way he did when he wanted to play — only his jaw was hanging open, and his tongue was black.

“Ranger?” My voice cracked. I reached for him.

He growled.

It wasn’t his growl — it was too low, too human, like someone speaking through broken glass.

Then he bolted, disappearing into the red haze.

The ground rippled again, and I was somewhere else.

It was the bunker kitchen, but wrong. The walls sweated, like condensation on a glass, dripping thick red lines down to the floor. The fluorescent lights buzzed and flickered, making shadows jump and twitch in the corners.

They were here now.

Sam, Benny, Bobby, Gabriel, Lisa — all of them standing in a loose circle around me.

But their faces… Christ.

Sam’s eyes were hollow pits, his jaw hanging too far open like it was unhinged. Benny’s skin looked too tight, stretched over his skull, and when he smiled it split at the corners. Bobby’s hat was gone, and his scalp was raw, bleeding in slow rivulets down his cheeks.

Gabriel had wings, but they were broken — bone jutting out, feathers slick with oil. Lisa’s face… her face was just gone. Smooth skin where it should’ve been.

They all spoke at once.

“You did this.”

Their voices were layered, some deep, some shrill, all wrong.

Cas is laughing at something I said. We’re curled up on the couch, Ranger asleep at our feet. It’s warm. Safe.

I blink and the scene fractures.

The laugh turns into a gasp. The couch is tipped over, Ranger barking wildly, and I’m standing over Cas — my fists clenched, breath coming hard.

There’s blood at the corner of his mouth. He’s curled in on himself, one hand raised like a shield.

And I don’t stop.

Back in the nightmare, the group steps closer.

“Why’d you let Michael do it?” Lisa’s voice is muffled through the skin covering her mouth, but the words are clear.

“You watched,” Gabriel says, his broken wings twitching. “You turned away.”

Sam steps forward, his jaw still swinging loosely. “You’re just like him, Dean. Just like Dad.”

I stumble back, shaking my head. “No. No, I—”

The floor gives way.

I land hard in the hallway of our childhood home. It smells like smoke and spilled beer. The wallpaper is peeling, and the lights flicker dim yellow.

Dad’s yelling in the bedroom again. I’m older now — maybe sixteen. My fists are bigger, but my hands are still shaking.

Mom’s voice is a wet choke.

I go to the door, push it open — and freeze.

She’s lying on the floor. Blood pooling under her head, eyes glassy. Dad’s standing over her, breathing hard.

“Your fault,” he says. But it’s not Dad’s voice.

It’s mine.

The walls start to close in, pressing me back into the nightmare’s red haze.

Ranger’s bark echoes somewhere far off, high-pitched and panicked.

I run toward it.

The haze parts, and there he is. Cas.

But not Cas the way I know him. His skin is paper-white, eyes sunken deep. He’s covered in bruises, fresh and old, swelling his face, his arms. His lips are split, blood dried at the edges.

He’s holding Ranger in his arms like a shield, both of them pressed into the corner. Ranger’s breathing fast, little whines escaping his throat.

“Stay away,” Cas whispers. His voice trembles like a child’s.

I take a step forward, and his eyes widen.

“Stay away!”

The haze behind me shifts, and Michael is there. He’s huge, filling the space, grinning.

“She’s mine now,” he says, but when I blink, it’s Lisa he’s holding — her hair tangled, her clothes torn.

I can hear her screaming. I can hear her begging.

And I do nothing.

The sound of her voice melts into Cas’s sobs, into Ranger’s barks, into my mother’s gasp the night she hit the wall.

They all layer together until it’s a single sound — high, keening, inescapable.

The haze starts to breathe.

It pulls in and pushes out, and every exhale smells like rot. My skin itches, my teeth feel loose, my vision blurs.

The people — my people — step closer, circling me again.

Bobby’s the closest. His hat’s back on now, but his eyes are black. “Boy,” he growls, “you look in the mirror lately? You’re the monster in the damn story.”

I open my mouth to speak, but blood pours out instead — hot, coppery, flooding down my shirt, pooling at my feet.

Cas’s voice cuts through it all: “Dean, please.”

But it’s so faint now.

I reach for him.

The haze swallows me whole.

The haze didn’t just breathe now.
It moved.

The red pulsed darker, bleeding into black at the edges, and I felt it… something pulling at me. Not like hands, not even like gravity — more like a current, invisible but steady, dragging me toward its center.

The center was a hole.

It wasn’t wide, but it felt endless, bottomless. My chest tightened just looking at it. The air above it shimmered, hot and dry, like standing too close to an open oven.

From inside, I could hear whispers. Hundreds of them. They overlapped and tangled together until I could barely separate one from another.

Some sounded like strangers. Some sounded like Michael. Some sounded like… me.

And every voice carried the same message, spoken in different ways.
You belong here.

The current pulled harder. My heels scraped over the shifting ground.

The red haze behind me broke open, and something else poured through — light.

It wasn’t blinding, just soft. Like morning sunlight through curtains. I could smell rain on pavement, see green fields blurred behind it.

And I felt something… gentle. Warm.

It reached for me.

The pull from the pit and the pull from the light met in my chest, tearing me both ways. My ribs felt like they’d crack under the strain.

From the pit, heat rose up, dry and choking. I could hear the sharp clink of metal, chains dragging over stone. Somewhere far below, something was laughing.

From the light, I heard voices too — quiet, calm. I thought I recognized them. Mom. Bobby. Even Sam, but not the Sam I knew now — his kid voice, back when I could lift him onto my shoulders and he thought I was a hero.

I tried to call out, but my throat closed. My feet were sliding toward the edge of the pit now, the heat burning my skin. The smell of it got worse, heavy with rot and something sharper — like iron.

Then, a grip on my arm.

It wasn’t rough. It was steady.

I turned, and for a second — just a second — I thought it was Cas. Not the broken, bruised Cas from the nightmare haze, but the Cas from before all this. The Cas who wore sweaters at home, who cooked breakfast too early in the morning, who would hum under his breath when he thought I wasn’t listening, who would scrunch his nose at my nose kisses.

He didn’t speak. He just held on.

Another hand clamped around my other arm.

This one was cold. I didn’t see who it belonged to — just a shadow with edges too sharp, too jagged. Its grip tightened, nails digging into my skin.

The pit opened wider below me, and I could see things moving in it now — shapes writhing, twisting. Faces I almost recognized. Michael was there, grinning up at me from the depths, his hands held out like he was inviting me in.

The shadow hand yanked, and my toes skidded over the edge.

The light behind me flared.

It wasn’t loud, it wasn’t violent — it just was. It poured over my shoulders, soaking into me, making the shadow’s grip ache like frostbite.

The hand holding me from that side squeezed just a little tighter. I could almost hear Mom’s voice again, clearer now.

"Dean. It’s not time."

My chest cracked open. I wanted to fall into that voice. I wanted to stay.

But the shadow was still pulling.

I screamed — not words, just sound. Raw, shredded sound.

The tug-of-war built until I thought my bones would splinter, until I couldn’t tell which way I wanted to go anymore.

In the pit, Michael’s grin split wider.
Behind me, the light hummed steady, patient.

And for the first time, I realized… they weren’t just pulling at me.

They were fighting for me.

I dropped to my knees. The heat blasted my face, the cool light pressed against my back, and I didn’t know where I belonged anymore.

Somewhere deep in the light, I swore I could hear Ranger’s bark — clear, healthy, happy. Somewhere deep in the pit, I swore I could hear my own voice, saying things I’d never want anyone to hear.

My hands shook. My head hung low. I felt the shadow’s nails digging deeper and the warm hand still holding on.

And I didn’t know which one I could let go of.

Chapter Text

It starts slow. Like molasses dripping in winter. Then suddenly, my chest caves.

I can’t breathe. My throat burns, there's pressure everywhere and I can’t move. It’s like I’m stuck under ice—trapped in a frozen lake of memories and pain. I hear muffled voices, panicked, sharp—blaring sirens somewhere behind them. I want to scream, but my lungs won’t fill. A weight’s on my chest and something sharp digs down my throat.

Black. Then light. Then black again.

My name. They’re saying my name. Over and over. Dean. Dean. DEAN.

My body jolts. I think I’m dying again.

Something forces air into me. There’s pressure on my chest—hands. Hard. Unforgiving. My ribs crack beneath them. The world blurs into red and white and the acrid scent of stomach acid.

I fade.

I wake up choking, retching into a tube. My mouth tastes like poison. My body is trembling and my arms are restrained. My chest is screaming.

Then I hear it.

"Dean!" A voice I’d know even if I’d lost every memory. Raw. Broken. Screaming. Castiel.

I blink.

The lights above me burn like fire, but I turn my head toward the chaos anyway. Cas is being held back by two nurses. He’s crying—no, wailing—and he’s got blood on his shirt, on his hands. My blood. I know it. He looks like he’s about to die just watching me.

"Get off me! Let me go! He needs me! He needs—"

They tell him I’m stable. That they just pumped my stomach. That he can see me in a minute.

I want to say his name. I try. Nothing but a breath escapes.

I close my eyes. When I open them again, it's quieter. I'm in a hospital bed. The restraints are gone. There’s a saline drip in my arm and a dull beeping that sounds too calm for how I feel.

The doctor is already sitting beside me. Her face is serious but gentle, like she’s seen this too many times to flinch anymore.

"Dean," she says. "You overdosed. You had no heartbeat when the EMTs arrived. They brought you back, but... it was close. We had to pump your stomach, restart your heart, and you stopped breathing twice on the table."

My throat is dry. Every word stings like acid, but I croak out, "How long?"

She looks at her chart. "You've been unconscious for a day and a half."

I let that settle like dust on a coffin lid.

"You tried to die, Dean."

I look away. My chest aches—not from the compressions, not from the drugs. From the truth.

She doesn’t push. Just nods. "Someone will be in soon."

The door closes with a hiss. And then it's just me.

Until it's not.

Cas bursts in like a storm. He looks like hell—eyes red-rimmed, sleeves wrinkled, hair a mess. He crosses the room in seconds and throws his arms around me.

"Dean," he breathes. "Jesus. Dean."

I let myself collapse into him. My chest rattles as I sob into his shoulder. His arms tighten like he can anchor me to the earth.

"Don’t you ever—" He pulls back, cupping my face. "Don’t you ever leave me like that again."

I nod. I can’t promise, but I nod.

We sit like that for what feels like hours. He brushes my hair back, kisses my forehead, tells me he loves me in that voice that always sounds like prayer.

Then it shifts.

"Dean... I need to tell you something."

I already know.

"I love you. I always will," he says, fingers trembling on my skin. "But I need... I need time. I’m taking a break. From us. From the marriage."

It feels like another flatline.

"I’m not leaving forever," he adds quickly. "But I need to breathe. I need to understand why you didn’t come to me. Why you couldn’t. And I need you to figure that out too."

I stare at the ceiling. I deserve this. Every inch of it.

He kisses me. Slow. Soft. Final.

Then he’s gone.

I sit there for a while after Cas leaves.

Just sit there. Breathing shallow. Blinking slow. Staring at the wall like maybe it’ll open up and swallow me. I think I’m waiting for the guilt to fade, or for some warmth to rush in where he used to be, where his hands used to hold me. But there’s nothing. Just a cold, empty hum. Like the kind that leaks out of fluorescent lights. I don’t even cry. I just ache. Like my bones got hollowed out and filled with regret.

My palms still smell like his hair. That faint ozone-salt smell that always reminded me of the sea before a storm.

I press my knuckles to my eyes and try not to scream.

Sam comes next.

I hear his boots before I see him — that slow, careful step he takes when he’s scared I’m fragile. Which is funny. I’ve survived hell. Literally. I’ve been torn open and stitched back together by monsters. But right now, I am fragile. So fucking fragile I think if he touches me, I’ll shatter.

He doesn’t say anything at first. Just stands there, hand on the edge of my bed like he's grounding himself. His eyes are red. There’s a tight line around his mouth like he’s clenching back something — maybe a scream, maybe a sob.

“I thought you died,” he whispers.

I look at him, finally. “So did I.”

He sits, drops his head, and runs a hand down his face. “Dean, what the hell were you—”

“I didn’t mean to,” I say, too fast. “I didn’t—Sammy, I swear, I didn’t want to die. I was just trying to turn it off. Just for a second.”

He swallows. Looks at me like I’ve betrayed him. “You scared the shit out of me, man. I had to call mom. I had to tell her what happened. I thought—” His voice breaks. “I thought I’d have to bury you.”

I can’t take it. I look away. I don’t deserve his worry. I don’t deserve his grief. Not after everything I’ve done.

Sam grabs my wrist — gentle but firm. “You’ve gotta stop doing this, Dean. You don’t talk, you don’t cry, you just keep it all locked down until you explode. And it’s killing you.”

“Maybe I deserve that.”

“Don’t say that,” he snaps.

“Why not? It’s true. Ask Cas. Ask Lisa. Ask Benny or Ellen or anyone I’ve ever let get close.” My voice is rising, shaking. “I ruin people. That’s all I do.”

“You think dying would fix that?”

“No,” I whisper. “I think maybe it’s what they’d all be better off with.”

Sam stands up so fast the chair scrapes. He’s pacing now, running a hand through his hair. “God, you’re so fucking stubborn. You think you’re doing us a favor by dying? Dean, no one wants a favor like that. We want you alive. Flawed. Pissed off. Loud. But alive.”

I can’t look at him. I just nod. Lie back. Let the pain settle deep in my chest like a stone.

Bobby shows up next.

He doesn't say much, which is about right. Just sits in the corner and peels an apple with his pocketknife like he's got all the time in the world. That smell — sharp fruit and old leather — fills the room and makes me feel ten years old again.

“You’re an idjit,” he says finally, quiet and low.

“Yeah.”

“Tryin’ to check out without sayin’ goodbye. Coward’s move.”

I close my eyes. “Didn’t mean to go.”

“Well, that makes it worse.” He leans forward, elbows on his knees. “You’re supposed to be smarter than this, boy. Suppose Sam found you too late? Suppose Cas didn’t break your ribs trying CPR?”

“I don’t know.”

“You tryin’ to make us watch you die again?” His voice breaks, and that’s what kills me. Bobby Singer, the toughest son of a bitch I know, gets choked up. Over me.

“You ever think about what it does to the rest of us? Watchin’ you bleed out, not knowin’ how to fix it?”

