SPN Fic: To Course Across More Kindly Waters Now

[dira]

Here I go writing gen again. About an angel. Because I just cannot step away from other people's fictional Christianity.

Many thanks are in order: to missmollyetc for being so very enthusiastic about it from the start, to iuliamentis for being dubious enough to kick my ass through fixing it, and to sanj for putting up with my general inability to operate email and giving it another beta. Thanks also to darthfox and frostfire_17 and everyone else who listened to me go on about this.


Dean and Castiel. "Lazarus Rising" missing scene.
Gen, or possibly Dean/Dean's past. R for all sorts of adultness.
6,066 words.

"You have to get clean. This is only a stop along the way."



To Course Across More Kindly Waters Now


There was only one word, and the word was Sam.

He cried out Sam unceasingly, and it encompassed the whole of his existence: an agony comprised of fear (never allayed, never fulfilled) and pain (never eased, never mercifully overwhelming) and beneath it all the tiny, stubborn thread of knowledge of time before and time after (it had not always been so; it might not always be so).

Sam.

"Sam," a voice repeated back to him. The inflection of the voice emphasized the smallest of things, the belief in time. The voice made time exist--time before the voice, time after. And with the voice came a sensation that was not pain but presence--a presence other than his own, another who spoke his whole world back to him. "Sam."

Sam.

Pressure, all around him, and then change--pain both lessened and sharpened, while fear fell away in wonder. Time before was now that place of unceasing agony, and time after was as unimaginable as time present, which was this incomprehensible place of straight edges and clear lights.

"Dean," said the voice, in company with a small, painless pressure against the top of his head.

Dean. Dean was not-Sam; Dean was himself. He was separate from the one behind him who was still holding on to him, the one who spoke to him. He looked down and saw himself--his body, Dean, a familiar view of chest and belly and dick and knees and feet--and saw the other, too, in the form of other arms wrapped around him. He could feel what he saw: pressure where the other's arms touched him, and not where they didn't. Pain clung to his body like cinders and blood. The other's arms contrasted starkly against the hurt and darkness of Dean's body, and the regular whiteness below his red-black feet was almost blinding.

"Motel bathroom," the voice informed him. Motel bathroom--this was a place he knew. He recognized it, shapes taking on meaning in his eyes: toilet, shower, sink, water, soap, tile floor under his feet, fluorescent light above his head. This was a place to become clean, a place to heal, a place to make ready or to recover--beginning and ending, night and morning. Dean remembered this, these shapes and edges and boundaries and the ways that they belonged to him, and he to them. A whole world could be unraveled from here--motels, gas stations, the highways that connected them, and all the other places along the way.

"Time to get clean," the voice said, and Dean saw that the shower was running, already hot, just how he liked it. There was a stack of towels waiting for later, with a bar of soap on top. "Go on."

Dean looked down again. The other, the one behind him, the not-Sam voice--he was still holding on. He had one arm crossing Dean's chest, that hand gripping Dean's shoulder, and the other was wrapped around Dean's middle. Clean. The other was clean, and Dean was not; Dean was covered in filth, a visible residue of the place before.

"Hell," the other said. "It's still all over you."

But it did not touch the other. His bare arms were unmarked. Dean had to turn, to look at him, and discovered as he did that he could move. Before, in hell--and after, while the other had held him tight--he could not, but now those arms loosened around him, though the hand on his shoulder did not release him.

He was as naked as Dean was, and that was right: naked went with bathrooms, and Dean had nothing to hide from him, no doors to close. The other's bare skin was clean everywhere, and he shone like the tile, reflecting the light. His eyes were blue and on a level with Dean's, not like--

"Sam," the other said softly, and that wasn't the one word anymore. Now Sam contracted into a finite thing of infinite importance, love-fear-friendship-need-worry-memory-dependence-responsibility, brother. Sam. Sam would--Sam would need his turn in the bathroom. Dean couldn't let Sam see him like this, and Sam would be waiting.

The other was not Sam--too short, too different. Seeing him, Dean could remember what Sam looked like, and he realized that he could not remember the other.

"Castiel," the other said. "I am the one who brought you out of hell."

