A/N: I know I'd mentioned that I have a Cas and Crowley ficlet coming up, but then this happened in the meantime ^_^ This episode tag is for Aini NuFire, who wanted to see some of the emotional aftermath once the guys got back to the Bunker following the events of 12x12. So, spoilers here if anyone hasn't seen the episode yet.

I don't own the boys.

Breathe in Deep

Breathe in deep… show no fear… release. Calm. Breathe in deep… show no fear… release. Breathe in… breathe… br-

Castiel's body convulsed with a fine, tremulous shudder as he exhaled in a sharp burst. Breathe in deep… how was he supposed to do that? The training he'd received long, long ago as a warrior of God offered little comfort against the crushing blackness constricting his heart within its cage. Castiel could still hear the sharp, critical voice of an older brother snapping at him to calm himself in the face of fear, that he must remain stoic no matter the peril.

Even if the peril was Ramiel, poison, agony, death, the helpless terror for the family he'd come to love, and their fear for him.

"Is this the best you can do, Castiel?" an older angel demanded, the young recruits just beginning their training. "What kind of an angel of the Lord are you if you allow yourself to be afraid? Learn control. Breathe in deep!"

Show no fear… release. Calm.

"Cas? Hey, uh… you with us?"

A hand fell on his shoulder, and though Castiel's rational mind realized that it was only Sam, the knowledge came a fraction of a second too late. The angel had already jerked away and spun, eyes wide and fists raised in preparation to fight for his life and the lives of his family.

As soon as the younger hunter's guilt-stricken face registered, Castiel lurched back a step and lowered his hands and his gaze.

"Sorry," both of them said at the same time.

The angel shook his head, pinching the bridge of his nose with an aching weariness settling into his bones.

"No, I'm sorry," he repeated. "I'm sorry, Sam."

"Don't be," his friend urged, holding his own hands up in peace. "Just… you alright? You've, uh, been standing in the same spot for almost five minutes."

Castiel turned to observe his surroundings, realizing that he was in front of the open refrigerator in the Bunker's kitchen. Yes… he had intended to get… what had he been getting? The angel closed his eyes, releasing a shaky breath. Breathe in deep… show no fear…

But he had been afraid. Facing down Ramiel, how could he ever hope to contain such fear?

Not fear of death, not in itself. Castiel had been a soldier since before the dawn of man; death was a reality that soldiers learned to accept quickly. But Castiel didn't want to die, and certainly not with such a slow, agonizing inevitability, helpless to save himself or his friends as they watched him disintegrate from the inside out before their eyes.

"Cas." Sam's firm voice cut through the haze, riddled with concern and a wavering hint of anxiety.

Release. Calm. He wasn't dead, and Ramiel was no longer a threat. They were all safe in the Bunker again at last. Dean was in the shower, Mary had already retired to her room, and Sam had been hanging close to Castiel since they'd arrived less than an hour ago. Why did he still feel such a shroud over his mind, though his body was whole and the poison cleared? The angels who'd coached him as a young warrior would be ashamed of him.

"I'm sorry," the angel murmured again. "I think… perhaps I just need some rest."

"Of course," Sam was quick to agree, brows pinched together and drawn upwards. "Good. That would probably be good." He opened his mouth again, as though to say something more, but seemed to change his mind as the hunter forced a smile instead.

Abandoning whatever reason he might have had to be in the refrigerator, Castiel swept past the human. He paused at the door when Sam called his name.

"Um, just so you know," Sam said, before clearing his throat. "Um… man, we all love you, too. And, uh… I'm just glad you're okay."

Release.

Castiel hadn't realized how tensely he'd been holding his shoulders until he felt them loosening under Sam's reassurance. He gave the hunter a measured look, seeing the sincerity, the emotion, the residual strands of pain still coloring his aura with the fear of loss. Sam Winchester, he decided, was incapable of being disingenuous.

Nodding, the angel turned back to his trek towards his bed.

SPN SPN SPN

Angels didn't sleep, not naturally. Nothing had been natural for Castiel in many years, though. Despite his own, familiar grace—and only his own grace—flooding his vessel with what remained of his light, doggedly continuing to shine, Castiel had only a fraction of the power he once possessed. He required rest, and when weary enough, sleep.

Tonight, he didn't believe sleep would be coming for him, though.