I bite my lip. Hard. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” he snaps. “Be better.”

Ellen hugs me.

Tighter than I deserve. Smells like gunpowder and coffee. She presses a kiss to my temple and calls me “sweetheart,” and for a second, I feel like a kid again, wrapped up in something safe.

She doesn’t even yell.

She just holds my face and says, “You’re not alone, baby. You’re not. You’re not the only one who hurts. But you gotta let us in, or you’ll drown.”

I nod.

She doesn’t believe it, but she nods back like maybe that’s enough for today.

Benny's visit is short.

He leans in the doorway like he’s not sure he’s allowed. “Saw you took a dive.”

I snort. “Yeah.”

“You come back up though. That counts for somethin’.”

He’s quiet for a moment, then adds, “You ever wanna disappear for a bit, you know where I am. Sometimes you need distance to see straight.”

I nod. “Thanks.”

“Don't make me bury another friend.”

That hits harder than I expect.

Night comes. The room gets quiet. The machines hum soft. I stare at the ceiling. Try not to think about the silence from Lisa. I called her twice. No answer. I don’t blame her. I don’t know if I’d answer either.

Cas’s blanket still smells like him. I bury my face in it and breathe deep, even though it hurts. Even though it makes me miss him more.

Even though it makes me want to die again.

But I won’t. Not tonight.

I reach for the nurse’s call button.

My hand shakes.

Not because I need help. But because I know I’m about to do something stupid.

Or maybe smart.

I don’t know anymore.

The phone in my palm feels cold.

I don’t dial Lisa.

I don’t dial Sam.

I don’t even call Cas.

My thumb hovers.

And I whisper it like a prayer, like a curse.

“Michael…”

There’s no answer.

But something shifts in the air. The lights flicker. The machines beep just a little too loud. The air turns cold.

I don’t know what I’ve done.

But I know something is coming and I cant stay clean for it.

Chapter Text

It’s been a month.

Thirty days since the hospital, since the crying and the promises and the quiet, careful voices telling me I could “turn it around.” Thirty days since I made the call to Michael.

I left that night. Didn’t even tell them. Didn’t want the pleading, didn’t want the guilt. I just walked out with the IV still in my arm and the gown still hanging off my shoulders like a dead man’s shroud.

Now, I don’t know where I live. I guess you could say “with Michael,” but that makes it sound stable. Sometimes we’re in a stolen apartment with no power, sleeping on a stained mattress that smells like mildew and bad decisions. Other nights it’s under the bridge with the cold wind biting my face, the sound of traffic above like ghosts whispering in a language I can’t understand.

I’m doing harder stuff now. Not the kind you do to take the edge off — the kind that erases you. The kind that pulls the floor out from under you and leaves you floating in black water, wondering if you’ll come up for air. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don’t care if I do.

And the money? That’s just another game. Petty theft, quick cash jobs, things I would’ve punched a man for even suggesting a year ago. Michael says I’m “resourceful.” I think he just likes watching me rot.

Tonight, I find myself standing outside Cas’s house.

I tell myself I’m just going to knock. Maybe ask for help. Maybe.

But I’m high. High enough that every light in the street seems to hum, high enough that my skin itches like it’s crawling off me, high enough that my head is a tunnel with Cas at the end and nothing else matters.

The lock isn’t hard to break. My hands know what to do before my brain catches up.

Inside, it’s quiet. Ranger’s asleep on the couch. He lifts his head when he hears me, tail thumping once before the smell hits him. He whines.

“Hey, boy,” I say, voice rough, and for a second, I want to just sit down next to him and never move again. But then I remember the hunger in my veins, the way my pockets are empty, and I head for the bedroom.

Cas is there. Sitting up, rubbing his eyes. He freezes when he sees me.

“Dean…?” His voice is small, unsure, like he’s trying to talk to a ghost.

“Where’s your wallet?” I snap.

“What—Dean, it’s late, you—”

I’m already tearing the room apart. Drawers slamming, papers scattering. Something glass shatters at my feet. I can feel him watching me, scared. That look cuts deeper than anything else.

“You left me!” I yell, shoving the nightstand over. “You said you loved me, and you just—walked! You left me to—”

“Dean, you’re high.” He’s backing away now. “Please, just—”

“Shut up!” My hand moves before I can stop it, the crack of skin on skin ringing in the room. He stumbles back, clutching his face, eyes wide and wet.

The wallet’s in my hand before I even think about it. I’m out the door, Ranger barking after me, paws skidding on the floor.

By the time Cas calls Benny, I’m already halfway back to the apartment Michael and I “borrowed.” He’s leaning in the doorway when I get there, cigarette hanging from his lips.

“Get it?” he asks.

I toss him the cash. “Yeah.”

He grins. “That’s my boy.”

Later, lying on the floor staring at the cracked ceiling, I think about Cas’s face. The fear. The sadness.

I tell myself it’s his fault. That he left me, so what does he expect?

But deep down, under the noise, I know the truth:

Nobody leaves me because they’re cruel.

They leave because I make them.

And maybe I’m too far gone now.

Maybe I don’t deserve to be pulled back.

Whenn I say Michael and I never stay in one place for long. The stolen apartment is a pit — one cracked window, no electricity, no heat. The air smells like old water and mold, like something died in the walls months ago and no one bothered to check. The carpet’s sticky in places. There’s a mattress in the corner that used to be white but now looks like it’s been dragged through every back alley in the city.

We crash there when the weather’s bad, but most nights, we end up under the bridge. That’s where the real freak show is. Burned-out faces, glassy eyes, people half-dead already but still holding out their hands for something stronger. Nobody trusts anyone, but everyone pretends they do for a hit.

You stop caring about smell. About blood on your shirt that isn’t yours. About what your hands have done.

The things I do for drugs always plays around in my head… they’re not the kind you talk about. Not the kind that make good stories in rehab circles or recovery memoirs. They’re the kind that rot in the back of your skull, whispering when you try to sleep.

Stealing from someone who has even less than you. Once, I stood in the doorway of a gas station holding a crowbar, pretending I’d go through with it just to scare the clerk into handing me the till. I don’t think he even believed me — but he gave it up anyway. Probably just didn’t want to deal with another junkie bleeding on the floor.

Michael doesn’t judge. Or maybe he does, but he hides it well. He keeps me busy, keeps me hooked, keeps me in the game. Says we’re “survivors.” I think we’re just dead men walking, waiting for our turn to hit the ground.

It was two nights ago I saw Lisa.

I wasn’t looking for her — hell, I wasn’t looking for anyone. Michael had wandered off to meet someone, and I just… walked. Ended up at the beach.

The sand was cold and wet, the kind that clings to your shoes. The tide was low, the waves whispering more than crashing. And there she was, sitting near the waterline in sweats and a hoodie, barefoot, knees pulled to her chest.

At first, I thought maybe it wasn’t her. She looked smaller somehow, like someone had scooped out all the fight and left just the shell. Hair a mess, face pale in the moonlight.

“Lisa?” I called. My voice sounded strange in the open air, like I didn’t belong there.

She turned her head. For a second, I saw something in her eyes — recognition, maybe, or anger. But then it was gone. She just stared at me.

I walked closer. “It’s me. Dean.”

“I know who you are,” she said. Her voice was low, flat. Not even cold — just… done.

I wanted to say a hundred things. Apologize. Explain. Beg. But the words caught in my throat. All that came out was, “You look… different.”

She gave a short, humorless laugh. “So do you.”

I stepped closer, but she shifted, not enough to run, just enough to let me know there was space she didn’t want me in.

“Lisa, I—”

“Don’t,” she said, looking back at the water. “You don’t get to ‘Lisa’ me anymore.”

The waves hissed against the shore, like they were siding with her.

I stood there, wanting to reach for her but knowing my hands were too dirty now. And not just physically.

When I finally walked away, she didn’t look back.

I tell myself I don’t deserve help. That even if someone offered, I wouldn’t take it. Because what do you do with something that’s already broken beyond repair?

I’m not the man I was. I’m not even the man I hated being. I’m something else now — something that wakes up every day just to feed the thing gnawing in his chest.

Michael says that’s freedom. I think it’s a leash.

But I’m too tired to pull against it anymore.

Chapter Text

Michael was still where I’d left him — on the busted couch in the stolen apartment, feet up on a milk crate, cigarette burning low between his fingers. He looked up when I came in, eyes sharp, already clocking that I was wired and not in a good way.

“Where the hell you been?” he asked, flicking ash into an empty beer can.

I didn’t answer right away. I just paced, running my hands through my hair, chewing at the inside of my cheek. The image of Lisa on that beach was still burned into my skull — the way she looked at me like I was already dead.

“She was there,” I muttered.

Michael tilted his head. “Who?”

“Lisa. Down at the beach. Just sitting there like…” My voice cracked, and I swallowed it back. “She didn’t even want me near her, man. Like I was… like I was something to be scared of.”

Michael smirked, leaning forward. “You are something to be scared of, brother. That’s the point. Don’t let her get in your head.”

But it already was in my head. And the more I tried to push it out, the harder it stuck, wrapping around my chest like barbed wire.

We got high again. I don’t even remember deciding to — it’s just what happens now. One second I’m pacing, the next I’m floating, and Michael’s grinning, telling me about all the ways we’re gonna “own this city.” I laughed, nodded, pretended I believed him. But there was a crack somewhere deep inside me that just wouldn’t stop widening.

Around 11, I slipped out. Michael didn’t stop me — probably figured I was going to score or steal something.

I didn’t even know where I was going until I was there. Bobby and Ellen’s place. Lights low, the hum of the porch light buzzing in my ears. My feet crunched on the gravel, each step heavier than the last.

Benny was on the porch, leaning back in one of those old metal chairs, arms crossed. He looked up, eyes narrowing the second he saw me.

“Dean,” he said, slow and careful, like I might bolt. Or bite.

I didn’t answer. I just kept walking toward him, feeling like my bones were vibrating. My skin itched — not just on the surface, but underneath. Like something inside me was trying to claw its way out.

Ellen opened the door, blinking at me in surprise. “You hungry?” she asked softly, already moving to the kitchen. She didn’t ask what I was on. She didn’t ask why I was there.

She came back with a plate — mashed potatoes, some kind of roast, peas on the side. It smelled warm. Safe. Something I hadn’t had in… I don’t even know how long.

I sat down on the porch steps and started eating. One bite. Two. And then the fork just slipped out of my hand, clattering against the plate.

The sob hit before I even knew it was coming.

It wasn’t quiet. It wasn’t one of those movie sobs where a single tear slides down your cheek. This was full-on, chest-caving, ugly, choking noise. I bent forward, hands over my face, shoulders shaking so hard it hurt.

“I can’t—” My voice broke. “I can’t do this, I can’t—”

Benny was beside me before I could even think, his big hand gripping my shoulder. “Hey. Hey, slow down.”

But I couldn’t slow down. I was pulling at my skin, dragging my nails across my arms like if I could just peel enough away, maybe the poison in me would get out. My breath was coming in quick, shallow bursts — each inhale felt like it was getting stuck halfway.

“It’s in me,” I gasped. “It’s in my blood, Benny. It’s never coming out—”

My chest locked up. I tried to breathe but my lungs wouldn’t listen. The edges of the world blurred, dark spots flickering at the corners of my vision.

“Dean! Look at me!” Benny’s voice was sharp now.

But I couldn’t. All I could do was claw at myself, at the railing, at anything. My legs kicked out, my body twisting like I was trying to escape my own skin.

I screamed — raw, loud, ripping something in my throat. Not words, just sound.

Ellen was kneeling in front of me, one hand on my knee, the other holding my face steady. “You’re having a panic attack, baby. Breathe with me. C’mon, right here. In and out. In and out.”

Her voice was steady but my body wasn’t listening. My heart felt like it was punching through my ribs, my head buzzing so loud I couldn’t think.

And underneath it all — the craving. That ugly, gnawing need, curling around my spine, whispering that if I could just get one more hit, this would stop.

I don’t remember falling over, but suddenly I was on my side, curled tight, hands clutching at my chest. Benny’s hand was still on my back, grounding me, Ellen murmuring low and steady.

But even there — on the porch, in the middle of the night, two people holding me like I was worth saving — all I could think about was getting back to Michael.

Getting back to the thing killing me.

I don’t even remember how I got back to the apartment. One minute I was on Benny and Ellen’s porch, shaking and gasping like I’d just been dragged out of water, and the next, I was standing in the hallway outside the door, knuckles tapping against the peeling paint.

Michael opened it, one eyebrow raised. “You look like hell,” he said with a little smirk. “C’mon in.”

The air inside was thick — stale smoke, spilled liquor, something rotting in the sink. My hands were still trembling. My head still buzzing from the panic, the shame, the crash.

“I just—” My throat was dry. “I need something.”

Michael didn’t ask what. He knew.

He pulled a little bag from his pocket, fingers brushing mine when he handed it over. A little too long. A little too close. I flinched, but not enough to stop him. He stepped closer, his hand lingering at the back of my neck like we were in on some kind of secret.

“That’s better,” he said, voice low. “That’s you and me, man. Ride or die.”

I didn’t respond. I just sat on the couch, chasing the feeling until the edges of me blurred again.

The next day, I don’t know what possessed me. Maybe I thought I could still go back there, to Benny. Maybe I just wanted to feel like someone gave a damn, even if I didn’t deserve it.

My legs took me there without me deciding.

By the time I reached the porch, I was high — too high to keep my eyes from half-lidding, too high to answer without my voice dragging like molasses.

Benny was there again, leaning against the porch post like he’d been waiting. His eyes scanned me, not with judgment, but with that steady, unshaken calm of his.

“You’re back,” he said.

I grunted something — I think it was “yeah,” but it came out more like a groan.

“You’re not doin’ good, Dean.” His voice was quiet, like he didn’t want to scare me off. “You think you’re hiding it, but you’re not. You’re wearing it. All over your face, your body. Hell, you’re wearing it in the way you stand.”

I leaned against the rail, staring at the ground. My brain was cotton, my tongue heavy. “Don’t… wanna talk ‘bout it,” I mumbled.

“Then just listen,” he said, stepping closer. “You can’t keep doin’ this. It’s eatin’ you alive. Whatever you think you’re running from, it’s gonna be there when you come down. And one day, you’re not gonna come down.”

My chest tightened, but I didn’t have the strength to fight him. Or maybe I didn’t want to.