Dean knew that; Castiel had been with him all this time. Castiel's grip on his shoulder still had not faltered, not once, as though--

As though if Castiel let him go, he'd be back there again. Dean realized he could feel it tugging at him, as if every bit of pain he felt, every bit of filth that still touched him, was all trying to drag him down. And nobody could hold on forever.

"How?" Dean rasped, his first word that was not Sam.

"You have to get clean," Castiel repeated. "This is only a stop along the way."

Dean was filthy, and the shower was running hot, and Sam would be waiting. If Castiel would just hold on, just hold back hell a little longer...

Dean nodded, and when he turned toward the shower Castiel's arm folded around him again. Castiel was drawn up tight against his back with a pressure Dean could now understand as touch, a body resting against his without force. Shelter.

Dean took the soap and stepped into the shower, and Castiel was with him every inch of the way.

At first it was easy. Shower and soap were familiar, and the water streamed red and black over his body, washing the taint of hell from his skin, pain easing with it. Castiel's arm across his chest somehow did not stop the water from coursing over him, even though it was perfectly solid and steady. When Dean turned to rinse, Castiel still kept hold of him.

He met Dean's eyes and said solemnly, "Don't forget your ears."

Dean washed his ears and the back of his neck, washed his hair, his pits and his balls and his feet. He let the hot water pound against his teeth, swished it around his mouth and spat red and gray down the drain. Through it all, Castiel held him by the shoulder. Somehow no matter where Dean moved, Castiel was never in the way, never taking up too much space. When Dean propped a foot on his thigh, Castiel just let him, steady as a stone, and though Dean's feet never quite slipped, he had no doubt Castiel would keep him upright if they did.

But when he thought he was finished--shiny clean as Castiel, the water running smooth and clear over his skin--Castiel shook his head and nudged Dean back under the spray. "There's more. Look."

Dean looked down and gasped, throat closing on a scream, as the familiar wounds opened on his chest and belly and legs, spurting blood. He was back in that house, the hellhounds clawing and biting, and Sam--Sammy was there, scared, and Dean couldn't do anything. It took a moment after he saw the wounds for the real pain to hit, and when it did he braced his arms against the shower walls and screamed.

But no matter how loudly he yelled, he heard Castiel's low, steady voice just fine. "Let it go, Dean. This is your death, and you must release it before I can take you any further."

Dean shook his head wildly--he could barely breathe to scream, but he couldn't stop, even though he knew he was scaring his brother. Sam would be all alone now, he was bound to do something stupid, but Dean wouldn't be able to stop him--and it hurt, it hurt so fucking bad, but worse than that he was going to hell, going back to hell--he couldn't, he couldn't do it again--

Castiel moved, and was tucked up behind Dean again, his arm over Dean's chest. The shattered mess of Dean's chest gushed blood all over Castiel's arm, but the shower water washed it away as fast as it pumped out. Dean thought dizzily that he should have bled out by now. His shredded heart should have long since quit on him. It couldn't possibly have taken this long last time. Even with Castiel holding on to him it didn't stop. The hell hounds were still at him just as fiercely, dragging him down.

"This is your death," Castiel repeated. "An echo of the moment which you carry with you--your own ghost which haunts you. It can be prolonged infinitely if you will not release it. Let it go, Dean. Fear, pain--your brother--you have to surrender it all, or it will drag you down again."

"Not--Sam--" Dean gasped, feeling hell growing close again.

"Sam is his own," Castiel said firmly. "You can't carry him this way. You can let go--like this, feel."

Castiel's left hand cupped a handful of Dean's spurting blood. Castiel's fingers tightened around it and tugged, and Dean felt what Castiel meant by let it go--the hurt, the wreckage of his wounds, the fear and the weight dragging him back down--it all moved in Castiel’s grip, just far enough to let him catch his breath. But Castiel couldn’t just take it; Dean had to do it himself, and for all that he knew what it felt like he still didn’t know how, exactly.

Dean tried to shut his eyes, to concentrate, but when he did that he felt himself falling, all the way back down. Castiel's hand was still tight on his shoulder, and Dean focused on Castiel's hands and his own gory wounds, instead. It was like some kind of fucking Chinese finger trap--to push it all away and to open himself to let it go, all at the same time. Every time he tried to get hold of the thing to push it away, he found himself holding on harder, and his death was slippery and jagged-edged, hard to hold.

