To: My Unicorn

Chapter Twenty (Part Two)

Cas/Dean

There was an eerie silence between them and Cas just knew. It was the calm before the storm. Dean sat on the bank and unraveled the cloth, his trench coat. He wrapped the coat around his shoulders, his safety blanket. This scene might've warmed Cas's heart but he knew what was coming and it left a cold emptiness inside him.

"I slept with someone last week" he rubbed at something on his arm
He said nothing, the crickets seemed to get louder.

"It didn't hurt like it did the first time, but I still feel this heavy emptiness within me and I don't know how to make it stop. I thought it would help, I thought it would make me forget but I just feel worse"

A tear leaked Dean's face and he covered his mouth with his hand, "I just don't want to feel anymore. I'm tired, I'm done. I'm always in so much emotional pain and...and I don't know how to make it stop. It's too much...it's all too much for me to handle. And I'm sorry"

"You have nothing to be sorry for" the younger boy said gently, "you made a mistake but that doesn't mean that's who you are"

"I wish you wouldn't keep forgiving me Cas. I wish you would stop treating me like I matter. I know that I- I know that I don't deserve that"

"Yes you do matter. Don't ever say that. You have worth, you-"
"Stop" he said harshly and Cas flinched, "stop making excuses for me! I'm a bad person and I deserve to feel like shit to be beaten and ridiculed"

It was breaking his heart to hear Dean say these awful things about himself. He wanted to hug him and squeeze him until the lies that wormed their way into his head shriveled up and died.

But that couldn't happen unless he stopped feeding them; stopped believing in everything he'd ever been told. Cas couldn't fix this, he couldn't just go inside him and wash away all the pain. Dean would have to do that himself.

"I'm not making excuses for you. Did you do something stupid? Hell yes. But you did something stupid for the right reasons" his eyebrows bunched together, "You wanted to forget this awful thing that happened to you and-and you did what you felt you had to do to accomplish that. You're not a monster for making a mistake" his voice was sharp and firm but filled with compassion and empathy

"Why do you care so much? Why? Why should anyone give a crap about me? After everything that I've done, what I'm becoming? Who could love and care for me? I'm ruined, he ruined me" his lip quivered

"You aren't ruined. There isn't a living soul but yours that is capable of ruining you. He didn't ruin your body nor your soul but you are giving him the power to believe that he did. And that's not fair! It's not fair to you and to the people who love you. And you want to know someone who loves you? Your little brother for one"

Dean stared at him with a scrunched, pained face. He was trying to believe the words coming from the boy beside him. Yet he couldn't. 'What if he's wrong? What if I really am awful and stupid and broken? How could he possibly be right he doesn't know! He doesn't know what it feels like! So how could he know what a good person looks like if he's never met evil? He can't!'

"He loves you and he wants you to be better, he knows you can be better... I know that you can be better" he was pleading, blue eyes wide with grief for his best friend, "You- Dean you're his hero....And yes heroes make mistakes, they aren't perfect like we'd like to believe. They have faults"

Dean just scoffed and turned his head towards his feet.

"But you know what still makes them heroes despite their flaws? They keep trying to be good. They admit their weaknesses and they take the steps needed to get better and do the right thing, even when it's difficult and even when they lose their way. They try. A-and you're trying. How could anyone ask more of you? Please know your value and that you are so worthy of love. No mistake you could possibly make could ever change that"