Stasis

"It's my fault."

Cas slides his eyes away from what is left of the prophet's, from the smoke wisping lazily up from charred flesh.

Dean hasn't moved since he arrived, one single second after his prayer screamed out across miles and Cas took wing. His back is pressed up against the wall, his knees bent and his arms hugging their way around his legs as if he is freezing cold. He watches Cas and there is hope like hunger in his expression, because he is starving for this to be made right. "Can you fix him?" he mutters.

The place smells of burned meat, the stench of it thick and acrid on the air. Like Hell, Cas thinks suddenly, and they are breathing in the smell of despair, suffering, and death. "No," he says. "I can't."

"Can't or won't?"

It isn't a question, it's an accusation, spat harshly, Dean's eyes gone hard now even if his lower lip is trembling.

Cas shrugs off his suit jacket, bends to drape it over Kevin Tran's body, and the swollen, black recrimination that seeps from his empty sockets. "Can't," he says quietly. "This grace I stole - it's mal'akh." He glances back over his shoulder, elaborates, "The lower orders... a messenger. Not enough to give life."

He can see Dean's thought process, devious and calculating, a line of concentration forming between his brows just before his face comes alive, his eyes gleaming.

"What if we summoned a bunch more of you guys, some suits with more juice, what if you-"

"No."

It whipcracks out of Cas on the recall of opening himself up to his brother's grace, how it felt as it seared through him and lit him from inside, muting the soul Metatron gifted him with, snuffing out his humanity as surely as the angel wearing Sam Winchester snuffed out Kevin Tran's life. Power, and Cas feels it now, curling and coiling though him, the rush tantalizing, just like the souls he tapped into. He craves more, just like he did then, and the shame of his craving cuts deep. He pushes it back down, uses it to plug the jagged wounds in his memory, makes his position known again. "I won't."

Dean's excitement fades into gaped disbelief. "Won't?"

"There's no point, Dean."

It isn't a lie, even if it serves as an excuse. Cas has done this himself, cauterized the very essence of his own brothers and sisters from existence, gazed into their light as it blazed supernova and died at his ferocious, Godlike hand. "There is nothing to bring back," he clarifies. "His soul, it would have been - ended. As if it were never here. I'm sorry."

Dean's face crumples, color rising in his cheeks. "Your kind are monsters," he chokes out.

"Yes. We are."

Cas straightens up and moves it along, his hand going automatically to his jaw, fingertips rubbing along the line of it by force of habit. His eyes are already scanning the room for wood, chairs, tables, fuel. "Is there a place we can burn him?" he asks. "Is there a plot of land outside? I don't recall from before. I wasn't here long enough."

He doesn't mean the last to sound as sharp as it does, and it is effective, he sees the barely perceptible wince that crosses Dean's face. He shrugs. "Perhaps it was best that I wasn't here. I couldn't have defended myself."

Dean swallows. "He saved you, brought you back after that reaper killed you. If it weren't for him, I'd have had to burn you too."

It's stronger, firm even, maybe it's Dean telling himself that what he has done was worth it, for that at least. Cas can give him it, though he knows that it's cold comfort, and he nods his head, the motion small but meaningful.