"This is the hardest," Castiel said patiently. "There is time. It will be."

"Will be what," Dean snarled. "It hurts, I don't want to hurt--"

And that was it, there, like suddenly finding his stride, like his body finding the alignment it needed to deal a perfect blow, all of a sudden it worked. Dean watched in silence and awe as every wound was undone, lifted from his body. His skin did not so much heal as forget that it had been hurt.

"Good," Castiel said. "It will be easier now that you know how."

And that was all the warning he had before the impact, and though there was nothing here with him but Castiel and the water, he felt his bones break and his guts mashed--he was back in the car with Sam and his dad and the only thing that hurt worse than dying was knowing that his dad was going to trade himself to stop it.

"You can do this, Dean," Castiel said. "Let go."

He couldn't find the way, this was different, this hurt was older and scarred over--his dad--he couldn't breathe, couldn't think. He’d been helpless in that bed, helpless to stop it. He didn't dare close his eyes.

"Dean," Castiel said. "Dean, you’ve done this. You can."

Dean shook his head wildly, but Castiel's left hand closed around Dean's, and shaped his hand into a cup to hold the blood that was pooling inside him, just as Castiel had held his death. Go with what worked, right, even if you didn’t know why. Last time he had found the way when he said the words.

"I don't," Dean managed, though his voice was faint. He was struggling for balance, for that feeling of power and release, his fingers digging against the sick caved-in wreck of his side. "I don't want--"

His hand jerked as he realized that he'd gotten hold of it, and he pulled his wounds away and let them go. The impact reversed itself, a crushing weight lifted, and he stood up straight as his bones became unbroken and blood settled back in his veins.

"Yes," Castiel said, and before Dean could say no he felt the all-over lightning-strike jolt, his heart seizing up--he remembered the poor bastard who’d been traded for him, when Sam was frantic to save him, and neither of them had known. Should have known, should never have allowed it, and all the time his heart was slowing, heavy as lead in his chest. Dean placed his hand over his heart--tucking it under Castiel's arm to reach--and curled his fingers against the pain and weakness and the burden, and tugged another near-death free.

"Good," Castiel said, and then his fingers brushed over an old scar and turned it into a fresh bullet wound, the one that had nearly killed him seven or eight years ago. But Dean had the hang of it now, and he barely had to steady his breathing against the pain before he threw that away too. Then there was a knife wound, and then that bad bite, and then an ugly snapping of bone, and on and on, as fast as Castiel could find his scars and open them.

Dean was laughing by the time Castiel got to his old concussions and messy scalp wounds, a lifetime of old injuries knocking his head every which way while Castiel held him up. The shower kept washing the blood clean, and Dean kept throwing off the pain--the hurts and the guilt and the helplessness, the fear of disappointing his dad, of failing Sam.

Then Castiel's hand covered his face, a feather-light touch of fingertips calling back a stupidly slight injury. It was just a flash of heat against his face, the smell of fire and smoke in his nose, and his arms feeling heavy as his heart raced. His father was shouting at him to carry his brother out of the house--

Dean coughed and shook his head--the glimpse of his mother was vivid in his mind's eye, Sammy was so heavy and the fire so hot, and he couldn't turn away from his father. It was the last moment his family had all been together.

"Dean," Castiel said, pulling Dean tighter against him. "Dean."

Dean coughed out a sob, but he raised his hand as he did it, tugging that flash of heat off his face, pulling it free and letting go. He sagged against Castiel, limp. "Tell me I'm done. Tell me that was it."

"Do you feel like you're finished?" Castiel asked, but he didn't push. He stood still and let Dean rest against him, warm and steady under the endless spray of hot water.

Dean tried closing his eyes again, but jerked them open instantly--even with Castiel at his back, Castiel's arms supporting his weight, he still felt like he was falling.

"Fine," Dean said, taking his weight on his own feet. "What next?"