Benny stepped forward and wrapped his arms around me. Not a pity hug. Not soft. Just solid. Like he was saying you’re here, you’re real, I’ve got you right now.

For a second, I let myself sink into it.

And then I heard the gravel crunch.

Bobby stepped around the corner of the porch, eyes locking on me. His jaw tightened immediately. I could see the storm in his face before he even said a word.

He didn’t look at me like Benny did. He looked at me like I was the man who’d put his hands on Cas — because I was. Like I’d crossed a line I couldn’t uncross — because I had.

“Benny,” Bobby said flatly. “Inside. Now.”

Benny didn’t move, just kept his hands on my shoulders. “He’s not—”

“I said now,” Bobby snapped, eyes still locked on me.

The weight of his stare burned worse than any hangover, any crash. My throat went tight. My legs felt like they might give.

And all I could think was — yeah. This is who I am now.

Bobby’s boots hit the porch hard when he came toward me, and Benny’s hands slowly dropped from my shoulders like he knew there was no stopping what was about to happen.

“You got a lotta nerve showin’ your face here,” Bobby growled, voice low but sharp enough to cut skin. “After what you did to Cas.”

My mouth opened, but nothing came out. My tongue felt heavy. My brain was lagging behind the moment.

“I didn’t—”

“Don’t you dare start lyin’ to me, boy.” His tone cracked like a whip. “I’ve seen drunks, I’ve seen users, I’ve seen folks on the worst day of their lives, but I ain’t never seen a man put his hands on someone who loves him that much and still walk around like it’s just another Tuesday.”

The words hit harder than his voice did. And that voice was loud.

I felt myself shrinking back toward the porch rail, the wood pressing into my lower back. My pulse was speeding up, my skin prickling.

“You think you’re the only one who’s been hurt? The only one who’s been through hell?” Bobby’s voice got louder, sharper. “Cas stood in front of you through more storms than I can count, and you turned on him like a damn rattlesnake. And for what? For this?” He gestured at me — my sunken cheeks, my shaky hands, my blown pupils. “You’re a coward, Dean Winchester.”

The word coward burned straight through me. I felt my chest twist, my stomach turn, my jaw clench so hard it ached.

“Shut up,” I muttered.

“What was that?”

“I said shut the hell up!” I barked, louder this time, but my voice cracked halfway through.

We stood there staring at each other — me swaying slightly, him rooted like an old oak tree, unmoving, unshakable. And I couldn’t take it.

I turned and walked off the porch. Not fast. Just enough to put space between us before I broke.

By the time I got back to the apartment, my hands were already in Michael’s stash. No thought. No hesitation. Just desperation.

Chapter Text

Michael’s voice was just a low, constant buzz in my ears as I sat cross-legged on the stained carpet, my head leaning back against the peeling wall. The air in the stolen apartment smelled like chemical fumes and burnt foil, and my hands wouldn’t stop twitching.

We’d been at it for hours. The hit still had me floating just above reality, but not enough to quiet the pit gnawing in my chest. I blinked slow, and that’s when I saw her again.

Mom.

She was leaning against the doorframe to the bedroom, arms crossed, smiling in that tired, warm way she used to when she caught me and Sammy sneaking cookies before dinner. But the smile didn’t last.

“Dean…” she said softly, her voice cutting through Michael’s ramble like a clean blade.

I sat forward, elbows on my knees, squinting at her just to make sure she was real. “Mom?”

Michael laughed from the couch. “You’re talking to the air again, man.”

I ignored him.

“You don’t belong here,” she said, shaking her head slowly. “You’re disappearing, Dean. And one day you won’t come back.”

Something in my chest twisted hard. I could hear my own heartbeat in my ears.

“She’s not here,” Michael said again, louder this time. He tossed a lighter on the table. “Snap out of it.”

I turned to him, and something in me just… snapped. The anger came out of nowhere, boiling over the moment his smirk hit me.

“Don’t talk about her,” I snarled.

“It’s a hallucination, man! You’re fried—”

I was already moving. My fist connected with his jaw before I even thought about it, the sound sharp and ugly. He came back swinging, shoving me into the wall hard enough to rattle my teeth. We grappled, shoving and swearing, my vision blurring with each hit.

When we finally tore apart, I was gasping, sweat dripping down my neck. I grabbed my jacket from the chair.

“Where the hell are you going?” Michael yelled.

“Out,” I spat, my voice breaking halfway.

By the time I found myself in front of Bobby’s house, the smell of grilled meat was already drifting through the warm afternoon air. I could hear laughter, clinking bottles, the occasional bark from Ranger.

I hadn’t been invited. Hell, Bobby had made it clear weeks ago that I wasn’t welcome. But there I was anyway, standing in jeans that barely fit and a shirt I’d tried to scrub clean in a gas station sink. My hands smelled like soap and gasoline.

I stepped through the gate and immediately caught eyes turning my way. Jo was leaning against the fence with Garth, mid-laugh, but her face stiffened the second she saw me. Benny was manning the grill, and Sam was on the porch with Cas — Cas, who still had a faint blue-black shadow under his right eye, a souvenir from the night I broke into his place. Ranger lay at his feet, ears perking up when he saw me.

No one said anything at first. The air felt heavy, all the warmth from a second ago evaporating into quiet tension.

I headed straight for the table and piled my plate high — burgers, ribs, potato salad, whatever I could grab. My stomach ached from the sudden weight of it all, but I didn’t stop. Being partially homeless meant meals were a gamble; today, I was cashing in.

By the time I was halfway through my second plate, I felt eyes on me again. I looked up to see Sam, Benny, and Bobby standing together near the shed, watching like they were deciding whether or not to approach.

I set my fork down and walked over, my legs heavier than they should’ve been.

“I’m—” My throat tightened. I had to swallow before I could finish. “I’m sorry.”

Bobby crossed his arms but didn’t speak.

“I know I’ve said it before,” I continued, my voice shaking, “but I mean it this time. I don’t… I don’t want to be like this anymore.”

Sam’s face softened, but he didn’t move. Benny just studied me with those steady eyes, the ones that didn’t flinch when you told him the worst about yourself.

“I keep screwin’ it up,” I said, my voice cracking on the last word. “Every time I think I can stop, I end up right back in the pit. I’ve hurt people I—” My breath hitched. “I’ve hurt people I love, and I can’t take it back.”

No one said anything, and the silence made it worse. I kept talking, the words spilling out faster now, like I had to unload them before I lost the nerve.

“I want to stop. God, I want to stop so bad. But I don’t know how. And I’m scared I’m already too far gone.”

I felt the burn in my eyes before I felt the wetness on my cheeks. My knees buckled, and before I knew it I was on the grass, my head in my hands, sobbing so hard I couldn’t breathe right.

Benny was the first to crouch down, a firm hand on my shoulder. Then Sam. Bobby stayed where he was, but I could see the struggle in his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered again, my voice raw. “I’m so damn sorry.”

Benny’s hand was still on my shoulder when I felt another presence nearby. I looked up through wet lashes and saw Ranger padding toward me, tail low, ears perked just enough to show he recognized me.

“Hey, boy,” I croaked. My voice was shot. My hands were shaking so bad I thought I’d scare him off, but he just pressed his big, warm head into my lap like he’d been waiting for me to come home.

That did me in. I buried my face in his fur, my shoulders heaving. His smell — grass, sun, and a little bit of whatever Cas fed him — wrapped around me like a memory I didn’t deserve.

When I finally pulled back, I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. Cas was standing near the porch, arms crossed loosely, watching. His face was unreadable, but I could see the flicker of something in his eyes — pain, maybe. Or maybe fear.

Bobby’s voice cut through the quiet. “You’re a damn fool, Dean.”

I looked up at him. His jaw was tight, his eyes hard, but he didn’t look away.

“You keep walkin’ this road, it’s gonna bury you,” he said. “And I’m not talkin’ in a pretty way. I mean dead in a ditch somewhere. But…” He let out a slow, sharp breath. “You’re here. That’s somethin’. Don’t waste it.”

I nodded, my throat closing up again. “I won’t,” I whispered, though part of me still didn’t believe it.

I got up slowly, brushing grass from my jeans, and started toward Cas. He didn’t move until I stopped in front of him.

“I’m sorry,” I said, and it came out almost like a plea. “For the house. For your face. For… all of it.”

Cas studied me like he was weighing every syllable. “Dean, I…” He hesitated, his voice dipping. “I’ve been thinking a lot. And I’m scared.”

That word — scared — coming from Cas was a knife to the chest.

“I don’t know if I can stay in this marriage,” he said, each word careful, deliberate. “Not because I don’t love you. God knows I do. But because I don’t know who I’m going to get when you walk through the door anymore. The man I married, or the man who breaks the door down.”

My stomach twisted. My vision blurred.

“I’m not saying I’m leaving today,” he went on, “but… we might have to talk about divorce. If things don’t change.”

The air between us felt like glass about to shatter. I wanted to promise him everything, swear I’d turn it all around tomorrow, but I knew promises didn’t mean much coming from me right now.

“Cas,” I said, my voice breaking, “I’ll try. I swear I’ll try.”

His eyes softened, but there was still that wall there — the one I’d built myself. “I hope so, Dean. I really do.”

I turned to leave, my chest heavy, and that’s when I saw it — just at the far edge of the yard, beyond the fence line. Michael. Or at least the shape of him, leaning in the shadow like he belonged there, watching.

He didn’t move, didn’t call out. Just stood there, waiting.

And for the first time in a long while, I didn’t walk toward him. Not yet.

I just stayed where I was, one hand resting on Ranger’s head, holding onto that moment like it was the only thing keeping me from slipping back into the pit.

Chapter Text

I didn’t sleep the night after the BBQ.
Couldn’t.

Every time I closed my eyes, Michael’s smirk was there, his voice dripping in my ear about how I’d come crawling back. He always said it like it was a fact — like I didn’t have the choice. Maybe he was right. Maybe I didn’t. But when I thought about Cas standing at the edge of Bobby’s yard with Ranger pressed to his leg like a shield… about that black-blue stain under his eye that I’d put there… I couldn’t sit still.

By dawn, I was walking. Didn’t even remember leaving the little roach-infested couch in Michael’s squat. My body just… carried me. My legs ached from dehydration, from days on poison, but they kept moving toward Cas’s place like they knew where they belonged.

When he opened the door, he didn’t smile. Didn’t frown. He just… looked at me, like he was trying to figure out if I was really there or if I’d turn to smoke if he blinked.
“Please,” I said, before he could tell me to leave. My voice cracked. “I can’t— I can’t do it out there anymore. I’m not asking for forgiveness, just— let me stay in the guest room. I’ll follow your rules.”

He hesitated. And I saw it — that fear, that sharp little flicker of distrust. But his eyes softened, just enough.
“Ground rules,” he said, his voice flat but trembling underneath. “No drugs in the house. No shouting. No touching me without my permission. If you break them, you’re gone. Dean… I mean it.”
I nodded like my neck was about to snap. “I’ll do anything.”

The first day was easy — only because I still had enough garbage in my system to keep the real monster away. I lay in the guest room staring at the ceiling, sweating through my shirt, twitching every time I thought I heard Michael outside. Cas didn’t talk to me much. He left water, a sandwich I couldn’t even finish, and stayed in his own space. Ranger would nose the crack in the door, but I didn’t have the energy to get up and pet him.

By the second day, my skin felt wrong. Too tight, too loose, too everything. My bones were humming, restless and aching, like someone had threaded barbed wire through my joints. I tried to keep quiet, but every few hours a groan or a sharp breath would rip out of me without warning. Cas would pause outside the door but never come in.

On the third day, hell cracked open.
It started with the cold sweats — skin clammy one second, burning the next. Then the cramps hit. My stomach twisted like a knot being pulled tighter and tighter, until I was on the floor, rocking back and forth, arms wrapped around my middle. My head pounded so hard I thought I’d split my skull. I couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t do anything but exist in that endless, pulsing pain.

Every shadow in the room looked like Michael’s silhouette. Every creak in the floorboards sounded like someone creeping up to drag me back. I started talking to myself — first whispering, then muttering, then full-on arguing with people who weren’t there. My mother’s voice floated in sometimes, soft and sweet, telling me it was almost over. Other times, it was John’s — harsh, biting, calling me weak.

By day four, I stank. My hair was greasy, my shirt was plastered to my back with sweat, my hands shook so bad I couldn’t hold the water Cas left me without spilling it down my chin. I scratched at my arms until they were red and raw, chasing itches that weren’t really there. My teeth hurt. My eyes hurt. Even my fingernails felt wrong.

Cas checked in once — opened the door a crack, stood there with a clean towel in his hands.
“You should shower,” he said quietly. “You’ll feel better.”
I wanted to tell him no, that moving would kill me, but instead I just stared. I think he saw it — the hollowness, the way my body was giving out. He left the towel anyway, closing the door behind him.

By the fifth day, I was begging without realizing it. Not for Michael — for anything to make it stop. My voice was hoarse from calling out, my throat dry even though I drank all the water I could get down. I cried that night. Full-on, ugly, broken sobs into the pillow because I didn’t know who I was without the poison. I thought about walking out, finding Michael, just to make the shaking stop. My legs even took me halfway down the hall before Ranger stepped in front of me, blocking the door. He didn’t bark. Just stood there and looked up at me, those big brown eyes holding me in place.

Day six was… quiet. Not better — just quieter. The pain was still there, deep and dull, but my head wasn’t buzzing as loud. I could hear the clock ticking in the living room, Cas moving dishes in the kitchen. The world was still a little blurry, my body still weak, but I hadn’t run yet. That counted for something.

Day seven, I sat outside for the first time. Just on the porch, wrapped in a blanket, watching the light change. My hands still trembled, my eyes still darted to every movement like it might be Michael, but for a few minutes… I could breathe. Cas came out with a mug of coffee — decaf, he said — and set it beside me. He didn’t sit down, but he stayed in the doorway, watching me like he didn’t trust the quiet.

I knew I wasn’t cured. Hell, I knew I was maybe one bad night away from running again. But that first week… it tore me open. Stripped everything down until there was nothing left but the raw, ugly truth of what I’d done to myself.

And the truth was, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be saved....

I don’t even remember standing up.
One second I was sitting on the edge of the bed, head in my hands, rocking through another cramp that felt like my insides were twisting into knots… and the next I was halfway down the hallway, shoes in my hands, the front door in sight. My mind was blank except for that one thought — just one hit, just one, make it stop.