Breathe in deep, he reminded himself, as his superiors had coldly drilled into the younger angels. Show no fear. Release. Calm. Crashing through the window, glass raining down and slicing the vessel's fragile skin. Breathe in deep. Scrambling to evade the Prince of Hell, panic clouding his mind, everything gone wrong. Show no fear. Release. The fire erupting in his abdomen as the lance pierced his form, biting like only the wrath of an archangel's weapon could. Castiel had been the victim of an angel's ferocious might before, but nothing like this, with the insidious burn that he'd felt immediately but tried to ignore. Nothing his brothers had ever done to him in numerous tortures could compete. Calm.

Castiel's hand shook as he tried to staunch the flow of blood, feeling it seeping out and coating his shirt. He crawled, painfully, futilely, one-handed across the ground. The angel pulled himself along with gritted teeth and terrified heart, as dirt and bits of gravel were rubbed into the open wound. Ramiel strode behind him, in no rush, because the angel would never escape him and they both knew it.

The poison worked its way through his veins, corroding his true form and his vessel together. Castiel could see it in the eyes of his friends: they knew what he knew, what they were all trying not to know. He was dying. There would be no miraculous healing this time, no last minute intervention from God. When Castiel had seen his brothers and sisters die, they had all been snuffed out with merciful immediacy. Why, then, did he have to linger? Castiel had made mistakes, but did he deserve this?

"Please… please don't make my last moments be spent watching you die," he begged. "Just run. Save yourselves."

They refused. Castiel choked, the poison working its murderous way into his lungs now, forcing itself up his throat and into his mouth. Castiel couldn't breathe. These were his last few seconds, each tick of the eternal clock marking the countdown until he was ripped away from his family for good. He wasn't ready.

Millions of years, and he had finally found this family, and he didn't want to go.

Castiel's vision dimmed, inhaling the foul black ichor with every inhale. Breathe in deep, as his captain had taught him. He had to calm himself, to fight back. Breathe in deep… show no fear… calm… breathe in deep… choke on the suffocating certainty of death… so much fear…

But he didn't die. Not yet. Not before the sound of whistling split the night.

"No!" Castiel pleaded, reaching blindly for a weapon, but he had nothing to stand against the dark Prince. "Please…"

The barn door blew open and Ramiel strode inside, grinning from ear to ear beneath eyes as yellow and fiery as pools of Hellfire. One hand reached up, taking hold of the lance shaft as it materialized from an unearthly plane. Castiel tried to lurch off of the couch he was slowly dying on, succeeding only in falling to the floor at Ramiel's feet.

"Please," the angel groaned, pulling himself across the floor just as he'd crawled away in the field. "Not my family. Please, not them!"

Sam, Dean, and Mary stood staring at Ramiel, arms slack, faces blank, not even trying to run. They would be cut down in an instant—or worse, taken apart one bloody piece at a time. Why wouldn't they just run?

Castiel screamed as the lance buried itself in his stomach, pinning him to the dirty barn floor. The black sludge dribbled out of his mouth as he turned a tear-streaked face up towards the Prince who stood over him with a fiendish grin.

"I'm going to kill them, angel," Ramiel hissed. "And you can't stop me. You'll die, but… not just yet."

"No! No, please!" Castiel cried out, voice breaking into a sob as the demon reached for Mary, the closest one to him. "No! Not them!" But he couldn't move, couldn't help them, could only watch and writhe in agony as one by one the Winchesters were ripped apart despite the angel's pleas.

"Cas! Cas, wake up, damn it! Wake up, you're dreaming!"

Castiel felt something solid slap him across the face and he shot up in the bed, waiting to feel his stomach shredding from the blade of the lance. There was no hot, sticky wetness of blood, though, no muscle and skin ripped away.

Instead, there were hands, firm grips on his shoulders and arms, holding him upright as the angel gasped out sharp bursts of air and tearful cries. Sam and Dean, Mary, they were dead because of him, because they hadn't just run…

"Cas, we're right here," Dean's fierce voice insisted. "Hey! Don't make me smack you again, come on, man. Snap out of it! Breathe, come on."

"Do you remember coming home?" Sam asked from somewhere close by. "We talked in the kitchen, remember? That was real. You fell asleep. It was just a nightmare."