"Sex," Castiel said evenly. All the things Dean could have thought that meant flashed through his mind, along with the utter certainty that it didn’t mean any of them. Dean sucked in a breath as Castiel's fingers drifted down over his belly, but they didn't tickle and didn't stop.

Castiel's hand closed around his dick, the same touch that had called forth all his old wounds, but this time he felt himself getting hard, his heart racing and his skin tingling. Castiel had too many hands, all of a sudden, because one was stroking him, and one was cupping his balls, and there was a finger teasing at the entrance of his ass. When he looked down Castiel's hand rested flat on his belly, and Castiel was still gripping his shoulder.

But they weren't alone in the shower anymore, because Dean was getting his first blowjob all over again--sinking into a sweet, wet pussy for the first time--fucking--getting fucked--all at once, and he couldn't breathe, because he was back there, everywhere he'd ever been, pulled back in a thousand directions at once.

"Let go, Dean," Castiel said softly, and Dean could hear him below the hammering of his heart and a thousand moans and groans and screams and whispered curses. "This, too."

Dean shook his head wildly, but he knew what Castiel meant. One stacked on another and it was all too much--too much need always misdirected, too many lies, to them and to himself--too much hiding from everything he'd already given up. Too much of the wrong loves, too much using and being used, selfish and ashamed. Too much hurt disguised as pleasure, and pleasure twisted into hurt.

His hips jerked wildly as they rode him, slammed into him and pulled him on, and all the time Castiel was wrapped all around him, perfectly still. He could feel Castiel pressed against his back, the lax shape of Castiel's dick against his ass, taking no part. Castiel's hands rested on him, anchoring, while all the other hands pushed and touched and took and it was good, so fucking good except that it was too much, and it was killing him, and he couldn't close his eyes because hell was waiting in the dark at the edge of his vision.

Dean stared at Castiel's hands, instead, remembered the way Castiel had lifted away his blood, his wounds, the perfectly balanced push and pull that was stillness. Dean tilted his head back and let fucking go, and what rushed through him, into him, was nothing like an orgasm. It left him still and calm, satiated. Clean and complete. The yell that had been on its way out of his throat escaped as a sigh.

The shower kept pattering down on him, hot and clean, and Dean twisted under Castiel's grip, putting his shoulder to Castiel's chest and letting his head sag on Castiel's shoulder, his face to Castiel's throat. The only familiar part of this was how badly he wanted to roll over and go to sleep, except he still couldn't close his eyes. He blinked a few times--he could feel his eyelashes brushing Castiel's throat--and hell lurched toward him and away, strobing.

Castiel said, "Dean," and Dean was instantly alert. He'd turned so his left shoulder faced into the spray, the shoulder Castiel had been holding all this time. The water pattered down on him all around Castiel's hand, and Dean realized the problem.

He could never get all the way clean, because Castiel's hand covered his shoulder. But if Castiel let go...

"No," Dean whispered, "Castiel, no, don't--"

"Your work is not wasted," Castiel said implacably, and peeled his hand free.

Dean's shoulder was an open burning wound, stinking of sulfur and suffering--hell itself was reaching out for him again through this rift in his own flesh, and he was never going to be able to hold that and let it go--

"I know," Castiel said, and as Dean watched, the shower water hissed and steamed on the wound, closing it into a livid scar in the shape of Castiel's hand. "Let it stay sealed. You've let go of everything else. You can carry that."

Dean shuddered, shaking his head, but Castiel reached out with his right hand and shut the water off, and the scar stayed put. Dean stepped out of the shower, held by nothing but Castiel's arm resting loosely around his hips.

Castiel was dry as soon as they stepped out, a white towel tucked neatly around his waist, but Dean stood dripping and shivering on the tile floor.

"Let me," Castiel said, and took a towel from the stack to rub briskly over Dean's hair and dry his wet face.

The towel was thin and rough, but it didn't scrape against his new, soft skin. Dean could feel it, but it didn't hurt--hardly even seemed to touch him though it left him perfectly dry. Castiel worked down Dean's whole body. The towel he was using was always a fresh, dry one, and there were always more in the stack of clean ones--even when Castiel was kneeling and drying Dean's feet, all pink heels and perfect toes. Castiel straightened up and wrapped a clean white towel around Dean's hips.