My skin was crawling so bad I wanted to rip it off. My joints ached like I’d been thrown down a flight of stairs. Every nerve ending screamed for relief, and I knew Michael could give it to me. I could almost feel the burn in my veins, the haze sliding over my brain, the blessed nothingness.

My hand was on the doorknob when I heard him.
“Dean.”

It wasn’t loud. Wasn’t even angry. Just my name, said in that low, steady voice Cas uses when he’s not trying to scare me — when he’s just there.

I froze. My chest was heaving like I’d run miles. I couldn’t turn around, but I felt him move closer, his footsteps slow, careful, like he was approaching something wild and hurt.
“I know it hurts,” he said. “I know you think it’ll help.”

I shook my head. “You don’t—” My voice cracked hard. “You don’t know what it’s like.”

“I don’t,” he admitted. “But I know what it’s like to watch someone you love disappear one piece at a time. And I don’t want to lose you, Dean.”

Something broke in me right there. My knees gave out before I could think, and I ended up on the floor by the door, shaking, breathing like I’d swallowed glass. Cas didn’t hesitate — he crouched in front of me, slid my shoes out of my hands, and reached up to cup the back of my neck. His palm was warm.

“You’re staying,” he said. Not a command. Not a plea. Just… a fact.

He pulled me up, slow and steady, like I was made of glass. Guided me back down the hall and into the guest room. I felt so damn small. My skin was cold, my teeth chattering even though sweat was dripping down my temples. Cas didn’t say anything as he grabbed the extra blanket from the chair and wrapped it around my shoulders, tucking it in like he was making sure not a single draft could touch me.

The way his hands moved — gentle, deliberate — it was like being a kid again, just for a second. Like when Mom used to sit me on the couch with a blanket after I got sick, her fingers smoothing over my hair, her voice soft. It hurt to remember, but it also… felt good. And that messed me up even worse.

Cas sat on the edge of the bed and dipped the corner of a washcloth into a bowl of cool water. He pressed it to my forehead, my temples, my neck. I let my eyes close, just breathing in the smell of his soap, the faint warmth of his body next to me. I didn’t deserve this. I didn’t deserve him. But I couldn’t make myself pull away.

“You’re burning up,” he murmured, like he was talking to himself. His thumb brushed my temple, slow and soothing. “We’ll get through this. Just a little longer.”

I don’t know when the tears started — they weren’t loud, just this quiet leaking I couldn’t stop. Cas didn’t call attention to it. He just kept tending to me like it was the most natural thing in the world, like I wasn’t the guy who’d put that bruise on his face, like I wasn’t a disaster in human skin.

For the first time in days, maybe weeks, I let myself lean into it. Let myself feel his hand steadying me, the weight of the blanket around my shoulders, the faint sound of Ranger’s nails clicking in the hall. And somewhere in all that, between the cold rag and the warm blanket, I remembered how it felt to be taken care of.

I didn’t say thank you. Couldn’t. But I think he knew.

When I woke again, it was dark. Not the soft, safe kind of dark — the thick kind, where the air feels heavy and the shadows press in. My body ached like I’d been wrung out and left to dry. Every muscle twitched with that restless, gnawing need.

The first thing I saw was him. Cas, still in the same spot in the chair beside the bed. His elbows rested on his knees, head tilted toward me like he’d been watching for any sign I might bolt. The lamp was on low, throwing gold light across his face, catching in the bruise under his eye.

“You’re awake,” he said quietly.

I grunted, throat too dry to answer properly. My stomach felt hollow and sour, but before I could think of what I wanted, he was already reaching for the tray beside him.

“Try this,” he murmured, lifting a mug of soup — steam curling faintly into the air. The smell hit me, warm and salty, and my stomach cramped in response. He slid an arm under my shoulders and helped me sit up, like I weighed nothing. My hands shook too much to hold the mug, so he held it for me, tilting it just enough for me to sip.

It was too much, too fast — three mouthfuls in and my stomach lurched hard. I barely had time to shove the blanket aside before it all came up, hot and sour, splattering into the bowl he shoved under my chin in a practiced motion. My whole body shook with the force of it, sweat running down my back.

Cas didn’t flinch. Didn’t curse. Didn’t push me away.
He just held the bowl steady with one hand, his other bracing the back of my neck, fingers rubbing slow circles like he was grounding me.

When it was over, I was breathing like I’d just gone ten rounds with someone twice my size. My head hung forward, strings of hair plastered to my damp forehead. I wanted to apologize, but all that came out was a broken, “Cas…”

“I’ve got you,” he said. Simple. Steady.

He set the bowl aside, wiped my mouth and chin with a fresh towel, then eased me back against the pillows. His hand lingered at my temple, brushing damp strands away. He didn’t look tired, though I knew he had to be. His gaze stayed on me like I was something worth keeping alive, even when I couldn’t see it myself.

I closed my eyes, feeling the cool rag return to my forehead, the blanket tucked around me again. And in that small, quiet moment — with my body shaking, my skin clammy, my mind still screaming for an escape — I let myself believe him.

Just for a little while...

Chapter Text

Morning came slow, like it didn’t want to see me either. My whole body still felt wrong — sweat-slick, bones aching like they’d been filled with sand. I was sitting up in bed because lying down made me feel trapped, my knees pulled up, head hanging between them.

Cas was in the kitchen. I could hear him moving around — quiet, deliberate. He didn’t move like he was trying to avoid waking me. More like he didn’t want to startle me.

When he came back in, he was holding a cup of tea instead of coffee. No caffeine, he’d said. Too rough on my system right now. He set it on the nightstand and sat in the chair beside me, that steady blue gaze fixed on me like he was checking if I was still in one piece.

“We need to talk about next steps,” he said.

I hated that phrase — next steps. It made it sound like this was some organized process, when really it was just me trying not to crawl out the window to find Michael.

“What steps?” I rasped. My voice was still wrecked from vomiting all night.

“Keeping you here. Getting you through the next week without you leaving in the middle of the night.” He didn’t raise his voice, but there was steel under it. “Setting boundaries so I’m not enabling you — and so you know exactly what happens if you walk out.”

I didn’t answer. I didn’t have to. We both knew if Michael showed up right now, I’d be on that road before I even had shoes on.

And like I’d summoned him just by thinking it — there was a sound outside. A knock. Too light to be Bobby. Too deliberate to be a stranger.

Cas didn’t move. Just looked at me, his jaw tightening. “Don’t,” he said quietly.

The knock came again. This time, a voice, low and almost playful. “Dean… c’mon, man. Just wanna talk.”

Michael.

It was like my veins lit up. Every nerve fired at once. My chest hurt from the want of it, from the pull of knowing exactly what was on the other side of that door. Cas’s hand gripped the armrest like if he let go, I’d bolt.

“You open that door, you won’t come back,” Cas said.

I didn’t move. Not because I didn’t want to — but because my legs wouldn’t work. The knock came again, sharper this time. Then footsteps fading away.

Cas stood, closed the blinds, locked the door.

I just sat there shaking, hating how easy it would’ve been.

That night, I didn’t sleep. Every time my eyes closed, I saw Lisa. Not the Lisa from years back — the one I met in the sunlight — but the Lisa in the dark, the Lisa with Michael’s shadow over her. The Lisa who’d been crying, struggling, and looking at me like I was the only rope she could grab. And I’d looked away.

I thought maybe I could carry it, like I did everything else, but it was eating me alive. So when the sun came up, I left. Not to Michael. Not to anyone else. To Benny.

He opened the door still in a t-shirt and jeans, hair a mess. Didn’t ask why I was there. Just waved me in.

We sat at his kitchen table. I couldn’t even look at him at first. The words stuck in my throat until they were almost choking me. And then they came out all at once.

“I saw him do it,” I said, and my voice cracked so bad I had to stop. “Michael. To Lisa. Why she does not go to work anymore. Why she hates touches. Why she hates people. I saw him—” My jaw clenched until my teeth ached. “She looked at me. She was begging me without saying it. And I told her to stop. I told her to stop fighting him, Benny. I didn’t… I didn’t—”

Benny’s eyes didn’t flinch. Didn’t look away. He just let me talk.

“I turned my head,” I went on. “I heard her cry and I… I didn’t move. Didn’t even tell him to stop. And when she pushed at him, I told her to quit making it worse. Like it was her fault. Like I was—” My voice broke so hard I had to press my hand to my mouth. “I’m worse than him. I’m worse.”

Benny leaned forward, arms folded on the table. His voice was low, steady, no sugarcoating. “You were already under, Dean. You were drowning in it, and you let it make you smaller. That’s what the poison does. It strips you down until you don’t recognize yourself. But you’re still in there. I’ve seen it. You’ve got to decide if you’re gonna dig him out, or bury him.”

I wanted to argue. To tell him that there wasn’t anything left worth digging out. But the thing about Benny — he doesn’t say what you want to hear. He says what’s true. And that truth sat heavy in my chest, sharp as glass.

My hands were shaking on the table. “What if she never forgives me?”

He looked me dead in the eye. “Then you learn how to live with what you did without letting it be the end of you. Or you let it eat you whole. Only two ways it goes.”

I think that was the first time in a long time I actually let myself cry without trying to hide it. It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t quiet. It was the kind of crying that left you empty, but in a way that maybe made space for something else.

And the worst part? I still wanted Michael.

I walked back to Cas’s place slow, the kind of slow where every step feels like you’re dragging something invisible behind you. My chest was still tight from crying at Benny’s, my head pounding from both the withdrawal and the weight of what I’d said.

When I stepped inside, Cas was at the table with a book open, reading glasses low on his nose. He looked up instantly. His eyes scanned my face like he was counting the damage.

“You’ve been somewhere,” he said. Not a question.

“Benny’s,” I muttered. I set my jacket on the back of a chair. “Told him about Lisa.”

Cas didn’t move for a long time, didn't question what about Lisa. Finally, he just closed the book and set it aside. “How deep is it, Dean? With Michael?”

“Too deep,” I admitted before I could stop myself. “You don’t… You don’t get it, Cas. He’s like—” I swallowed hard. “Like if poison could talk, if it could tell you you’re right about every awful thing you think about yourself, and still make you want more.”

He didn’t look away. “Then I do get it.”

Before I could answer, the knock at the door was replaced by the sound of it opening — Sam, tall and warm, followed by Gabriel who already had his arm slung over Sam’s shoulder. They looked ridiculous in the way only two people who adore each other can, Sam carrying a pie and Gabriel holding a bouquet of flowers like they were coming to a holiday dinner.

“Thought we’d check in on the invalid,” Gabriel grinned, then immediately wrinkled his nose. “Oof, okay, you look like death microwaved.”

Sam shot him a look but was already walking over to hug me. I let him. It was easier than shrugging him off.

Then my phone buzzed in my pocket. Once. Twice. Then it started ringing, and the name on the screen made my stomach drop. Michael.

I didn’t answer.

It stopped. Then started again. Again. And again.

I finally turned it over on the table so no one could see the screen, but I could still hear the voicemail pings. A dozen of them, stacking up.

When I checked later, I knew what I’d find — Michael’s voice thick with mockery, spitting filth, alternating between sweet promises and sharp threats. I didn’t listen now. Couldn’t.

Sam noticed. “You wanna talk about—”

“No,” I cut him off. My voice came out sharper than I meant. “Not right now.”

They didn’t push. Cas moved into the kitchen, came back with tea for everyone, setting mine down last.

That night, after Sam and Gabriel left — after their warmth and noise faded out into the dark — I stayed in the living room with Cas. We didn’t talk much. He sat beside me on the couch, reading again, while I picked at the edge of a blanket.

Somewhere between the page turns, I realized I’d leaned into him. Not enough to be obvious, but enough to feel the steady weight of him beside me.

Cas shifted just enough to let my head rest against his shoulder. No questions. No lecture. Just the quiet hum of his breathing.

Outside, the street was empty. My phone was silent. For the first time in weeks, I let my eyes close without bracing for whatever waited in the dark.

And maybe it was the exhaustion, or the tea, or just that Cas didn’t move — but I fell asleep like that, feeling safe.

Chapter Text

It’s been thirteen days.

Thirteen days since the last hit, since I let Michael put that poison in my veins and silence the screaming in my head. Thirteen days since my body started turning on me like it wants me dead.

I’m sweating so much my shirt clings to me like wet paper. Goosebumps still run up my arms anyway, like I’m freezing from the inside out. My eyes won’t stop watering, my nose feels like someone turned on a faucet inside it, and every single muscle in my body is twitching without my permission. My bones ache like they’ve been cracked and glued back together wrong. My stomach is a war zone — cramps, stabbing pain, waves of nausea so hard I’ve puked until there’s nothing left, just dry heaves that wring me out. And the diarrhea hasn’t let up either; I’m so dehydrated my lips feel like sandpaper.

It’s been almost two weeks, but it feels like a lifetime.

I sit hunched over on the couch, a blanket over my shoulders but still shivering, trying to keep from moaning with every movement. Cas is across from me in the armchair, elbows on his knees, hands clasped like he’s holding himself back from getting up.

“You want to go to him, don’t you?” he says finally.

I don’t answer. My jaw clenches.

“You think I don’t see it, Dean? The way your legs bounce, the way you can’t sit still? You think I don’t hear you pacing the hall in the middle of the night?”

“I can’t do this anymore,” I snap, voice cracking. “I can’t—”

“You can.” His tone doesn’t rise, but it cuts like a blade. “You just don’t want to. There’s a difference. And I can’t hold you here. You’re not a prisoner. If you walk out that door to Michael, it’s your choice.”

I glare at him, my chest heaving. “You think this is about choice? You think I want this?”

“I think,” he says slowly, “that you want relief more than you want recovery. And I can’t make you switch them.”

His words hit harder than I expect. My throat closes up. I stand so fast the blanket slides off my shoulders and onto the floor.

I’m out the door before I even know where I’m going.

Michael’s building is only six blocks away. I walk them on autopilot, my hood pulled low, hands shoved in my pockets. Every step makes my stomach cramp harder. I can smell him in my head already — that chemical sweet scent that means I won’t feel like this anymore.

I stop halfway up the cracked steps to his door. My hands are shaking so bad I grip the railing. All I have to do is knock. All I have to do is see his face, and it’ll all go away.

But I don’t.

I don’t because I can still hear Cas’s voice in my head — You want relief more than you want recovery.