"Sam!" Castiel choked out. His mind was veiled in a thick, cloying cloud of panic. "Dean!"

"Yes!" Dean shouted back. "Yes, it's us!"

"Breathe," Sam urged. There was a deep inhale, a gentle example. "Deep breaths. It's alright. Just breathe, you're fine."

"You… you were…" The angel tried to make out the faces in front of him, but they were strangely blurred, obscured by starbursts of light. It took him a second to realize it was just the brightness of his bedside lamp reflecting off of tears in his eyes. Castiel blinked them away, letting the drops fall down his cheeks instead. Dean and Sam came into focus, watching him with wide eyes. In a choked whisper, he finished, "You were dead. You were all dead."

Shaking his head, Dean clasped the back of Castiel's neck. "We're fine," he affirmed. "Cas, we're both fine. It was a nightmare, that's all. "

"Mary-"

"She's fine, too," Sam assured him as he gave the angel's hand a hard squeeze, proof of presence, proof of life. "I promise."

"You're alive!" Unable to hold back, Castiel shifted away from his friends only long enough to grab them both and pull them both in close, arms wrapped tightly around them for their protection and his comfort. He was still shaking from the sight of their dead, mutilated bodies, somehow so much more real than when his brothers would show him the same image in various tortures.

"Hey," Sam said, sounding surprised though neither he nor Dean pulled away. "Yeah, we are. Just breathe."

Breathe in deep… show no fear. How could he show no fear, when this was what he feared above all? "You were dead," Castiel repeated. His voice rose sharply as he demanded, "Why didn't you run? I told you to leave me, I told you-"

"And we told you no way," Dean interrupted. "No way. Not ever. You got that? We are never just gonna leave you again."

"He could have killed you," Castiel insisted. He felt pressure on his hand as Sam squeezed it again.

"He didn't," the younger hunter pointed out. "It was just a dream, Cas. We got him. And you're okay, too. Come on, man, just take a couple of deep breaths for me, okay? In…"

Nodding, Castiel inhaled, smelling the fabric of flannel instead of the sterile training halls of Heaven that he'd been half expecting as he fell into the familiar practice.

"Great, that's great, Cas. Couple more, alright? Good, deep breaths. In… and, release. That's it, you're doing awesome."

So different than the hard, unfeeling angels who had taught him this to begin with, ready with criticism but never encouragement. Castiel focused instead on Sam's voice. Release. Calm. Breathe in deep… "Why?" the angel whispered as he finally pulled back again to meet their eyes. "Why wouldn't you save yourselves? There was no tactical advantage in staying there, no- no strategy in remaining behind."

"Strategy?" Sam repeated. An incredulous expression mixed with horror flared across his face. "To hell with strategy, Cas, you can't honestly believe we would have left you to die alone."

"See those brothers of yours might have," Dean spat out, barely contained fury ringing in every word. "Maybe the angels care more about… tactical advantage than each other, but you're part of this family now, Cas. And in this family, we don't leave anyone behind!"

"Well, you should have!" Castiel snapped back. His body shook, still wracked by the fear of both this nightmare and the one he had lived through. "Don't you understand, I can't watch you die. Not now, not after everything!"

"You-" Dean started before cutting off and taking a deep breath. There was a second of silence; release. Calm. "Cas," the hunter went on, softer now but with an emotional edge. "You think we could, either? You really think we could have lived with ourselves, knowing that the last thing you ever saw was us walking out on you?"

Castiel swallowed. As the nightmare began to fade, reality set in more firmly. Only now did the angel realize that he must have alerted them by crying out in his sleep, and his cheeks grew warm. On the other hand, he'd already bared his soul, so to speak, simply by voicing his emotions out loud. What difference did it make now if they knew of his terrors in the night?

"Hey," Sam murmured, patiently gentle yet somehow not making Castiel feel like a frightened fledgling. "Come on, buddy. We've all been there, 'kay?"

"I didn't mean to wake you," the angel said. He raised his eyes, watching first Sam and then Dean. They met his gaze with the same steadfast loyalty he'd felt from them when they refused to run from Ramiel. But they were alive. "It- just… it's…"

Somehow, they seemed to know exactly what he couldn't find words to say. Both the boys nodded; neither had moved back yet, each still with a hand grasping the angel firmly. It was oddly comforting, or perhaps not so odd.