Meeting Dean's eyes steadily, he said, "Last thing, Dean. You need to wash your hands."

"Awww, man," Dean muttered, because he should have known. There was always something else. He felt like a little kid, like his mom was sending him away from the dinner table to wash his hands first. But he could remember that, he realized--could remember that without pain, Sammy in his high chair and Daddy leaning over Dean to share the faucet while Mom finished getting dinner on the table. He could have the memory without clutching at it.

So. He had to wash his hands. Dean stepped up to the sink--the tap already running, the bar of soap waiting for him--and Castiel took up his guarding position, close against Dean's back. Castiel's hand settled in its old place, over the handprint that was now Dean's only scar, and his other arm crossed Dean's belly, above the towel. Dean finally looked down at his hands, and watched them fill with blood and ash.

He sighed and started scrubbing, flicking his fingers open to let go of the hurts--broken fingers, yanked fingernails, those were the easy ones, even if the first crack of pain made his knees wobble. Castiel held him up.

Dean scrubbed off the ink of a hundred frauds and forgeries. His knuckles split from every punch he'd ever thrown, and his hands stung with the recoil of every shot he'd ever fired. He had to let that go, too, even though he'd had to, even though it was his family, his work.

"Dean," Castiel said, and Dean realized his hands had closed into fists, clinging.

"Yeah," Dean sighed. He forced his fingers open, let it go. Let go of holding on to his father, holding on to Sam, let go of a thousand nights with his hands on the wheel, holding it steady and holding things together. Let go of holding the whole damn world together with his two hands.

He felt light, and heavy, all at once, when he finally shut the water off. If Castiel had let him go, he would have floated away, or crumpled to the floor. But Castiel was steady as ever, and walked Dean out of the bathroom and into the room beyond, stopping when they stood at the foot of the bed. "You need to rest."

Dean nodded and then shook his head. "Can't--can't close my eyes. I start falling when I close my eyes." Even clean as he was, hell was waiting for him to slip.

Castiel let out a puff of breath against the back of Dean's head. "Dean. You know what to do when you feel yourself fall. You were born knowing what to do."

Castiel turned him around, keeping his right hand on Dean's shoulder and placing the left at the back of Dean's neck.

"Wait," Dean said, eyes wide, "wait, no--"

Castiel dropped him backward, and Dean was falling all the way down. His arms flew out wide, and caught tight around Castiel. They hit the bed together, and Castiel smiled down at him even as Dean's teeth clacked together. "See? You knew."

"Oh. That." Dean yawned as the race of his heart settled down, and squirmed over onto his side, so Castiel wasn't squishing him so much. Dean held on tight, and Castiel kept holding on too. He didn't even object when Dean pressed his face again to the comfy spot at the juncture of Castiel's neck and shoulder. Dean closed his eyes and let himself rest.

It wasn't sleep, really, just quiet and calm and shelter. There was going to be another next thing--Dean had spotted the pattern by now--but he could rest first, and Castiel would stay with him, watching over him, anchoring him here. Castiel wouldn't let him fall, if Dean just had the sense to hold on.

Eventually he'd rested enough, or at least he couldn't keep still anymore. Dean pushed himself upright, and Castiel sat beside him. "I'm kind of..."

Dean's stomach growled. Castiel nodded, and offered Dean his cupped hand, full of clear water.

Dean frowned. "That's just water. I'm hungry."

"Sure," Castiel said, with a laugh submerged in his eyes and his voice. "And the shower was just a shower, the sink was just a sink, the soap was just soap. Drink, Dean."

Dean wanted to argue, but he knew all of that, and he was hungry, and Castiel hadn't steered him wrong yet. He cupped his hand around Castiel's and raised it to his lips. It should have been messy and awkward (if Castiel's hand was just a hand, if the water was just water), but Dean was able to drink--just a mouthful, sweet and pure, but it was enough. More than enough.

Dean wiped his mouth and sat back, studying Castiel as Castiel silently watched him. "Is this--wait. No. How much of this is actually happening?"

Castiel nodded, so that was apparently at least not the wrong question. "All of it is happening. But not to your actual body, and not in any motel you could ever have visited without me. These are the symbols you've chosen to give form to your experiences."