I back down the steps, one at a time. Then I turn and just start walking with no plan. My body’s screaming at me for being an idiot, for walking away from the one thing that could stop this.

I end up outside Benny’s place.

He opens the door with that slow, steady look of his, like he already knows what state I’m in.

“You’re lookin’ rough, brother,” he says, but his voice is soft.

“Yeah, thanks,” I mutter, stepping inside.

Benny doesn’t press. He just gets me a glass of water and sets it on the coffee table while I collapse on his couch.

For a while we don’t talk. I just sit there, trying not to groan out loud every time my legs cramp.

Finally he says, “You were at Michael’s, weren’t you?”

I don’t answer.

“Dean, I’m gonna tell you something you already know, but maybe you need to hear it with fresh ears.” He leans forward, forearms on his knees. “You ain’t sick because you’re weak. You’re sick because you’re healing. Your body’s tryin’ to remember what it’s like without that poison in it. And yeah, it’s hell. But hell’s what you crawl through to get to the other side.”

I let out a sharp, bitter laugh. “What if I can’t make it to the other side?”

Benny’s eyes stay locked on mine. “Then you’ll die in the middle. And I ain’t ready to bury you, brother.”

The words hit deep. I swallow hard, but it feels like there’s glass in my throat.

“You think you don’t deserve help,” he continues, his tone steady but unflinching. “But that’s just the junk talkin’. Truth is, you never deserved what put you here in the first place. And if you keep lettin’ Michael be the one holdin’ the map, you’re gonna wind up in a ditch with no way out.”

I rub my hands over my face, trembling. “It’s been almost two weeks, Benny.”

“And you got another two in you. Then another two. You don’t quit ‘cause it’s hard. You quit when you’re dead. And you ain’t dead yet.”

I let out a shaky breath.

We just sit there after that, the air thick with everything I’m not saying, until my muscles loosen just enough that I can lean back into the couch without wincing.

By the time I make it back to the house, it’s dark. The streetlamps blur in my vision, my body still aching in places I didn’t even know could hurt.

Cas is in the kitchen when I push the door open. He looks up from whatever book he’s pretending to read, his face unreadable.

“I went to Benny’s,” I say before he can ask. My voice is rough, like it’s been dragged over gravel.

There’s the tiniest flicker in his expression — relief, maybe — but it’s gone before I can be sure. “Did you?”

“Yeah.” I drop into the chair across from him, my legs barely holding me. “I… I didn’t go to Michael’s.”

Cas closes the book slowly, setting it down on the table. “That’s good.”

“I love you,” I blurt out. The words tumble out so fast they almost trip over each other. “I miss you so much, Cas.”

His eyes soften, but his hands stay on the table, fingers tightening like he’s holding himself back. “Dean…”

“I mean it,” I say, leaning forward. “I miss falling asleep next to you. I miss—hell, I miss hearing you breathe in the middle of the night. I miss… everything.” My throat burns.

“I want to,” Cas says quietly. “God, I want to kiss you. I want to hold you. But I can’t. Not yet. Not while I’m still… afraid.”

The word afraid slices deeper than anything else could have. I nod, swallowing it down, even though it feels like a lump of lead in my chest.

“I know,” I whisper. “I get it.”

We sit in silence for a moment, the air between us heavy.

“I want to go to a home rehab center,” I say finally. My voice cracks halfway through, but I force the words out. “Not just stay here and try to tough it out. I need… structure. I need people who know what they’re doing. I’m not gonna make it like this.”

Cas studies me, searching my face like he’s trying to see if I’m serious. “You’re certain?”

“Yeah.” My hands are shaking again, but this time it’s not from withdrawal — it’s from saying it out loud. “I’m… I’m ready to try.”

Something in his shoulders eases, just barely. “Then we’ll start looking tomorrow.”

For the first time in days, I feel a flicker of something like hope.

Chapter Text

I didn’t sleep the night before. Couldn’t. My brain kept swinging between this is the right call and you’re about to lock yourself up for nothing. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Michael’s smirk in the dark, heard that oily voice telling me rehab was a joke, that I’d never last a week.

But morning came anyway.

Cas had already printed out the rehab brochures he’d been obsessively researching. Sam was sitting at the table, nursing a mug of coffee like it was his last lifeline. Bobby was leaning against the counter with that grim, narrowed look he gets when he’s trying not to say I told you so. Benny had both arms crossed, but his eyes softened when I walked in. Ellen was leaning against the wall beside Jo, who was scrolling her phone but clearly listening. Gabriel, predictably, was sprawled on a chair, eating from a box of donuts he’d probably stolen.

“So… I’m going to rehab,” I said.

The words felt too big in my mouth, but I forced them out anyway.

Nobody spoke for a beat. Then Ellen smiled — not a wide, shiny smile, but a small, real one. “About damn time.”

Sam’s face crumpled into relief. “Dean—”

“Don’t,” I cut him off, holding up a hand. “Don’t start crying or hugging me. I’m not doing this for a medal.”

Bobby gave a short grunt. “You’re doin’ it to not die. That’s enough.”

Benny’s voice was low, steady. “You’re doin’ it for you. And that’s the only reason that matters.”

We talked about the place — it was an old converted convent outside the city, with a decent track record, plenty of structure, and staff who knew how to deal with guys like me. Cas had gone over it like it was a battle plan. I could tell he’d been preparing for this moment for a long time.

The whole time we talked, my phone kept buzzing in my pocket. Same number over and over. I didn’t have to look to know it was Michael.

You don’t need them, Dean.
You’re better than this rehab crap.
One last hit before you go in.

I shoved the phone deeper into my jacket and ignored it.

We got to the rehab center just after lunch. The building was pale brick, the kind of architecture that made you think of Catholic school — high, narrow windows, arched doorways, and those weirdly spotless hallways that smell faintly of bleach and lemon cleaner. The air inside was cool, almost too cool, like they kept it that way on purpose to wake you up.

At the reception desk, a woman with tired eyes but a gentle smile slid me a clipboard. “Fill this out, honey. Someone will come get you for intake.”

The questions were invasive — drug history, health conditions, next of kin, psychiatric background. I felt my hands sweating as I wrote heroin, pills, alcohol in the “substance of choice” section. Cas sat beside me, quiet, his presence solid but distant.

While we waited, I caught sight of a guy maybe in his mid-twenties pacing near the vending machines. Gaunt face, twitchy hands. He looked at me for a second too long before the nurse called him away.

Then a counselor — mid-40s, button-up shirt, ID badge that read “Marla” — came to get me. “Dean Winchester? Let’s get you settled.”

Cas walked with me down a long hallway lined with numbered doors. We passed a rec room where a few residents sat watching TV, their faces slack with boredom or exhaustion. Someone laughed too loud from somewhere down the hall.

My room was small — two twin beds, two dressers, a window with a view of the back garden. The other bed was already made, neatly, with a folded sweatshirt at the foot.

“Your roommate’s Jack,” Marla said. “He’s been here a while.”
After a bit of explaining, Marla and Castiel walked outside to discuss something.

As if on cue, the door swung open and in walked a kid who couldn’t have been older than twenty-one. Blond hair, clear eyes that looked like they’d seen too much. He dropped a pack of gum on his dresser and glanced at me.

“You’re new.”

“Yeah,” I said.

He plopped down on his bed and chewed a stick of gum, watching me like I was an animal he wasn’t sure would bite. “What’re you here for?”

I hesitated. “Heroin. Pills. Booze. Take your pick.”

He nodded slowly, like he’d heard it all before. “Meth,” he said. “That’s my thing. Been here three months. You’ll hate the first week, maybe two. But it gets… manageable.”

Jack leaned back, hands behind his head. “You want the real rundown? Staff-wise, trust Marla and trust Dr. Keane. Don’t trust Rich, he’s a tech who steals people’s stuff. Breakfast is decent, lunch is garbage, dinner’s hit or miss. Don’t get too close to anyone who’s always in the smoke pit — that’s where most of the trouble starts. If you feel like you’re gonna use, talk to Ruth at the desk, she’s blunt but she cares. And don’t piss off Denise, she runs group and she’ll make your life hell if you act like a smartass.”

I smirked faintly despite myself. “Sounds like you’ve got the place figured out.”

He shrugged. “When you’ve got nothing better to do than survive, you learn the rules quick.”

That hit me harder than I expected.

Marla entered the room again alone,.

Marla gave me the basic schedule — breakfast at 7:30, group therapy at 9, personal counseling at 11, lunch at noon, activities or classes in the afternoon, dinner at 6, optional group at 7, lights out at 10. No phones, no outside visits for the first two weeks.

Cas stood in the doorway the whole time, his eyes never leaving me. When it was time for him to leave, he just said, “Call me when you can.”

I nodded. My throat was too tight to answer.

As the door shut behind him, I sat on the edge of my bed, staring at my hands. Somewhere in the distance, I thought I could hear my phone buzzing in the locked storage box they’d taken it to.

Michael was still out there.

But so was everyone else.

Chapter Text

The first sound I heard was the hum of the fluorescent light above the door, buzzing like it had a personal grudge against me.
I wasn’t awake so much as I’d surfaced — like a body breaking through a thick, filthy layer of oil. My skin was slick with sweat, my mouth tasted sour, and my bones ached like they’d been swapped with rusted scrap metal in my sleep.

Across the room, Jack was sitting up in his bed, his legs crossed and his elbows resting on his knees. He had the same expression he’d worn last night — restless, sharp-eyed, like a guy who’d learned to scan a room for threats before thinking about breathing.

“You’re awake,” he said, not a question, not a greeting. Just an observation.

I pushed myself upright slowly. Every joint popped. “Barely,” I croaked.

He studied me for a second, then reached over to the Styrofoam cup on his nightstand and took a sip.
“You’re probably wondering how bad this is gonna get. Whether you’re gonna make it through the week without breaking.”

I didn’t answer, but he didn’t need me to.

“You want to know the worst thing I ever did for meth?” he said flatly. “And I mean the absolute bottom. No lies.”

I shook my head — but he kept going.

“I sold my sister’s pain meds after her surgery. She was bedridden, couldn’t even get to the bathroom without help. I went in while she was asleep, took the pills right off her nightstand. She found out when she woke up crying in pain. She didn’t say anything for days, just… looked at me different. And when she finally did talk, she said, ‘Jack, I hope you die before you do that to someone else.’” He leaned back against the wall, eyes unfocused. “I didn’t stop. I went right out that night and smoked it all in one go. Didn’t think about her. Just thought about not shaking for a couple hours.”

His voice didn’t break. It didn’t need to. The honesty in it was worse than any tears.

I swallowed, throat tight. “You wanna know mine?”

Jack didn’t even blink. “Yeah.”

I stared at the floor because I couldn’t look at him. “Michael, my um dealer. Lisa, my ex-boss. He—” The words caught in my throat, but I forced them out. "He raped her. She looked at me, and she was terrified. And I… turned my head. Told her to stop fighting him. Like if she didn’t fight, it wouldn’t be as bad. Like that was helping. I let it happen.”

Jack didn’t move. Didn’t flinch. Just said, “That’s the thing about using. You do shit you can’t ever scrub out, and it never stops playing in your head. Doesn’t matter if you stay clean fifty years — you’ll still see it when you close your eyes.”

Group therapy was in a cramped room that smelled faintly of disinfectant and burned coffee. The chairs were plastic and arranged in a loose circle. Denise sat at the head of it, her notebook in her lap, her expression calm but sharp.

She didn’t talk much. She didn’t have to. She’d look at you a certain way and the words would just spill out.

One by one, people told their truths — the ugly, unvarnished versions. A man admitted he’d pawned his kid’s bike for a bottle of vodka. A woman said she left her newborn alone for eight hours while she was on a crack binge. Someone else confessed to stealing their dying father’s morphine drip.

When it came to me, my throat locked up. But Denise just waited, patient as stone.

“My name’s Dean,” I said. My voice sounded foreign. “And I’ve hurt everyone who’s ever tried to love me. Sometimes on purpose. Sometimes just by being there. And I don’t know how to stop doing it.”

Denise didn’t fill the silence after. She just gave me that same steady nod, and the next person spoke. But I could feel her eyes on me for the rest of the session, like she was measuring how much more I could take before I broke.

Personal therapy with Dr. Keane was worse.

His office wasn’t cozy. It wasn’t meant to be. Just two chairs, a small desk, a box of tissues within arm’s reach. He sat across from me, his posture loose but his gaze locked on me like he was cataloging every flinch.

“Dean,” he said, “you’re not here because of heroin. Heroin’s just the tourniquet you’ve been using on a wound that’s been bleeding for decades. You’re here because you’ve mistaken numbness for safety.”

I tried to laugh it off, but it came out brittle. “You got that from the intake form?”

“No,” he said simply. “I got it from the way you keep looking at the floor when you talk about yourself. Like you’re not allowed to take up space.”

He asked about my dad. About what love looked like growing up. About the first time I felt like I didn’t matter. Every question landed like a hit to the ribs. I wanted to tell him to shut up. I wanted to walk out. But my legs wouldn’t move.

By the time I left, I felt like he’d peeled something raw and twitching out of me and left it exposed to the air.

When I got back to the room, Jack was lying flat on his bed, headphones in, staring at the ceiling like it was talking to him.

“How was Keane?” he asked without looking.

“Like getting my skin ripped off,” I muttered, collapsing onto my own bed.

Jack grinned faintly. “Good. Means you didn’t waste the hour.”

After dinner, when the building was quiet enough that every sound seemed magnified.
The fluorescent lights in the hallway cast everything in that sickly, institutional yellow, and I was headed back to my room with Jack when the front door opened.

A nurse signed in a new patient — a tall guy in his thirties with sunken cheeks, carrying a garbage bag full of clothes. He barely looked up as he shuffled toward the bath area. And then it hit me.

That smell.
That sweet, acrid, chemical tang that burned the back of your throat.
The ghost of a hundred highs and crashes.

It slammed into me so hard I stopped in the hallway like I’d been punched. My heart kicked into overdrive. My palms got wet. It was like my veins woke up and started screaming.

I could taste it in the air. Feel the phantom burn in my nose. My body started moving before my brain could catch up — my feet shifting, my shoulders squaring, my hands flexing. That smell was fresh. That meant he’d used not long ago. Which meant…

“Dean.” Jack’s voice snapped like a rubber band next to me. He’d seen it. “Hey. Look at me.”

