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Cas watches Dean through the grime-coated window in Bobby's old bedroom. The flames lick out from the open hole of Bobby's grave like the denizens of Hell clawing their way free of their kingdom and out into this shithole of a world.
Downstairs there's a wheelchair, riddled with blood and bullet holes, amidst the rotting remains of the man he Fell for. It seems viciously unfair that today, Dean Winchester breathed his last and yet lives.
Outside, Dean waits for the flames to die down; to finish their private funeral service for a man that never deserved a fraction of the crap his life piled on him. Cas can't see Dean's face, but he knows that if he could, there wouldn't be a single crease of emotion.
There hasn't been, not since Cas gave him the news about Heaven and Michael never answered. Dean was once barely able to hide a single emotion, though he prided himself on his ability to not let anything show. Now, he is the master of it, and he couldn't care less.
The Chitaquans—the ones they never knew before—they believe the facade. They believe in their emotionless, perfectly logical leader, and it gives them confidence.
They don't see the obsession, the ragged holes cut through him in the shapes of everyone he ever cared about, and failed.
Cas knows those holes all too well; after all, one of them is shaped like him.
He has holes of his own: Holes where his wings were, holes in his head where he once heard the wavelengths of his brothers, holes where he cut himself open to bleed for Dean Winchester, time and again.
Not one of them is shaped like Dean.
It's like a secret, that. He hasn't given up on Dean, and never will. Dean hasn't failed him, and never will. But Dean's under the delusion that he's already lost Cas. Again, the night Cas dragged him out of that field and beat the holy living hell out of him for choosing Michael is to blame.
And Cas…goddamn it, Cas no longer has the strength to show him that it's not true. He cradles the pulsing ache where his Grace used to be that trips across blood-coated tongue and lips as a constant litany of DeanDeanDean. It's too precious, too raw, this devotion that chokes him and carves across his nerves, and he's too much a coward to offer up that last part of himself to the man it already belongs to.
It drags him across the coals of Dean's wake, trying to catch up and fit him inside Dean, fill up all the holes and sew him back together. No matter what Dean thinks, Cas will never be able to give him up; will never stop trying to catch him when he falls. He's let Dean down again and again and again, but he will never stop trying to save him from himself.
They stand vigil over their respective corpses for a long time—long enough for the twilight to ease into night and the cold, open sky to fill with long-dead stars.
When the flames are gone, Dean uses the backhoe to fill the grave—quick, impersonal, efficient. Cas watches yet another hole tearing out of Dean and bleeding into the earth where Bobby rests.
He meets him downstairs with a bottle of Jack. It's the least he can offer to ease this newest hurt.
"Dean," he almost whispers, sliding his hand from bottle to cover Dean's once he accepts it. It keeps going, up a strong arm laddered with scars, touch growing lighter as he progresses, until he's barely brushing the freckles of Dean's cheek with the tips of his fingers.
Dean's eye are wide, skipping back and forth between his, searching. Every last feeling he holds for this stubborn, beautiful bastard is on display, he's sure of it—can feel it ripping out of him in ugly, heaving jolts—and he can't do a damn thing to stop it.
Dean blinks and his eyes come back brighter for it. A quiet noise escapes Cas, his heart breaking once more against the shards of Dean Winchester, he leans forward a scant inch. Thinks, I guess this is it. Here goes the last of me.
Dean blinks again, and this time his eyes are dry. His mouth tightens in a line and he nods.
"Thanks," he says, making a tiny gesture with the bottle, and then slips away, leaving Cas to watch him disappear up the stairs.
Cas stands there for a long time—or a short time, he can't tell which—before he's up to gathering his shredded remains close once again. Collecting his shotgun from the kitchen table, he settles into a long night keeping guard over the only thing left in the world.