Dean didn't take his eyes off Castiel. "Not you, though. You're not my symbol for anything. I don't know you."

He tried to think of who he'd have chosen, to be the one who pulled him out. Who he would have wanted to stay with him and hold him up through all of that, to see him like that.

"No," Castiel agreed. "This is just a symbol I've given you, to fit into your schema. I am not yours to shape."

Dean nodded. "You--you brought me out of hell. You brought me here." To someplace that definitely wasn't just a motel.

Castiel nodded. "And when you're ready, I'll go with you the rest of the way."

He gestured to the door out of the room; a shaft of light was coming in through the peephole.

Dean swallowed hard and looked back to Castiel. "So what's the deal?"

Castiel looked ever so faintly confused.

"What's the tradeoff," Dean said patiently, distantly aware that he should have been asking these questions a long time ago. If it had been any other place, anyone else but Castiel, maybe he would have. "You did something for me, you brought me out, so what's the deal? Did Sam...?"

Castiel sighed. "Sam had nothing to do with this, and neither did you. There's no deal." Dean opened his mouth to argue and Castiel added sharply, "Or, if you prefer, this is part of a very old deal, struck on your behalf by someone who had a lot more to bargain with than any given Winchester."

Dean shook his head. "Why me, then--you saw what I've done, what I’m like. Why should I be the one..."

Castiel shrugged. "What makes you think you're the only one who gets this chance? You chose hell more explicitly than most, but your way isn't the only way people choose it--and even those given the chance may not choose to be perfected."

He could have said no, Dean realized. Even in hell, he could have fought Castiel off. He could have kept his death, could have shut his eyes to everything Castiel showed him. Could have refused to reach for Castiel when he was falling down. He could have given up and gone back anytime. But he'd fought to keep going, because that was what he knew how to do.

Castiel smiled. "I'll speak to you again, later. You are of interest to us. But this is not contingent on that. The work you did here will not be wasted, Dean."

Castiel had said that before; Dean reached up and touched the scar on his shoulder, in the shape of Castiel's hand. Hell was locked away from him, and he from hell, by that touch. It was all a symbol, but all real--the scar, and the absence of scars, and hell. And Castiel.

"Okay," Dean said. "So now what?"

Castiel stood and led Dean to the door, gesturing for him to open it. Dean hesitated, waiting for Castiel to take up the familiar position at his back, but he stayed at Dean's side, waiting for him to open the door, and Dean knew somehow that he'd stand there forever if it took Dean that long to pull himself together and get moving. He'd said that, too, back in the shower--forever ago, or a couple of minutes. There was time enough.

Dean shook his head, squared his shoulders, and pulled the door open, squinting in the brightness and looking out at... the parking lot.

He looked back at Castiel. "It's a parking lot?"

Castiel shrugged. "Motels have parking lots, Dean. It's your symbol."

"Right," Dean said. "So I guess we walk across the parking lot, then."

The lot was empty, and they crossed it side by side. The asphalt was hot under his feet--he could feel every bump, every crack, every pebble--but it didn't hurt him. Still, he took a shot at making the Impala a symbol of going wherever he had to get to.

Beside him, Castiel smiled. "It doesn't work like that."

"Yeah," Dean said, and kept walking. "Figures."

The road was dusty dirt, with fields on each side; the motel was gone from sight almost as soon as they were out of the lot. They hadn't been walking long before Dean hesitated, looking back and then forward. "Are we going downhill?"

"Only halfway," Castiel assured him.

The descent got steeper, and Dean could finally see where they were headed--there was a stand of trees down in the valley, and their road ran straight to it. When they'd gotten close enough that he could make out the shapes of the shadows the trees cast--he and Castiel didn't seem to block the sun at all, but then he knew that--Castiel stopped him with a touch on his shoulder.

"When we get to where we're going, I won't be able to speak to you anymore," Castiel said. "You'll know what you need to do, and I will stay beside you, but your schema only makes all of this concrete for you. It won't contain my voice down there."

