1. Wasted Blood

Dean stood, the pain of Castiel’s disavowal pinning his feet to the ground. He had a thousand questions, but the one he meant to ask stopped somewhere in the midst of his disappointment.

“Cas? Boxcutter?” Sam waved a hand at Castiel, who was standing still, but his eyes moved impatiently between the brothers.

“I cannot fight them and win.”

Sam again took the yoke of inquiry, because Dean’s throat was still dry, his tongue sandpaper and nothing like the taste of….

“Castiel. What are you going to do, then? Man, come on.”

“The banishment sigil.” Castiel looked away again, a flick of the eyes that made no sense. Less sense. Any. Dean was at a loss for understanding him, now; he did not even know why Castiel had fought with him before. He did not want to know.

“Okay, you want me to use it…” Sam waved a hand at the wall.

“No. No, that would be…ineffective.” Castiel began unbuttoning his shirt, and Dean knew, he saw what this was, he had been in that truck with the fallen Cas of 2014, the man who walked into sacrifice because he had nothing left to believe in. He tried to say no, no, not this, don’t…but he knew the flavor of hypocrisy too. He held out his hand instead.

Castiel stilled, and looked at the hand as his shirt fell open, then shook his head.

“I need you to carve it into my skin.”

But he had turned to look at Sam, up at Sam, and held the cutter out to him. Sam stared back, taken aback, and stunned. Awed.

Dean let his hand drop, knowing this was how it always was: Sam believed, and always had. Sometimes he believed in the wrong answers, but never the wrong purpose, and never without his whole heart. Sam did not trust the angels any more than Dean did, but he still had faith…in Castiel, and worse, in Dean, and it hurt like no betrayal before ever could.

Sam squinted up like he did before arguing, but slowly his expression collapsed and he took the blade. Cas turned to face him, holding himself steady and straight as he always did, as if this was not about a suicide run or Sam carving him like a pumpkin. Like a soldier of God, faithless and hopeless and turning his back on Dean.

Sam cut slowly, as if expecting Castiel to react at any moment. He traced the sigil with one hand, the finger drawing out the line that the blade in his other hand followed. Blood welled up, beaded along the edge of Castiel’s broken skin, and Dean almost reached out to swipe it away. To take care of him, to protect him from this, even if he knew that Castiel probably did not feel it, and that Castiel would not want Dean to even try. Anymore.

“Deeper, Sam. The line needs to be unbroken.” Castiel looked down, commenting dryly and without inflection.

Sam stopped and drew a stuttered breath. “Well, fuck.” He went back over the first tentative cut, and this time the blood poured out. Sam watched it for a second, a look in his eyes that Dean had seen too many times when they had patched each other up, and then began tracing out the symbol again, leaning down a little, stepping closer. He put a foot in between Cas’ braced feet, bracing their thighs together as if he needed the anchor to ground him while he made Castiel bleed with a delicate, practiced touch.

Sometimes, Dean thought, Sam was scarier than any creature he had ever seen, and it was beautiful. They were beautiful, the Angel and the Abomination, his brother and his…nothing. Nothing ever, like the blood that dripped off of the blade and now Sam’s fingers, falling rich and red to waste in the dirt below.

Dean wanted to taste it, the salt and copper of the angel who believed in him, once. He wanted to trail his tongue on the groove Sam left in his wake, he wanted to suck Castiel’s blood off Sam’s fingers and take back what was his. What was once, his. What was. Once.

Sam finally stopped, his fingers wet and glistening with the grease of fresh blood, and he looked at his hands in wonder and he pulled away and stepped backwards. He held the cutter out for Castiel stupidly, his expression filled with reverence and an ancient sadness that looked out of place on Dean’s younger brother, but mirrored the defeated determination in Castiel’s eyes.

His chest was heaving – somewhere, the body felt it, Dean could see it in the twitching flesh. The waterfall effect of the blood had been smeared by Sam’s fingers as he worked, creating an abstract pattern of pale swirls through the bright red. The rivulets filled and changed and flowed as fresh blood replaced old, the patterns merging and disappearing over Castiel’s skin. Dean felt the tug of his need to step forward, to stop Castiel and hold him and feel his blood (his all-too-human blood) seep into his own clothes, seep into him and pray for this blood offering to stop it all, give everything back to them, save their world…save them.

“Thank you.”

Dean startled when Castiel spoke, and pulled himself back. Castiel ignored the cutter, moving his hands over Sam’s and then his own chest – Dean blinked, and the blood was gone, cleaned up and away. Sam huffed out a laugh and pocketed the cutter with his newly-clean hands. Dean stared at Castiel’s pale chest as he rebuttoned his shirt, at the blood that was still welling up, dripping down over the blasphemous lines. He knew, without asking, what this was, what it would do to Castiel. To them.

“Good luck, Cas,” Sam said seriously, and Dean wanted to scream at them, because this wasn’t about luck any more than it was about faith. This was goodbye.

Castiel nodded at Sam and stepped carefully into the building. He never bothered to look back at Dean, who thought it was fitting after all that the last blood he would ever taste was his own.

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