"Doesn't matter," Dean said with a shrug. "I couldn't sleep anyway."

"Actually, neither could I," Sam admitted. "Honestly Cas, that last fight..." He swallowed. "We almost lost you. I mean, you were-" The younger hunter cleared his throat, eyes bright. "It was a close one, you know? What would we have done if-"

Once again, Sam couldn't finish. Castiel suddenly remembered all the times he'd watched one brother staying awake the night after a close call, constantly checking in on the other, as though to reassure themselves that both were still alive. He wondered if, when they said they hadn't been sleeping, they might have been… checking on him.

Years ago, Castiel might have been proud and vain enough to have been insulted by the idea that he needed looking after. Angels didn't feel such worry for each other, after all. They showed no fear, remained calm in the face of peril. There was no logic in feeling such strong emotions when everyone was already safe.

In truth, though, Castiel was touched, and… lightened. He knew now what he would have been too arrogant to realize then, that it wasn't a sign of their lack of conviction in his ability, but their emotional attachment as his friend.

As his… family.

Release… calm. Breathe in deep.

"Well, the important thing is," Dean said after clearing his throat. "Everyone's okay. We're all fine, the bad dude is dead, and Cas is still with us."

"But I was afraid," Castiel admitted out loud, eyes latched on his hands folded in his lap. "I… I know I'm supposed to show no fear. But feeling that poison taking over… knowing what's coming and that it couldn't be stopped…" Full of pain, the angel looked up to see the brothers watching him with understanding, not judgment.

"Cas, of course you were afraid," Sam said. He exhaled slowly. "We all were. I mean, I think about going through the last trial to close Hell…"

"I think about the Hellhounds," Dean admitted, eyes clouding over. "When my time was up."

"Times we knew we were about to die." The younger hunter shrugged, a sad smile tugging across his face. "Too many times. And it's terrifying, every single time. There's nothing wrong with feeling fear. But Cas, even when you were dying and you were afraid, you still tried to save us. You still volunteered to hold Ramiel off. It doesn't matter if you're scared, Cas, it matters that you act anyway. You're still the bravest guy I've ever met, because you would."

It was certainly a kinder assessment than he'd ever gotten from the other angels, should any hints of emotion escape him. Castiel managed a nod, feeling even wearier than before he'd fallen asleep. Just to know his family was still safe was enough to help him find some sense of calm, though.

A hesitant knock on the door had all three pairs of eyes looking up as Mary Winchester pushed her way into the room. She held a tray in her hands, containing three mugs with steam gently wafting upwards. With an uncertain smile, Mary said,

"I brought… I mean, sometimes when Dean was little and he'd had a nightmare-"

"Hot cocoa?" Dean asked, straightening up with a smile already growing. "With-"

"Marshmallows," Mary affirmed. She moved closer, allowing Castiel to catch the scent of the sweetened chocolate drink. The aroma brought comfort as though by some ancient magic. The angel couldn't help but smile at the pleasant feel it brought.

"Mom, you're the best," Sam said with a small laugh as he took one of the mugs and passed it to the angel, then handed another to Dean. He paused then, frowning.

"You… you aren't going to join us?" Castiel asked, noting immediately what had thrown Sam.

Mary blinked, straightening again as Sam took the last mug. "Oh. I didn't want to intrude. I didn't know if you would want…"

Castiel examined the woman who had fought so hard to get him to safety, half-carrying him with only her human strength… the one who had stood over him with the same expression of fear and worry for him as her own boys. The angel had been raised as all the angels had—by elder brothers, more concerned with training him for war than in comforting him for emotions he wasn't supposed to feel in the first place.

No one had ever brought him cocoa to soothe away his fears, and while it felt strange, it also made him feel as warm as the mug he cupped in his hands. The angel smiled.

"If there isn't any more, I would share mine," he offered.

Sam was already pulling a chair from the nearby desk over for his mother to sit on. Mary smiled. "No, there's more," she assured him. "Alright… I'll go make another mug."

She disappeared, leaving the three to find a companionable silence. The steam from the cocoa tickled Castiel's nose; it smelled like comfort. Like warmth. Like family. When he breathed it in, the angel could feel the safety and belonging of home.

He breathed in deep.