Dean nodded like that made sense--it did, but not in a way that fit into symbols, so he wasn't going to get into it right now. They kept walking, to the end of the road and into the grass, and then into the trees. There was a clearing, and in the center of the clearing--where the shadows left one little gap, one shaft of light--there was a rough cross of wood, and a patch of grass that had obviously been disturbed.

Dean looked at Castiel, and Castiel nodded and gestured for him to keep going. Dean took a deep breath and walked to the grave. To his grave. Castiel was right; he knew.

He found himself going downhill again as he walked across the level ground to it. Dean waded through the earth like water, and when he got there he and Castiel were sunk in the grass to their waists. Even though it was buried--not damn near deep enough, if it was going to be buried at all, and not salted and burned--his coffin, his body, was visible at their feet.

The coffin was just a rough pine box, thin boards, none too firmly constructed. Sam had been thinking ahead, Dean realized, which was just the sweet kind of unspeakably fucking stupid move he'd expect from Sam. Inside it, his body, that was the ugly part--it was at a nice ripe stage of decomposition, skin and hair half-detached and crawling with insects. The smell would have made him retch if he could.

"I--" he looked at Castiel, who nodded. "I have to get in there? No, no way, that's--"

Dean couldn't. He couldn't possibly get back into that filthy, broken, rotten thing lying there, not now.

"I just got clean," he snapped. "I just did all of that to get clean, and whole, and now you want me to get in there--"

Castiel touched his fingers to Dean's scarred shoulder, and Dean remembered what he'd said. Your work is not wasted.

Dean looked down at it again. "I mean, it's dead," he said slowly. "I'm dead. If I get back in there, I'm going to change it. That's the point."

He looked over and Castiel tilted his head a little.

"And it's going to change me, too," Dean interpreted. "But at least... at least if I start out clean, I've got a chance of coming out kind of decent?"

Castiel nodded.

Dean looked down at himself, and then down at his body. "I'm not going to fit in there." Symbols wouldn't be enough to remember this by, he knew that. He wouldn't even remember the symbols, if he jammed himself back into the body that fit inside the box.

Castiel held out his hands, cupped, as if to catch something. To hold whatever Dean lost, until he was big enough to hold it again himself.

Dean stared down at his body. It was a dirty job, but he'd let every other dirty job go, lost his scars and washed his hands. Even without those marks on him, he was still Dean Winchester, and he still knew no other way to go than to tackle the job in front of him.

He turned to face Castiel. "Okay, one thing."

Castiel raised his eyebrows.

"That was all symbols, so I could understand," Dean said, waving his hand back toward the motel, at the top of a hill that wasn't there anymore.

Castiel nodded.

"So what did you really say to me, when you came to get me? Because what I heard--that wasn't what you said, was it. That was just what I could understand."

Castiel watched him, giving him nothing.

"Say it to me again," Dean said. "I bet I can hear you this time."

He wasn't going to beg and plead, but he wanted to hear it again. That voice that had been the first glimmer of something changing. If he could just hear it again, he'd be ready to go, he knew it.

Castiel maybe smiled, or maybe that was just the way the light was passing through him. He reached for Dean, settling his right hand over the scar and his left hand on the back of Dean's neck. He leaned in close, and whispered into Dean's ear, and his voice thundered all around them. It blew back the grass and knocked down the trees and shook loose the earth they stood in, but under that, Dean could still hear Castiel's voice like he'd always heard it. This time it fell into the words--the symbols--that tradition required.

The angel said to him, "Be not afraid."

Dean nodded, leaning into Castiel's grip. Castiel knelt, pulling him down, and laid him into the box, into the squishy mess of his body. Dean had been right--he didn't fit, but he'd gotten good at letting go, and he didn't try to hold on to what wasn't going to come in with him. He watched those glimmering parts of himself hover in the air, because it was better than noticing how he was inside this body, this dead body. His memories were streaming away and in another moment he wouldn't understand any of this.

Castiel's hand touched his face, closing his eyes, and Dean realized he couldn't move on his own. His body was dead and he was in it, and Dean was trapped, seeing no more than what his dead eyes saw.

There was a small, painless pressure against his lips, and Castiel breathed into him. He fell for an instant into death, to meet himself rising, and then woke into life, alone.