I didn’t. I couldn’t. My eyes locked on the hallway where the guy had disappeared.

“Dean,” Jack repeated, stepping in front of me. “This is bad. You’re jonesing.”

I could barely hear him over the pounding in my head. My jaw ached from clenching it so hard. My legs wouldn’t stay still — I was bouncing from foot to foot, like I could burn the craving out if I just kept moving. My skin felt too tight, my chest too small.

Jack swore under his breath. “Shit. Stay here. Don’t— just don’t follow him.”

He ran — actually ran — down the hall to the staff wing, and I caught fragments of him banging on a door, saying, “Keane! We need you — now!”

By the time Dr. Keane appeared, hair mussed, shirt half-buttoned, I was pacing the length of the hallway like a caged animal. My breath was short, sharp. My fists kept curling like they were ready to take something, anything.

“Dean.” Keane’s voice was calm but firm. “Look at me.”

I kept pacing. “I can smell it.”

“I know you can,” he said, stepping closer. “That smell is a trigger. It’s not a need. Right now your brain is lying to you, telling you you’ll die without it.”

“I will,” I snapped, the words shaking. “You don’t— you don’t get it, I—”

“I do get it. You’ve survived without it for days. You can survive another ten minutes. Right now I want you to sit.”

I didn’t want to. Sitting felt like death. But Keane didn’t break eye contact, and something in me gave in. I slumped onto one of the plastic chairs lining the wall. My legs bounced so hard my knees hurt.

“Breathe,” Keane said. “In through your nose, out through your mouth. Jack — grab him some water.”

Jack returned with a paper cup, his own hands trembling slightly. I drained it in seconds, barely tasting it. The smell in my head was so strong I wanted to claw my skin off.

Minutes passed like hours. My vision tunneled. My stomach twisted, and without warning I leaned over and vomited onto the floor between my shoes. Acid burned my throat.

Keane crouched beside me, a steady hand on my back. “That’s your body purging adrenaline. You’re safe. This will pass.”

Safe. That word felt like a bad joke. My shirt was plastered to my skin with sweat. My fingers ached from curling into fists. My head was pounding like I’d been hit with a bat.

Jack hovered nearby, jaw tight, like he was seeing too much of himself in me.

It took almost forty minutes before my breathing slowed enough for Keane to let me go back to my room. By then I felt wrung out, hollow. I lay on the bed in my sweat-soaked clothes, shivering even though the room was warm.

Jack sat on his own bed, headphones off now, just watching me. “That’s the worst of it,” he said quietly. “First time’s always a bitch.”

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. I just stared at the ceiling and prayed to make it through the night without smelling that chemical sweetness again.

Jack didn’t say much when we got back to the room. Neither did I.
I collapsed onto my bed, still clammy, still shivering under my damp T-shirt. He dumped his backpack in the corner, sat on his bed for about thirty seconds… then got up again.

He rummaged in his dresser, pulled out a scuffed black Nintendo Switch, and didn’t even look at me when he said, “You play Mario Kart?”

I let out something between a laugh and a groan. “Not since I was a kid.”

“Good. I’ll win.” He hooked it up to the tiny TV mounted in the corner, tossed me one of the controllers, and sat cross-legged like we were just two guys killing time in a dorm. No rehab. No triggers. No vomit still burning the back of my throat.

We played.
For hours.
The hum of the fan filled the quiet between trash talk and the click-clack of the controllers. Jack wasn’t good with words — I could tell — but he didn’t have to be. The game was his way of keeping me anchored. Every time my mind drifted back to that smell, he’d nudge my shoulder or crack some dumb joke about how I was “cheating” even though he was wiping the floor with me.

At one point, between races, he glanced over and asked, “How old are you anyway?”

“Twenty-five,” I said, stretching my neck.

“Damn. Thought you were older. No offense — you just… I dunno, carry yourself like you’ve seen some shit.”

I huffed out a humorless laugh. “Yeah. That’s one way to put it.”

“You married?”

“Yeah,” I said after a pause. “Been with Cas… we were together five years before getting engaged. Engaged for a year. Married for five now.”

Jack’s eyes widened. “Eleven years with the same person? That’s… that’s like… half my life.”

“Feels like longer,” I said quietly, my fingers tightening on the controller.

He leaned back, eyes still on the screen as the next race loaded. “I’ve never even made it past six months. Guess that’s what happens when most of your dating life is while you’re using.”

I shrugged, watching our characters line up on the track. “Guess so.”

Jack smirked. “Anyway, my love life’s a train wreck. Met this girl once at a bus stop, swore she was The One, then she stole my wallet. Should’ve been a sign.”

I chuckled despite myself. “Sounds like it.”

We kept playing, the hours bleeding together. My cravings dulled, the shaking eased, and for the first time all day, I felt almost human again — just a guy with a controller in his hands, not a mess of sweat, panic, and ghosts in his head.

Chapter Text

The first week was a crawl through glass.
Every morning started with sweat — sheets clinging to me, my T-shirt damp like I’d been standing in the rain. My body jerked and spasmed in ways I couldn’t control. My stomach was never still; sometimes I’d throw up nothing but bile, other times I’d be doubled over with cramps so bad I thought my bones would snap under the pressure. The food here was plain, bland — “easy on the gut” as Denise put it — but even a spoonful felt like it weighed a hundred pounds in my mouth.

Sleep came in fits. Half an hour here, maybe forty minutes there before the nightmares came clawing. I’d jolt awake with my hands shaking so hard I had to sit on them. Jack tried to distract me, talking shit over video games, but we both knew what those long silences meant.

By the time the second week bled in, I wasn’t shaking as violently, but the ache never left. The bone-deep pain. The kind that made you want to crawl out of your own skin.

And then there were the quiet moments — the ones that hurt the most.

I’d find myself lying in bed before lights-out, remembering things I didn’t deserve to remember. The way Cas’s lips felt when he kissed me first thing in the morning, that sleepy sigh he’d let out against my mouth. The dumb nicknames I’d given him — “Blue Eyes,” “Angel,” “Sugar” — ones that made him roll his eyes but still smile in that small, shy way. I remembered him standing in the kitchen barefoot, hair messy, making me breakfast like he didn’t have a million better things to do — like the whole world wasn’t on fire.

He’d been… steady. The closest thing I’d ever had to safe. And I’d wrecked it.

It was during my second session of the second weej that I told Dr. Keane the truth. The kind of truth that sits in your chest like rot.

“I… I hit him,” I said, my voice sounding foreign even to me. “When I was high… I—”

He didn’t say anything, just kept his eyes on me, calm but unflinching.

“I thought… I thought he was hitting me. Or trying to. It’s hard to explain, but in my head, I was just… defending myself. But I wasn’t.” My throat felt tight, my palms sweating. “I broke his nose once. He couldn’t breathe right for weeks. I’ve bruised his ribs so bad he had trouble getting out of bed. There were days he couldn’t see out of one eye because it was swollen shut. He—” I stopped, a lump rising in my throat. “I almost broke his leg. Once I… I cracked his forehead on the corner of the counter. Blood everywhere.”

I didn’t even realize I was crying until my voice broke.

“Multiple days I left him… just… sitting there, hurt, and I’d go get high. Or disappear. Or… or blame him for it. Like it was his fault.”

My shoulders shook, and I dragged my hands over my face, but it didn’t stop the tears.

“He used to look at me like… like I was the person who was gonna take care of him. And I—” My breath hitched. “I’m the one who broke him.”

Dr. Keane finally leaned forward, voice low but steady — the kind that didn’t let you look away from it. “Dean… that’s a lot to carry. And it’s a lot to heal from — for both of you. But you’re here. That matters.”

But I wasn’t listening anymore. All I could see was Cas, standing there with his shirt buttoned wrong because his hands were trembling too much to do it right, a deep purple bruise blooming along his jaw, still making me coffee.

And I’d told myself I loved him.

I stayed in that chair long after the timer buzzed, head in my hands, my chest aching like I’d just been cut open.

Dr. Keane didn’t rush me out the door after the session was supposed to end. He just sat there, hands loosely folded, letting me catch my breath like I’d just been dragged out of deep water.

“Dean,” he said finally, voice low. “You can’t change what happened. You can only choose what happens next. You can keep punishing yourself until you drown, or you can decide this isn’t where your story ends. Cas doesn’t get to heal if you don’t. And you sure as hell don’t get to heal if you keep treating yourself like you’re only the man who did those things.”

My throat tightened again, but not from tears this time — from that weird pressure you get when someone calls you out and you can’t hide.

“You’re gonna hate yourself some days,” he went on. “And you’re gonna think you’ve ruined too much to fix. That’s the addiction talking. You’re here now — that’s the proof you can do something different.”

I nodded, even though my chest still felt hollow. He gave me a moment, then leaned back, signaling we were done for the night. “Try to sleep, Dean. That’s your only job right now.”

The hallway back to my room felt longer than usual. I kept seeing Cas’s face in my head — not the broken one, but the one from the old days. Back when we were just a couple of idiots figuring out how to love each other.

When I pushed the door open, Jack was sitting cross-legged on his bed with the Nintendo in his lap, squinting at the screen. He glanced up at me, eyebrows pulling together. “You look like somebody just told you the dog died.”

I gave him a flat look and tossed myself onto my bed. “Just therapy.”

He studied me for a second, then set the console down and flopped back dramatically. “Alright, spill it or I’m gonna keep guessing until you hate me.”

I let out a humorless laugh. “You already annoy me, kid.”

Jack grinned faintly but didn’t push with questions. Instead, he dug into the pocket of his hoodie and pulled out a crumpled snack-sized bag of pretzels. “Fine. Then eat something before you waste away and I have to explain to the staff why my roommate looks like a Victorian ghost.”

I took the bag without thinking, chewing slowly, and somewhere in the quiet between us, I just started talking.

“I’ve known Cas for eleven years,” I said, my voice softer than I meant it to be. “Met him when I was twenty-one. We were both too young to know what the hell we were doing. First year… it was like… I don’t even know how to explain it. Like being home for the first time.”

Jack didn’t interrupt, just tilted his head a little like he was trying to listen with more than his ears.

“We were together five years before we got engaged. Married for five now. I don’t… I don’t think I ever loved anybody like I love him. He had this… way about him. Steady. Gentle. He didn’t care how messy I was — he’d just… be there. Like the world could burn down and he’d still be making me coffee in the morning. Still looking at me like…” My throat closed up. “…like I was worth something.”

Jack shifted, looking uncomfortable in that way people do when they don’t have the right words. “Sounds like he really… loved you, man. Well love”

“Yeah,” I breathed. “And I didn’t protect him like I should’ve. I hurt him more than I can ever take back.”

Neither of us said anything for a while. Jack just slid the Nintendo over to me, flipping the screen toward a two-player game. “Then… maybe keep playing, huh? If you’re here, you’re trying. That’s something.”

I stared at him, this twenty-one-year-old kid with a whole lot of his own ghosts, and for the first time in a long time, I felt something close to hope.

Chapter Text

The second week passed in a strange haze of sameness. Mornings blurred into afternoons, the coffee always lukewarm by the time Dean got to it, the group therapy chairs still arranged in that perfect semi-circle, Jack still fidgeting in the one next to him. Dr. Keane’s voice became a steady anchor in the background of Dean’s days, grounding him when the itch under his skin tried to pull him somewhere darker. There were moments—tiny, unexpected ones—where he even laughed. It wasn’t a big, booming thing, but a low chuckle that felt foreign and yet right in his chest.

On the fourteenth day, the monotony broke.

Marla appeared in the doorway of the common room, her clipboard hugged to her chest. “Winchester,” she called, her voice carrying that mix of authority and warmth that always made Dean straighten up. “You’re approved for visitation starting tomorrow.”

He blinked, letting it sink in. The words were both heavy and light.

Marla stepped closer, lowering her voice so it was just for him. “There are rules,” she began, her tone firm but not unkind. “Visits are one hour long. They happen in the visitation room, under staff supervision. No physical contact beyond a hug or handshake—unless the visitor initiates. No passing of items without clearance. If things get too intense emotionally, I’ll step in. And—” her eyes softened, “you’re allowed to request who comes.”

Dean swallowed, already knowing. “Castiel,” he said, like the name itself was a lifeline.

She nodded, scribbling it down. “I’ll get him on the list.”

The next day, the visitation room was warmer than Dean expected. The walls were painted a soft beige, the furniture mismatched but homey. There was a big window with sheer curtains, sunlight filtering in like it was trying to make the place gentler than it really was. Dean sat in one of the chairs, tapping his knee, his breath shallow. He hadn’t seen Cas in weeks.

Then—there he was.

Castiel stepped inside wearing his trench coat despite the mild weather, looking every bit the steady, unshakable presence Dean remembered. But there was something quieter in his eyes, a softness that was cautious, almost guarded.

“Cas,” Dean breathed, standing so quickly the chair legs scraped the floor.

Cas moved toward him and, after a moment of hesitation, opened his arms. The hug was warm, solid, but brief—just long enough for Dean to press his face into the familiar crook of his neck before Cas eased back.

“You look… better,” Cas said, his voice low, like he didn’t want to disturb the fragile thing between them.

Dean smiled faintly, trying to fill the gap between them with lightness. “They’ve got me eating this oatmeal that tastes like punishment, so, y’know… thriving.”

Cas’ lips twitched—just barely—but he didn’t kiss him. His hand lingered on Dean’s shoulder, though, like maybe he wanted to.

They sat across from each other, their knees almost touching. Dean filled the silence with stories—about Jack’s awkward humor, about Dr. Keane’s steady guidance, about Denise, who was a hurricane if you crossed her but the best listener otherwise. Cas listened, eyes locked on him like every word mattered.

Halfway through, Jack wandered in, clearly sent by Marla with that same fidgety nervousness he had in group. Dean motioned him over.

“Cas, this is Jack,” Dean said. “Kid’s been keeping me from going totally nuts in here.”

Jack gave a small nod. “Hi. Uh… Dean talks about you a lot. Like, a lot a lot.”

Cas tilted his head slightly, the corner of his mouth lifting. “That’s good to know.”

The three of them sat together for the rest of the visit. Jack rambled about something ridiculous from group therapy, Dean laughed until his ribs ached, and Cas just… listened. Really listened. Even if there was a space between them still, Dean could feel the tether holding.

When Marla finally called time, Cas stood and hugged him again—this one longer, just enough to make Dean’s chest ache in that good, terrible way.

