Chapter Text
Cas is in an abandoned shopping mall’s walk-in clinic. The windows are tall and murky with grime. There’s a half inch layer of dust on the floor that he has left a shuffling trail through on his way to find any kind of supplies for what he has to do next.
This empty space is wide and sprawling. In need of purpose. Of any reason at all to exist.
Cas can’t quite muster up belief in the idea that his existence within the structure could grant it reason, if just for an hour. He wonders what will happen to this place if some of the holiness that is being sucked out of him splatters the ground.
Putting the thought aside, Cas picks up his tools and gets to work.
{-_-}
The blood hits the floor in rivulets. Linoleum disrespected by years of wear, the cleaning chemicals that have eaten away at its finish so now it drinks up the blood eagerly. Not even all the grime will protect it. The blood will soak to the flooring underneath.
Everything is going to be ruined.
Nothing will survive this unsoiled.
It’s this realization that hits the same moment Cas realizes he won’t be able to finish this alone.
Making the first cut felt as easy as killing had become. But, now that he has started, there is no way to extricate the living thing inside without keeling over. He can’t finish it alone. He doesn’t even know what he was thinking when he started. And the towel he laid down (waiting, for something alive) seems so pointless now, like a prayer to an empty sky. No one is listening.
So he gathers up what grace is left inside him, what hasn't been siphoned and suckled from him, and he flies. He flies to the place he wishes he could call home. (Almost, once). To the family that lives there. And keeps praying to those empty skies that they will help.
He lands heavily on the front doorstep. Colors denature. This is being truly wrung out. Finished. Burnt down past the stump ends. Blood slops to the grass around him, like it had hovered by his side during the travel until the magic lost its grip on it. It splashes up onto his shoes.
Inside him, something is wriggling.
He knocks on the door, and tries not to go blind with the pain. The dull old scalpel he had been using didn’t come with him. It’s left behind for no one to find. Angel blood abandoned in that thick dust . He knocks on the door again. If they aren’t home, this is it. If they are home, it might be too. It feels like easily the worst among his deaths.
In the grand scheme of things, it is a tiny moment. The smallest fragment as compared to the millenia that had to build up like silt to stand here. But it still feels long. And then, finally, the door creaks, heaves open and--
“Cas-- Are those. Fingers ?” Dean’s voice is high in a way he doesn’t let it get when he has any control over himself.
It’s a bad sign already.
He looks, and yes. Ah. He’d forgotten. The little arm that was half-out for a moment. Before he realized he couldn’t do this. Before he gave up on his own knife and came here. To what? Die in front of Dean? The hand was warm, he was pretty sure. Still alive. Shifting minutely. But he couldn’t bring himself to peel back the layers enough to actually pull it free. And it was rooted in, the cord diffused into his vessel like a seed in concrete seeking purchase.
Dean’s face is pale. Sick. Cas doesn’t want to make Dean look sick. This was a bad idea.
He tries to turn in order to walk away. Staggers at the small amount of movement he can manage. He starts listing to the side.
“What the fuck , dude?” Dean grabs his arm and the sensation that would have bowled him over even just a few weeks earlier hardly registers to him now. The pain is drenching and louder than anything else in him. He’s led into the bunker, putting all his energy into one foot in front of the other.
Dean is shouting, but the sounds are getting lost. Getting smaller and becoming strange, like creatures underwater. Deep in the black, where their forms are more holy.
He’s on a table. On his back spread out over the map. Dean’s unbuttoning his shirt–why? Only the buttons at the very top are still done up. Some idea of leaving a well-dressed corpse. But when he gets to the incision, Dean hesitates suddenly. Bravado is gone. His fingers ghost over the wound but do not make contact with it. The vertical split. It was almost long enough. The thing was just more entrenched than he realized. And the small mirror was not enough. And his courage failed.
“What were you trying to do? How did this even–who did this to you?”
“Cesarean Section. I started but I couldn’t finish it myself. I read a book.” Useless. He wonders why he’s even telling Dean.
“A book would help you how ?” Dean’s voice is even higher than it was at the front door. He’s panicking. Why is he panicking? This is not nearly as much blood as the last hunt. He can handle the gore. He can handle making a simple cut.
“Hey, you were shouting about-- oh, shit ! Is that Cas?” He knows that voice. The prophet. Kevin. And behind him, he can hear Sam’s heavy footsteps.
Cas blinks and Kevin’s face is above him, eyes massive and panicked.
“Hello, Kevin.” His own voice is woozy.
“Is he high again?”
“Okay, I explained. He was like that because he took my hell trauma, and it broke his mind,” Sam’s reasonable tone is like an anchor. Something to hold onto. But what he is holding onto, he realizes, is Dean’s hand, and he can feel his human bones grinding inside his grip, and he needs to let go before he reduces it to a bag of meat on the end of his wrist, but.
But he can’t do that anyways, can he?
There’s no strength left. He’s empty.
Even as he thinks that, something twitches inside him reminding him that he very much is not.
Not empty then. But certainly useless. Powerless. Inconsequential to the world, and more importantly, the Winchesters.
“The cut is almost long enough, but you have to take it out carefully,” he manages. Sam is listening, at least. Dean seems to be frozen in place, his eyes are darting across Cas’s face like he’s searching for something. But Sam listens, and he sends Kevin running for supplies. And when he lengthens the cut, when he uses his hands to widen the gap, his hands are so gentle that Cas wants to cry. He is so gentle that Cas can almost keep himself from screaming. But he can’t.
“Let me.” Dean grits out and tries to shove Sam out of the way. It jars the gentle hands inside him and Cas screams a little louder. His hands are scrabbling in Dean’s shirt.
“Dude!” Sam hisses, focused and firm and frustrated.
“You’re hurting him, Sammy!” He sounds like he’s choking on the words.
“No, dude. You are. Back off.” Sam bites at him before taking a breath. “If you need to help, hold his shoulders steady. But you can’t do this.”
Dean complies wordlessly. He places his hands on Cas’ shoulders, presses down hard. Cas grips one of his wrists. He feels like if he doesn’t hold on he’ll fall through the table.
“I can’t believe you got this far,” Sam mutters.
“You have to hurry,” Cas manages. The thing has not moved for several minutes. He is too spent grace to sense much more about it. Sam splits him open again. His vision turns white. He feels wet things sliding against each other. And then the gentle tearing, as it pulls free. And then incredible emptiness, as he transforms into a cavity. But he’s too deep under by then. He’s slipping. Dying wasn’t like this before. Dying was always sudden.
He looks up into Dean’s eyes. Making sure it’s the last thing he sees. But through the tears, under the lights overhead, he can’t even make out his face. Dean’s face is moving, letting out a low panicked noise. Things that are words. Cas knows they are words. That’s all he knows.
His vision goes white. And then it isn’t .