“I’ll be back,” Cas said simply.

Dean watched him go, heart both lighter and heavier than when he walked in.

That night, Dean lay flat on his back, eyes open in the dark like sleep was a foreign concept. He kept seeing it — Cas in that chair across from him, the quiet conversation, the soft look in his eyes, the way Dean swore he felt the air shift like something was about to happen… and then nothing. No kiss. Not even that little lean-in Cas always did, the one that made Dean’s breath hitch.

He tried telling himself it was fine, that maybe Cas didn’t want to push him after everything. But it kept crawling under his skin. It’s been months. We’ve been through hell. What the hell’s he waiting for?

By the third time Dean replayed the scene, he realized the part that hurt the most wasn’t the lack of a kiss — it was how deliberate it felt. Like Cas had thought about it, decided against it, and then sat there pretending it didn’t cross his mind.

The second visit came two days later. Same calm, same steady conversation about nothing important — the weather, a book Cas had been reading, Jack’s attempts at cooking. Dean caught Cas glancing at his hands more than once, like maybe he was thinking of reaching out. But every time, Cas folded them neatly in his lap instead.

The third visit, Dean leaned in for a hug before Cas left. Cas hesitated. It was only half a second, but Dean felt it like a punch. Cas did hug him, but it was quick, almost polite, like hugging a stranger you’d just met at church. Dean didn’t say anything, but the ache in his chest doubled in size.

By the fourth visit, the restraint was almost unbearable. Cas was kind, warm, and still… distant. He never sat close enough for their knees to bump. He laughed softly at Dean’s jokes but wouldn’t hold eye contact long when Dean got serious. When Dean tried to steer the talk toward what had happened between them before, Cas only said, “We’ll get there,” and changed the subject.

Jack noticed. Of course he did. That night after the fourth visit, he wandered into Dean’s room holding two mugs of tea like he’d been planning it.

“You’ve been… quiet,” Jack said, settling on the edge of the bed.

“I’m fine.”

Jack gave him a look that said you’re lying, and you know I know. “You’re not fine. Every time Cas comes by, you look happy at first, but after he leaves, you’re… different. Sad, I guess.”

Dean stared at the mug in his hands. “Maybe he’s just—” he cut himself off, jaw tightening. “I dunno. Forget it.”

Jack’s voice softened. “He’s probably scared too, you know. It’s not just you who went through all that. Maybe he’s waiting for you to tell him it’s okay.”

Dean swallowed hard, the tea suddenly tasting bitter. “Yeah. Maybe.” But the thought that Cas might still be scared — scared of him — sat heavy in his gut, making it hard to breathe.

Chapter Text

They told me this morning I’d be getting a group visit. Said it like it was supposed to lift my spirits. Instead my stomach twisted into knots I couldn’t untie. Group visits meant more eyes on me, more people trying to read me. And right now, I’m barely holding myself together.

The door cracks open and the room shifts. Benny’s laugh is the first thing I hear, that familiar booming sound that usually feels like home. Bobby’s behind him, muttering about something with Ellen right on his heels. Then Sam. My kid brother’s face softens the moment he sees me and my chest caves in. Gabriel trails behind, smug grin plastered on his face like he’s trying to lighten the mood.

And then him. Castiel.

My breath sticks like it’s caught on a barbed wire fence. His trench coat isn’t here, just a simple shirt, but it doesn’t matter — he still carries that gravity. He locks eyes with me for a second and it’s like somebody punches me in the gut. The others move in quick, hugging me, clapping me on the back, cracking jokes about the food here. But Cas… Cas just gives me the same small nod he’s been giving me since these visits started.

God, it tears me in half.

Benny’s the first to squeeze me in one of his bear hugs. “Damn, brother, you look better than I expected.”
“Yeah, well, low bar,” I rasp out, trying to hide the crack in my voice.

Bobby leans in close after. “You keepin’ up with the program?”
“Tryin’,” I say, but it sounds hollow even to my own ears.

I laugh when Ellen gives me a once-over and calls me a stubborn ass. I try to laugh when Gabriel offers me a candy bar he smuggled in. I even force a smile when Sam sits right next to me, his big, sad eyes telling me everything he doesn’t say out loud.

But through it all I keep glancing at Cas. Every damn time. He sits stiff in his chair like he’s made of stone, hands folded too tightly in his lap. When the group noise gets too loud, he looks at the floor. And when I stand up, just trying to close the gap, just wanting to touch him — he flinches. So small, so fast, but I see it.

And it kills me.

I pull back, pretending like I wasn’t even gonna hug him in the first place. My throat burns and I mumble something about needing water, but the truth is I just don’t want them to see me cry.

The visit drags on, all smiles and chatter on the surface, but underneath I feel like I’m rotting. Like I’m being punished by the person I love most. The whole damn world showed up to remind me I’m not alone, but Cas’ silence is louder than all of them combined.

When they finally file out — hugs, promises, “call us if you can” — I linger. My eyes find Cas one last time. He looks at me, and for a heartbeat I swear he wants to close the distance, swear I see it in his eyes. But then he drops his gaze. Walks out without touching me.

The second the door shuts behind them, I crumble. My chest caves in and I curl over my knees, sobs tearing through me so hard I can’t breathe. The craving hits sharp — like a blade pressing against my skin. God, I’d give anything for a drink, a pill, a hit, anything to make this weight disappear. Anything to make me forget that Cas still looks at me like I’m dangerous.

Jack finds me later, sitting on the edge of my bed with my head in my hands. He doesn’t know what to say — kid’s awkward as hell — but he sits down beside me anyway.
“You, uh… you wanna talk about it?”
I shake my head, voice cracking. “There’s nothing to talk about, kid. He doesn’t want me. Not really.”
Jack frowns. “That’s not true.”
But it feels true. It feels like the truest thing I’ve ever known.

When he leaves me alone, I lie back, staring at the ceiling, my eyes raw from crying. Every visit replaying in my head like a cruel highlight reel — Cas’ stiff shoulders, the way he won’t let me near him, the silence between us so thick I could choke on it.

I want to get clean for him. God, I do. But part of me whispers, what’s the point if he’s already gone?

And that thought — that’s the one that scares me the most.

I don’t sleep that night. I just lay there with my fists jammed against my ribs, trying to hold myself together, trying not to think about how Cas wouldn’t even look me in the eye for more than a second. The silence in that damn room was louder than any of the fights we ever had. I keep replaying it, frame by frame, like maybe I’ll find a reason this time. Some hidden clue that explains why he won’t let me touch him anymore.

But the only thing I find is the truth: he’s scared of me.

And once that thought crawls in, it doesn’t leave. It starts chewing through every corner of my head, gnawing at me until I feel like I’m gonna claw my own skin off just to shut it up.

By morning, I’m snapping at everyone. Denise brings in my breakfast, and I can’t even look at her without biting out something sharp. Jack tries to talk to me about some comic he’s reading, and I tell him to shut it before I even realize I’ve said it. The guilt comes crashing down right after, but I’m too far gone to take it back.

The swings come fast. One second I’m choking on sobs into my pillow, begging God or whoever’s listening to just fix me, make me normal, let me have Cas back. The next second I’m pacing the room like a caged animal, shaking, hands itching for a drink, for a blade, for something—anything—to drown this out.

I hear Denise’s voice at the door before I even notice she’s there.

“Dean.”

I freeze, my whole body going stiff. My hands are trembling so bad I shove them into my pockets, like she can’t see I’m unraveling if I hide them.

“You okay?” she asks gently.

That’s all it takes. My throat caves in and I’m suddenly sobbing, the ugly kind, heaving for air like my lungs forgot how to work. I press the heels of my hands against my eyes but it doesn’t stop. Doesn’t stop the sound or the shame.

She doesn’t say anything for a long moment, just steps into the room, her footsteps careful like I’m some spooked animal she doesn’t want to scare off. And then, soft as anything:

“Come on. Let’s get you to Dr. Keane.”

I shake my head. “No, no, I can’t—I can’t talk to him, I’m fine, I’m fine—”

But I’m not fine. My knees give out before I can finish the lie. Denise catches me by the shoulders, steadying me when I’m just a mess of gasps and shaking. She doesn’t let go, doesn’t push either. Just waits.

“You don’t have to do this alone, Dean,” she says. “Not this time.”

And something in me—something I’ve been holding so tight—snaps. I nod. Because if I don’t, I’m scared of what I’ll do to myself.

Denise didn’t even say anything at first. She just kind of walked me down the hall with this look on her face, that mix between “you’re scaring the shit out of me” and “I’m not letting you slip.” My throat was tight, my chest heaving like I’d been running, even though all I’d done was sit in my damn room and let my brain eat me alive.

By the time she knocked once on Dr. Keane’s door and pushed me inside, I was practically folded in on myself.

“Dean,” Keane’s voice was calm. Gentle. I hated it and needed it all at once. “Sit down.”

I dropped into the chair like my legs were about to give out. My hands wouldn’t stay still — twisting together, dragging through my hair, clawing at my jeans. He didn’t comment. Just let me sit there, jittering, until I could breathe again.

“You want to tell me what’s going on?” he asked finally.

I opened my mouth. Nothing came out. Tried again. Still nothing. Just a mess of air choking in my throat. My eyes burned so hard it felt like someone had thrown salt in them.

“It’s—” I broke off, shoved my hand against my mouth. A sob clawed its way out anyway. “Cas. It’s Cas. He—” My voice cracked so bad I wanted to crawl under the chair. “He won’t—he doesn’t—he can’t even look at me right. He won’t kiss me. He flinches. From me.”

My chest hitched, hot tears spilling down without permission. I hated crying in front of anyone. Hated looking weak. But Keane didn’t flinch. He didn’t look pitying, didn’t look bored. He leaned in slightly, elbows on his knees, and his eyes stayed steady on me.

“That terrifies you,” he said, not asking. Stating.

I nodded so hard it made my neck hurt. “Yeah. Yeah, it—God, it’s eating me alive. Eleven years, doc. Eleven years with him, and now I don’t know if he’ll ever… if he’ll ever look at me the same again. And it’s—” My voice cracked again. “It’s my fault. I broke it. I broke him.”

Silence stretched for a beat, except for me trying to catch my breath like a drowning man. Keane finally leaned back, thoughtful.

“Dean,” he said, steady, “you’re punishing yourself twice. Once for what happened, and then again because Cas is still carrying his fear. But his fear doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you. It means he’s healing. And healing doesn’t run on your clock. It runs on his.”

I swallowed hard, pressing my hands against my knees like I could ground myself there.

“So what the hell do I do then?” My voice cracked on the “hell.” “I can’t stand—every visit, it’s like someone’s twisting a knife. I can’t—” My throat closed up. “I want to relapse so damn bad. Just to shut it off. Just to not feel this constant…” I dragged in a shaky breath. “…terror.”

Keane didn’t look shocked. Didn’t look angry. He nodded slowly.

“You don’t shut it off, Dean. You learn to sit with it. To carry it without letting it crush you. You remind yourself that fear is not the same thing as loss. Cas is still here. He showed up. He keeps showing up. That means something.”

I wiped my face with the heel of my hand, hating how raw my voice came out. “But what if he never—what if he never touches me again?”

Keane’s voice dropped softer. “Then you love him in the ways he can let you. Right now, that’s presence. That’s words. That’s a hug, even if it’s short. That’s everything you do still have. And as he heals, those walls will shift. But if you push, if you demand… you risk breaking it more. Patience is the hardest thing for someone like you, Dean, but it’s the only thing that will save this.”

My whole body sagged like he’d pulled the last piece out of me. I couldn’t even argue, because somewhere deep down I knew he was right. It still hurt like hell.

“I don’t know if I can,” I whispered.

“I think you already are,” he said. “The fact that you’re sitting here, fighting, instead of running out and scoring—that’s proof.”

That hit me right in the chest. Hard enough that another sob ripped out before I could stop it. I dragged my sleeve across my face, shaking my head.

“God, I hate this.”

“I know,” Keane said softly. “But I’m proud of you for saying it out loud. That’s where healing starts.”

By the time I stepped out of his office, I felt like I’d been wrung out and left to dry. My eyes were red and raw, my throat scratchy. And Denise was leaning against the wall, arms crossed like she’d been waiting the whole damn time.

The second her eyes landed on me, all that fake toughness she sometimes wears cracked. She just walked up and wrapped her arms around me. No questions, no smart-ass remarks. Just a solid, grounding hug.

I stiffened at first—old habits—but then something in me gave, and I leaned into it. She smelled like mint gum and fabric softener, and her arms were steady, unshaking.

“You’re alright,” she murmured, her chin brushing my shoulder. “You’re still here.”

I let out this shaky laugh that broke halfway through into a sob. “Barely.”

“Barely still counts,” she said firmly, squeezing tighter. “Barely means you didn’t give up.”

For a second, I just stood there, holding on like if I let go, I’d collapse. And maybe I would’ve. But with Denise’s arms around me, for the first time that day, I believed I could keep going.

Chapter Text

I don’t know how long I sat on the edge of that decision, chewing it over like a piece of broken glass in my mouth, but when the day finally came, my whole body felt like it was made of lead. The sky outside the glass wall of the visitation room was this pale gray, sunlight peeking through just enough to make everything look washed out. It matched the way I felt inside—like color had been drained out of me.

When Cas walked in, his coat trailing behind him, that familiar furrow in his brow, my heart jumped the way it always did. But it dropped just as fast, like a stone into a dark well. Because I knew what I had to say. And damn it, it was going to tear me apart to say it.

“Hey,” I muttered, voice rough, forcing a smile. My hands were restless, twisting around each other like I was trying to wring the nerves out of them.

“Hello, Dean.” His voice was soft, polite even, but there was that space again. That invisible wall he kept between us. No brush of fingers across mine, no kiss, not even a steadying touch on my arm. Just his eyes—those blue, endless eyes that once promised me forever—watching me from across the table.

I couldn’t take it anymore.

“Cas…” My throat closed around his name. I stared at the table for a second, gathering the kind of courage I usually only needed when I had a gun in my hand. “I can’t keep doing this.”

His head tilted slightly, that angelic little gesture of his that always made him look like he was trying to read between my words. “Doing what?”

“This—these visits,” I said, forcing the words out before I lost my nerve. “I love seeing you, more than anything, but every time you come, I… I die a little. Because I can feel how scared you are. How far you keep yourself. I feel it every second, Cas, and it—it eats at me.”

His lips parted, like he was about to speak, but he didn’t. And that silence cut sharper than any blade.

“So,” I whispered, feeling like my lungs were collapsing inside me, “don’t come. Not until I’m better. Not until we’re better. If that day never comes… then I’ll come home, and I’ll give you all the space you need. I won’t push you. I won’t beg. I’ll just wait. Because I’d rather wait for you than watch you flinch away from me every time I get too close.”

The words tasted like ash in my mouth. I wanted to take them back the second they left me, but they were the truest words I’d said in a long damn time.

Cas’s eyes shimmered. I don’t think I’d ever seen him look so torn, like he was standing in two worlds at once and both were breaking him apart. He reached out—just a fraction, his hand twitching like he wanted to close the distance—but then he stopped. His fingers curled back into his palm.

I thought that would kill me.

But then he stood and stepped closer. Slowly, cautiously, like approaching a wounded animal, he wrapped his arms around me. It wasn’t tight. It wasn’t desperate. It wasn’t the kind of hug we used to share where I thought maybe, just maybe, the whole world could fall apart and I’d still be okay because he was in my arms.

It was gentle. Careful. Almost like a question.

I buried my face against his shoulder anyway, because I didn’t care how fragile it was—I needed it. I clung to him even though I knew I shouldn’t. I wanted to memorize the warmth, the smell of his trench coat, the way his breath hitched just barely against my ear.

When he pulled away, I wanted to beg him not to. But I didn’t. I let him go. Because I meant what I said.

“I’ll wait,” I told him, my voice breaking, eyes burning so hard I could barely see. “For as long as it takes, Cas. Just… heal. Please.”

He looked at me then, really looked at me, like he was etching my face into memory. His lips trembled but he said nothing. Just gave a stiff nod before turning, coat swaying behind him as he walked out the door.

The second he was gone, the tears came hot and fast. I sat there shaking, fists pressed against my knees like I could physically hold myself together if I just pushed hard enough. My chest ached with this hollow emptiness, the kind that echoed.

The staff had to tap me gently to let me know my time was up. Walking back to my room felt like dragging my own corpse down the hall.

Lying in bed that night, I kept replaying the hug in my head. Over and over. How careful he was. How careful he had to be. And all I could think was that maybe I broke something too badly to fix.

But then, beneath the grief, beneath the raw edges of my fear, there was this stubborn ember of hope. Because for the first time, Cas didn’t run from me. He hugged me—even if it was cautious, even if it wasn’t the way I wanted. That meant something.

And if there’s one thing I’ve always been, it’s stubborn.

So I whispered into the dark, my voice shaky but certain: “I’ll wait, Cas. I swear to God, I’ll wait.”

The first night after telling Cas to stay away felt like somebody had sawed me open and just left me there, bleeding into the mattress. I’d meant every word when I told him it was for both of us—time, space, healing—but saying it out loud had been like shooting myself in the chest and refusing to look at the wound.

I laid awake that night, the dark room pressing in too close, my hands twisting at the sheets until my knuckles hurt. My chest kept doing this stupid, shaky rise-and-fall thing like it was trying to sob, but nothing came out except a dry choke now and then. I stared at the ceiling and thought about Cas’s face when I told him. The way his eyes softened, the way his hand lingered just a second longer on my shoulder like he wanted to hold me but knew he couldn’t.

And in my head, I swear I could still hear him:

Little do you know
How I'm breakin' while you fall asleep
Little do you know
I'm still haunted by the memories

I rolled onto my side, squeezing my eyes shut like I could block him out, like I could keep the sound of him away. But it didn’t stop. His voice wasn’t angry or broken—it was gentle, almost too gentle, and it hurt more than if he’d yelled.

Little do you know
I'm tryin' to pick myself up piece by piece
Little do you know
I need a little more time…

And all I could do was whisper into my pillow, voice cracked and half strangled, “Me too, Cas. God, me too.”

The days that followed, I moved like a shadow. Denise noticed. Of course she did—Denise notices everything. She didn’t push, though. She’d just sit across from me at breakfast, tapping her fingers on the table, giving me that look like she was telling me silently, I see you. You don’t have to say it out loud for me to know.

In group, I barely spoke. The words felt stuck somewhere between my ribs and my throat, like if I tried to cough them up, they’d shred me on the way out. Everyone else was talking about milestones, about little victories—someone managed a night without nightmares, another went a whole day without self-destructing. I sat there, my hands folded so tight my nails dug into my palms, and thought: I told the love of my life not to come near me. My milestone is surviving the sound of my own heartbeat without screaming.

And still, Cas was there, threaded through everything.

Underneath it all I'm held captive by the hole inside
I've been holding back for the fear that you might change your mind
I'm ready to forgive you, but forgettin' is a harder fight…

I swallowed hard in group, my throat burning, and when someone asked me if I wanted to share, I shook my head. “Not today.” Denise’s eyes were on me again, soft and steady, like a tether keeping me from floating too far.

Nights were the worst. Nights were always the worst. The silence made room for the memories to crawl in—Cas bleeding, Cas screaming, Cas smiling, Cas holding me like I was something worth saving.

And then me. Always me. The mess, the weight, the damn hole inside me that nothing could seem to fill.

I’d lay there and it was my turn to speak back, even if he couldn’t hear it:

I'll wait, I'll wait
I love you like you've never felt the pain
I'll wait
I promise you don't have to be afraid
I'll wait
Love is here and here to stay
So lay your head on me…

And I meant it. Every word. My voice cracked when I said it out loud in the dark, whispered like a prayer: “I’ll wait for you, Cas. No matter how long it takes.”

By the fourth day, Denise caught me outside on the bench after group. I hadn’t realized I’d been sitting there that long, staring at the trees like maybe they’d answer me back. She sat down beside me, didn’t say anything at first. Then, out of nowhere, she slipped her arm around my shoulders and just pulled me in.

It wasn’t a romantic hug, not even close. It was the kind of hug that said, you’re safe here. Even if you feel like you’re not.

And that was the moment I broke. My forehead pressed into her shoulder and I let out this low, gutted sound I’d been holding back all week. She rubbed slow circles into my back like she had all the time in the world, and whispered, “You’re doing the right thing, Dean. Healing isn’t pretty. But you’re doing it.”

I wanted to believe her. God, I wanted to believe her so bad.

That night, after the hug, the silence felt a little less sharp. It still cut, but it didn’t tear me apart. I lay there, eyes wet, whispering the words back into the dark.

Little do you know
I know you're hurt while I'm sound asleep
Little do you know
All my mistakes are slowly drownin' me
Little do you know
I'm tryin' to make it better piece by piece
Little do you know I
I love you 'til the sun dies…

And I answered, my voice shaking but steady enough:

I'll wait, I'll wait
I'll love you like you've never felt the pain
I'll wait
I promise you don't have to be afraid…
Love is here, and here to stay
So lay your head on me
'Cause little do you know I
I love you 'til the sun dies

The words weren’t just for Cas anymore. They were for me too.

Chapter Text

The days bled into each other until I couldn’t tell where one ended and the next began. At first, it was all sharp edges—every morning I’d wake up with my chest aching, reaching for a voice that wasn’t there, a warmth that I’d asked to stay away. Every night I’d curl into the sheets and feel that same hollow ache eat at me from the inside. It wasn’t just the loneliness. It was the memories replaying like an old film reel that wouldn’t shut off. His voice. His wings. His goddamn stubborn loyalty. My own mistakes and words I should’ve taken back.

But as the weeks dragged on, that razor pain dulled. Not gone, but not as sharp. Like the difference between a fresh wound and a scar that still twinges when it rains.

The staff here—they never treated me like some broken mess, though that’s what I felt like most days. Denise especially. She’d sit with me, bring me coffee that tasted almost normal, and let me ramble. Sometimes she’d crack a joke so bad it pulled a laugh out of me, and then she’d look smug for the rest of the day, like she’d won. I guess she kinda did.

Jack was the other anchor. Kid’s got this way of making even the worst days feel bearable. We’d walk the gardens in the afternoons, talk about dumb stuff—movies, food, what his life had been like bouncing between worlds. Sometimes we’d talk about Cas, too. He never pushed, just let me say what I needed to, when I could. Six months that kid stayed, keeping me from drowning in my own head. He deserved better than being my crutch, but I’ll be damned if I didn’t need him.

When it was finally time for him to leave, it hit harder than I thought it would. Watching him pack, seeing him sling his bag over his shoulder—it was like losing another piece of family all over again. He hugged me tight, like he didn’t want to let go. And I held on longer than I meant to. When he finally stepped back, his eyes were wet, but he smiled. “You’re stronger than you think, Dean. You’ll be okay.”
I wanted to believe him.

After he left, the place felt too quiet. No more footsteps coming down the hall, no more dumb knock-knock jokes at breakfast. But I carried him with me. That helped.

And somewhere along the way—maybe in the quiet nights, maybe in Denise’s bad jokes, maybe in Jack’s stubborn hope—I started to heal. Still scarred, sure. Still carrying grief that’ll never really leave. But I wasn’t sinking anymore.

One morning, almost two months after that talk with Cas, I woke up and realized I wasn’t dreading the day. My body didn’t feel like stone, my chest didn’t feel like it was caving in. I actually stretched, yawned, and thought—maybe I’m ready.

So later, sitting in the common room with Denise and one of the nurses, I cleared my throat. “I think…” I rubbed the back of my neck, suddenly awkward. “I think I’m ready to go home.”

Denise blinked. “Home, home?”

“Yeah.” I smirked. “Don’t look so surprised. I can actually tie my own shoes now without crying.”

The nurse snorted, trying to hide her laugh behind a clipboard. Denise raised her eyebrows, half proud, half teasing. “Well, hell, Dean. You’ve survived my coffee this long—guess you really are ready.”

“Exactly,” I said, grinning for real this time. “If I can live through your coffee, I can live through anything.”

For the first time in months, I felt light. Not fixed, not perfect. But ready.

The drive back felt longer than I remembered. Maybe it was just my chest tightening with every mile we got closer to home. The world outside looked the same—same roads, same trees swaying like nothing had changed—but I had.

And then there it was. The house. My house. Our home. I didn’t realize I was holding my breath until the car stopped, and for a second I couldn’t move. My hands shook as I reached for the door, and when my boots finally touched the ground, the air smelled different. Familiar. Heavy. It was like stepping into a memory I wasn’t sure I still belonged to.

Ranger came tearing across the lawn, nails clicking against the pavement, tail wagging so hard his whole body moved with it. He barked once, sharp and joyous, then practically launched himself into me. I went down on one knee, laughing and crying at the same time as I buried my face in his fur.

“Miss me, huh, boy?” My voice cracked, rough as sandpaper. “Yeah… I missed you too.” I walked to the front door, opening the door.

The house smelled the same. That mix of old wood, leather, and faint traces of motor oil that had seeped into the walls years ago. My boots scraped against the floorboards as I walked in, slow, like I was afraid the whole place would vanish if I stepped too hard. Ranger bolted past me, claws clicking against the floor as he tore straight for the kitchen like he owned the place. I stood there in the entryway, letting my eyes roam over the familiar walls, the light through the curtains, the photographs on the shelf. For the first time in months, I was home.

And then I saw him.

Castiel was standing in the doorway to the living room. He looked smaller somehow, though I knew he wasn’t. He looked tired, but his eyes—God, his eyes lit up the second they landed on me. His lips parted like he couldn’t believe I was really there, and before I could blink, he crossed the room and wrapped his arms around me.

“I missed you,” he whispered, voice breaking against my shoulder. His grip was so tight I could barely breathe, and I didn’t care.

I buried my face in his coat, closing my eyes. “Missed you too, Cas. More than I know how to say.”

For a long time, we just stayed like that—Ranger pawing at our legs like he wanted in on the hug, both of us holding on like if we let go, everything would slip away again.

When we finally sat down, it was on the old couch in the living room. Ranger sprawled across my feet, warm and heavy, his tail thumping every few minutes as if to remind me he was here too. The silence stretched for a while, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. It was heavy, sure, but not the kind of heavy that makes you want to run. The kind you sit with because it matters.

Castiel broke it first. “I thought I lost you.” His voice was low, uneven. “Not just… in the hospital. But before that. I felt you slipping further and further away. And I didn’t know how to reach you.”

I swallowed, staring down at my hands. They looked older somehow. Rougher. “You did lose me, Cas. For a while, I wasn’t here. Not really. I didn’t want to be. And I hate admitting that.” My throat tightened, words catching. “But I was so damn tired. Every memory, every mistake, it just—sat on me. Like it was never gonna let me breathe again.”

His eyes softened, but there was no pity there, just… understanding. “You don’t have to carry all of it alone.”

I huffed out a shaky laugh. “Yeah, well, I’m not exactly great at letting people in.”

“I know,” he said, and a small smile tugged at his mouth. “But you let me in once. And I’m still here.”

That cracked me open a little more than I expected. I blinked hard, tears welling. “I’m scared, Cas. I’m scared if I let myself need you like I do, you’ll see just how broken I am. And you’ll… change your mind about me.”

He reached out then, his fingers curling gently around mine. “Dean, I already see all of you. The broken pieces, the scars, the parts you wish you could hide. And none of it makes me love you less. It only makes me want to stay.”

My chest ached at that—like something in me was finally being stitched back together. I nodded, pressing my other hand over his, holding on like I’d never let go. “I want to do better. I want to heal, even if it’s slow. I just… need time.”

“You can take all the time you need,” he said. His voice was steady, full of conviction. “I’ll wait. I’ll be here.”

That broke me. I leaned forward, forehead pressing against his shoulder, and let the tears come. They weren’t loud or ugly, just soft and steady, like something finally loosening inside me. Castiel held me through it, his hand running slow circles across my back.

Ranger let out a low huff, resting his chin on my knee, like he was promising he wasn’t going anywhere either.

By the time Sam, Ellen, Bobby, Gabriel, and Benny showed up, the house felt warmer than it had in months. They came through the door with food, balloons, and Benny’s terrible singing voice, and I actually laughed—really laughed—until my stomach hurt.

Sam clapped me on the back hard enough to nearly knock me over, Gabriel shoved a cupcake in my hand before I could say no, and Ellen kissed my cheek like I was her kid again. Bobby muttered something about “idjits getting sentimental” while his own eyes were wet.

And for the first time in what felt like forever, I didn’t feel like I was drowning. I felt home.